Reflections on a Summer of Weddings

The marriage ceremony of Anne Gibson & Tina Warinner (photo credit: Vanessa Lane)

“By the power invested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you a married couple.” I’ve heard variations on this phrase many times in my life. It is familiar to anyone who has ever attended a wedding, or who has seen a wedding portrayed on film or television. In other words, we all know this phrase. Despite the many times I’ve heard it, I’ve never been particularly moved by it as I am not the marrying kind. This time, I cried like a baby in a cocktail dress because the words carried a certain significance that they most often do not. These words, spoken by Associate Justice Janet L. Sanders of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, signaled the legal marriage of my dear friends, Anne Gibson and Tina Warinner.

The marriage of Anne and Tina, held at the Old Sea Pines Inn in the town of Brewster on Cape Cod, came at the end of a three week wedding tour that consumed most of my July. This tour was punctuated by three weddings, three Saturdays in a row, located in three different states.

The first, the marriage of my good friends Brooke and Nick, occurred in Spokane, Washington at the beautiful Glover Mansion. I spent four lovely days as a guest in the home of friends of the bride, and happily celebrated the couple not only at the wedding, but at the French themed rehearsal dinner too. The second took me to my hometown of Manchester, New Hampshire, for the marriage of my cousin Shona to Chad.

I enjoyed the first and second weddings very much, for varying reasons. The reception following Brooke and Nick’s wedding was the best party I’ve attended in a long time. The food was delicious, the crowd was a sweet mix of family members from across the country and beyond, and friends from high school, college, and graduate school. The guests, care-free in their good spirits (no doubt in part to the open bar), and the honored couple danced the night away under the stars.

The wedding of Shona and Chad was the rare occasion on which my father’s family assembles. I had a wonderful time catching up with aunts and uncles, cousins, and even long-lost friends from high school. The cash bar did not dissuade the Cole and MacWhirter clans, many of whom brought their own sauce in coolers. Yes folks, my family tail-gated the reception. Man, do I love them.

Despite knowing such good times would result, deciding to attend a wedding is always a conflicted process for me. There are two reasons for this: 1. I do not believe in marriage; 2. I find offensive many of the traditions of the American wedding. It’s not that I don’t believe in celebrating love, or that I don’t want to participate in this celebration. Rather, I take issue with much of what marriage and weddings stand for in our contemporary culture and in the history of our country.

I could extrapolate at length on this topic, but for the sake of brevity, my main gripe is that marriage historically has signified the sale of a woman to a man, the symbolism of which still reverberates in the tradition of the father “giving away” the bride. I have a deep disdain for the social privileges that accompany heteronormative marriage, like increased social status among family and friends, and the way marriage is celebrated in a way that marks it as the greatest achievement of a person’s life. And finally, I don’t believe in making promises that one isn’t sure can be kept. Let’s get real: half of all first marriages in the U.S. end in divorce.

As for the wedding itself, the frequent assumption I encounter that I too wish to someday be a bride makes my blood boil, as does the assuring response that follows the revelation that I, in fact, do not: “You just haven’t met the right one yet.” I am repulsed by the expectation that I should claw like an animal for someone else’s bouquet of flowers in order to superstitiously ensure that the wedding I don’t wish to have will someday occur. And don’t get me started on the “maids.” I mean, what century is this, that we are calling women maids? Oy. Is my Feminist showing?

For most who know me well, these feelings are no secret. Those whose weddings I attended this summer know that I attended because I love them, and wholly support what is meaningful and significant to them, even if it is not what I wish for myself. Knowing these things about myself, I was stunned to find that at the finale marriage of Anne and Tina I was a crying mess of mascara. I hadn’t brought tissues to their ceremony because, well, I am not someone who cries at weddings!
It turns out that I am. When Justice Sanders proclaimed Anne and Tina a married couple, those gathered erupted in applause and cheers. Not an unusual reaction, but this was different from the conclusion of other ceremonies I’ve attended. The applause and cheers were extended, raucous, and fundamentally joyous. This experience felt different, and that’s because it was.

I cried at this ceremony out of happiness for my friends, yes, but more so I was overwhelmed by the emotion I felt at witnessing and being party to a marriage that is the fruit of hard-fought social change. While marriage to me has generally signaled exclusivity and privilege, this marriage shone to me as a symbol of inclusivity — the extension of civil liberties to two women who, just seven years ago, couldn’t legally marry in Massachusetts, and who today, despite the recent State Supreme Court ruling, still could not be married in Anne’s home state of California. Their marriage also signals the chipping away of the heteronormativity and unequal gender roles that have historically been reproduced by marriage and weddings.

While this writer is not the marrying kind, and to quote one of my favorite rugby songs, “I thank the lord I’m not, sir!”, I am heartened to see the social relations and terms of marriage changing and opening. If done right, this legal and cultural revolution could tip the scales toward a society less structured by binaries of gender and sexuality. I don’t think that we are there yet, or that this outcome is a given. However I see hope in these cracks in the structure.