Same-sex Couples: Thoughts on Multiple Ceremonies?

Hi! Congrats! My friend just recently had a same sex marriage and unfortunately, many people didn’t want to marry her. By the time she got a venue, it was too late to really do the Big Bang that she wanted. I’d say go for it. You can easily have the traditional wedding of course and then maybe a week or so or even a month later have the “gay it up” wedding and it can really just be a celebration opposed to the traditional wedding with your friends. I hope this helps. By the way, my friend is doing the Big Bang next year lol

I can only give you the thoughts of someone who would probably be in the traditional, family side of things... I think I would feel left out like I wasn't good enough or wanted enough to be included in your lives. Or even worse that you felt I didn't accept you two as a couple. Like if you want the "gayed up" wedding, why can't you do it with your family there? I guess what I'm saying is I don't know why you can't combine the two to have the most epic wedding possible. If this is who you are, you should be able to be yourself on your wedding day! I don't think there's a wrong way to do things, and you can totally have two separate events if you want. And clearly there's always weird family dynamics and whatnot that everyone has to consider. But I just don't think you should be able to do what you want without having to separate things. If you go with two ceremonies, I would just plan them as if you were having a destination wedding and then a ceremony when you got home. Even if both events are local, the planning process should be the same, so if you look up how to organize something like that you should find some good advice.

Personally my fiancee and I are having one traditional wedding. Most of my family is super religious but I am not going to hold back being who I am on my wedding day. I think it is up to you and your partner to do what you feel most comfortable with.

View Quoted Comment That’s fair—it’s not so much that we’re going to be holding back who we are in a traditional ceremony, but more that we want to celebrate all sides of ourselves without alienating our families. We both have very big, very involved, and somewhat traditional families that love and support us, but would definitely be uncomfortable with My Big Fat Gay Wedding. We’re both really close with our families, so we don’t want them to feel like they don’t belong or like they don’t have a place in our big day.

Im more confused on the logistics of two ceremonies than anything else. Which one comes first; how far apart they should be; if we should allocate from our existing budget, expand our existing budget, or create a separate budget; stuff like that.

View Quoted Comment Thank you—that’s what I’m thinking right now. We can have the big blowout 200-person wedding with all our friends and family there, and then a little later have a second, 30-50 person event with just our personal friends and maybe close family members. Conversely, I’m thinking about having an “enGAYgement” party beforehand that would serve a similar purpose. I’m sorry to hear that your friend went through that! It sucks that there are still so many people like that out there. I’m glad she’s going to get to have her big wedding still!

View Quoted Comment EnGAYgement party! I LOVE that!!!! Enjoy.

I thought of having a low key, microwedding for family only and a separate, big boozy blast for friends. It would have ended up costing a lot.

I suggest having a single wedding, and an enGAYgement party or bachelorette party for just friends.

We did do two ceremonies but not so we could "gay it up" as much as I love that. We chose a private ceremony on our anniversary with just our kids and best friends. It was performed by a minister since my wife is Christian on a public beach with no need for a venue or permit. It was hard to find someone to marry us, luckily I have a friend who is gay and also an officiant. After we simply grabbed drinks before going to our favorite restaurant in our favorite town and treated everyone to dinner. We then had a handfasting with friends and family that followed my pagan beliefs. The handfasting was more traditional in some ways with a caterer and a cake and all of it. I was grateful the legal ceremony was less planned so we could just enjoy the moment. That's not to say we didn't love the handfasting reception, but the stress of putting it all together wore us down. After the ceremony was over my conservative dad told me he had no idea what to expect but that he thought it was really beautiful and he really liked the whole thing.