Wedding Announcements

We're trying to figure out how to do the wedding invitations, and although there is probably no area so filled with etiquette as a wedding, there is no established etiquette for weddings celebrated by two men. I have always thought that one of the strengths of gay relationships was that we have the ability to decide for ourselves what is important. There is some freedom that comes from not modeling our relationships after heterosexual ones. Given this, can you please explain to me why I have spent the last week numbing my brain by looking through page after page filled with heterosexual wedding etiquette?

Why do I care how do we do the invitations? Still, one has to start somewhere, I suppose. Generally, I've learned, wedding invitations are sent as though they are from the parents who host the wedding. Sometimes both sets of parents host and announce a wedding. My dad died several years ago. Do we mention him? If you've been down this wedding road, you won't be surprised to hear that there's an answer to that question. It can be found at Weddings in Bliss! - The Weddings Magazine - Wedding Invitations/Stationery. (Natalie, my best . . . woman, directed me to this site.) It turns out that the invitation should read:

Mrs. John Robert Smith
requests the honour of your presence
at the marriage of her daughter
Barbara Ann
The wedding invitation should not have the name of the deceased parent. Instead, the wedding program is a nice place to put a prayer or poem in rememberance of your parent. Or perhaps a special lighting of the candle or displaying of a floral arrangement.

So there you have it.

I thought that in the wedding announcement we could have a little paragraph that explains, "Scott's father said that Scott would be married to another man over his dead body. The candle on the altar is here at the wedding representing . . ."

For those of you who didn't know my Dad, he was a great guy, and I think he would laugh at the above paragraph until his eyes crinkled up. I wish he were here. He would love Ian. He wouldn't say it like that. He would probably say that Ian was "just a real nice guy." That was about the highest complement Dad was able to give anyone, and if you heard him say it, you would know there was a sincere depth of feeling behind his words.

We've decided that the wedding itself is going to be rather traditional, with some twists. Of course. And there is a theme. "To have joy, one must share it." Lord Byron wrote that, and Ian and I both thought that although it's a broad theme, it's a good one. We're also looking for things that exemplify our relationship. Things simple, yet intimate, meaningful and beautiful. Once we came up with the overarching themes, everything else has pretty much fallen into place without too much effort.

Well, except color schemes, as Jancy (my sister) reminded me a couple of weeks ago. We still haven't decided on that. And maybe we won't. I don't think Jancy really cares, but she did say, "And nothing with big bows on our butts please." Oh the power...


We went to a wedding a month or so ago and the women were all (not just the wedding party) requested to wear hats. It was pretty cool. I don't think we'll request that, though.

Mom thinks maybe red tulips with purple delphinium would be good. Spring flowers, mixed colors. The hall is huge, so I'm not sure what to do. There are tapestries along the walls, but I think anything smaller will be dwarfed by the space. Maybe we'll concentrate on the raised portion around us.

I'm excited about our musical choices. I wish Kaaren could play violin at the ceremony, but I didn't ask her because I don't want her to feel obligated. I thought the other night about asking Martina McBride to sing (we were in a band that toured around the Midwest back in another life), but then I thought that might take some of the focus off of Ian, and you know how he gets about that. (Actually, that's not quite true. He's not one who lives for the limelight. Besides, he had never heard of her until I played one of her cd's a month or so ago for him, so he doesn't think anyone else has heard of her, either. Maybe he's right, who knows?)

We're changing the venue for our after dinner party. As romantic and appealing as having it in the Catacombs sounds, I think we have too many people. It only holds 170, and I think we're at . . . well, more. I don't think we'll get our deposit back, but oh well. The place we'll probably go with is much nicer. It's not the catacombs, but on the other hand, it does smell better. It's also on the old canal and is as a ballroom dance hall. The lower part of the building is on the canal,










The dance hall and bar is upstairs.













DJ booths have apparently changed in the last 20 years. Surprise. They're now computer driven and us CDs instead of vinyl. Or at least this one does.




Tomorrow we talk with the caterer. For some reason, caterers here don't let you try their food before you decide whether to use them. That frightens me a bit, but I'm told it's normal. Then after that, we're going to a dance studio. That's right, we're going to get some lessons. Ian already dances. I, on the other hand, have fun. When we got together, Mom told Ian that she was very glad. "It's time," said she, "that his wings were clipped."

Whatever, Mom.

But ok, I will learn to dance...

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How we met

Although I wasn't laughing at the time, I now have to chuckle when I think about Ian and me flying into the U.S. (Chicago?) together last year. The flight was long and we were tired, yet we had to pick up our luggage and go through customs before continuing on to Kansas City.

As we took our luggage to the customs area, a security officer asked us if we were traveling together. We said yes, we were. He asked us how we knew each other. Ian said, "He's my boyfriend." I had to laugh. As we went off to be searched, I reminded him that what he was supposed to say to U.S. officials was, "We met teaching law." That would have probably prevented the search.

It's true, of course, that we met teaching law. Well, kind of. We actually met a month or two before we taught law together in London.

Here's the scoop: A former law prof of mine (Nancy) had met Ian at a conference in Italy. She invited Ian back to the U.S. to work on putting a course together for Washburn's summer comparative law program in London. She asked me to Topeka to help put together the text for the program - and she also wanted us to meet. She swears there was no ulterior motive, and I believe her.

So, I took time off work to go help. Ian and I met and hit it off immediately. We didn't discuss the attraction we felt, though. It didn't feel right to talk about it, given that we were in a professional setting.

I made a couple of trips to Topeka to work while he was there, but I probably went more than I needed to because I enjoyed spending time with him. I made one trip specifically because he emailed me and asked me to help him pick out a thank you present for Nancy, since I knew her better than he did. He now tells me that was just an excuse to get me up there once more before he left.

Finally, he left for home,

but first he spent a week in New York.

While he was there, he sent me an email:

Hi Scott,

I REALLY enjoyed our time together. . . I would have come forward and told you beforehand but the thing is that I'm still quite British. Even though I have been Europeanised my inability to talk about my deepest feelings to non-family members or boyfriends is something still deep rooted in my character. Well, i think it's only fair, right and proper that I tell you that I really liked you on more than just one level.

As I said, I'm sorry that this all came through e-mail and I wish I had said this in Kansas, but I didn't want to spoil what had been a fantastic trip and didn't want to "sour" the moment. I hope you understand what I mean.

All my best wishes,

Ian

----

So, that's how it started. We didn't actually have our first date until we were in London, teaching together at the
Washburn Law School summer study program. From the time Ian sent the above email, though, we started conversing via email and phone calls. We knew each other pretty well by the time we finally saw each other again in London. On that thrip, we went to Liverpool and I was able to meet Ian's parents and his sister,
Pamela

We were even able to make a quick sidetrip to Blackpool, where a store tried to lure me in by letting me know...

I was perfectly content with mine, so I didn't think twice about stopping in to see what theirs were like.

After we met in London, we met on an almost monthly basis. Either Ian came to the U.S., I went to Europe, or we met somewhere else (Toronto or


San Francisco).

We usually spent at least 10 days together on these trips, although we spent about a month together over Christmas last year. During that trip, we did a Native American sweat in Wichita,


then went to Rochester N.Y. to introduce Ian to my brother, his wife and their daughter Cameron,


to Plattsburg, N.Y. to Natalie and Gary's wedding,



then to Colorado Springs


so Ian could meet my brother and sister.

By the end of that trip, we realised that not only did we want to live together, it would be easier and probably cheaper. It seemed like the times we were apart were spent counting down the days until we were together again.

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