r/LGBTWeddings

Hi,

Me and my wife got together 6 years ago, got engaged on the 4th anniversary and just this week eloped... literally. We told absolutely no one, traveled out of country and got legally married Wednesday at noon with a very intimate and sweet town hall ceremony. The town hall provided the witnesses for us and took a video, some candid pictures as we exchanged the rings.

The same day we announced it to our friends, and my wife told her parents over phone. Everyone either congratulated us or was ecastatic. I did not tell my parents, and I honestly am not sure how to do it.

My family is tiny - my parents and grandmother. Very traditional, my mother was a SAHM for most of my childhood. They almost divorced but chose to "stay together for me" when I was 12.

In my entire life, only my mother has known if I am dating, but often spoke ill of my relationships, even simple friendships. My father is more extreme in his opinions, and I am careful not to mention personal details in his presence. My mother also does not tell him unless she is 100% the news won't make us angry or argumentative.

So, in the last 6 years of me living with my wife, studying in the same university and working in the same corporate field, only my mother has learned that we are together. Early on, during Covid, my mother said she "hopes I will change my mind" about my wife and find someone else, which upset me enough that I threatened to never speak to her again. She has obliged and gotten more accepting over time. We still speak every day over the phone and she comes to our place sometimes. When with us, she is nothing but polite and funny, even warm and caring, according to wife. My mother had several health scares in the last year and my father left her with us, so either me or my wife took care of her and helped her. We even took her with us on a trip to France. I believe she will take the news okay at some point, but she breaks down at the idea of my father or grandmother learning about it.

My grandmother (in her 80s) believes that me and my wife are simply "very good friends", an impression I have not tried change since my mother has expressed (tearfully and dramatically) that my grandmother will not be able to take the news.

My father, on the other hand, may not even remember my wife's name. I have introduced them, she has been at their house three times for several days, she's helped me and my mother countless times... he does not bother to remember. We have a tense relationship. He has accused me of "rejecting my family" because I do not visit often enough. In general, I exchange about twenty sentences with him year-round, unless we get into an argument. According to my mother, he is jealous of the relationship I have with her.

So I have minimal contact with him, only when I visit them every two months or so for a couple of days. He's hot and cold - sometimes he rushes to pick up my mother's phone for the chance to speak to me, other times I can hear him mocking me or arguing with her in the background of a call. I believe he loves me in some way, but he definitely does not respect me or anyone else in the family and thinks himself above us and deserving of obedience.

With all this in mind, I'm really strugling on how to tell them. Hell, my father and grandmother know nothing of a relationship, let alone engagement. I'm wearing my ring and I do not want to take it off, but that is just inviting the obvious question. My wife is traveling for the week for MILs birthday and I am using the moment to also travel and housesit for my parents. We will see each other after they return from their vacation and are supposed to spend 5ish days together. I cannot imagine even my ignorant father will not notice the ring, let alone my noisy mother and grandma.

I know exactly how they will react and I do not want to sully my joy or memories of the event with their irrelevant opinions. What do I do? My wife and I discussed that it was okay if I did not tell them outright, and that she had no issue if I took of the ring around my parents' house or wore it on another finger, but I feel like this would be an insult to us and our family and I do not want to do it.

And even if I do that, I will be wearing the ring all the time in our home and my wife has not taken off neither her engagement ring nor her wedding band, so when my mother inevitably visits us (a monthly occurance for health checkups) she will see. While I believe she can handle the news, she will be anxious and stressed that she knows but my father and grandma do not. That is when she usually both pushes and warns me about telling my father at least - "the longer you wait the worse it gets" and "I don't know how he'll react, you don't know what he says when you're not around".

This has turned into a rant, but I am still looking for advice. Recently I came close to "riping the band-aid off" with my father (it was our first time in years alone and he made a comment about a relationship, for the first time) but I literary couldn't speak the words. I opened my mouth several times and was ready to hit something, but I didn't make a sound. It felt crushing.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but Im finding it hard to find celebrants, photographers, etc who whilst they SAY they're LGBT friendly/inclusive, have zero representation on their website or socials or portfolios. I didn't think it would bother me this much, but it really is! I feel like people are so happy to take our money but then don't want to even do a single post about it!!

Is it wrong I don't want to book people who just don't have anything represented that their support is real and not just words you say to make more money?

Hi!
So my beautiful fiancé and I are so thrilled to be planning our wedding this fall! Our families have been generally so supportive of us as a wlw couple and honestly asside from one homophobic flower vendor we have had zero issues.
BUT
my father.
I have had some tensions with my dad for a long time but with the political climate in the US right now I felt I needed to share some feelings with him and give him a chance to understand/ change some behaviors I.e. watching Fox News all day, voting for trump, and some personal things from my childhood/life I didn’t want unresolved.
An important bit of context is he has never been unkind to me or my fiancee in any way! He was immediately accepting when I came out and introduced her and simply asked what he could cook for her.
But I wrote all of the things in a letter because he doesn’t so well with confrontation.
He has since not responded at all to the letter nor to my text that I’d be in town a few months later.
My sister asked him about it, and his response was “ everything I think to respond feels wrong”
In my letter was “decided to invite you to my wedding, and I want to be transparent that I made this choice because I would regret not inviting you more than inviting you. I don’t have the privilege of treating my wedding as apolitical. My identity, my love, and my existence have been politicized, and you have actively supported the people who made that true. Accepting my invitation means trusting that you can show up with respect for me, my partner, and the reality of what this marriage represents.”
He has also made the statement to my sister that I only invited him to avoid regret and I don’t want him there.
Then While in town recently for my nephew’s birthday, he spent an entire day in the same space as me, after receiving a text letting him know that I would be in town and I was open to talking, without actually making an attempt to talk to me about anything more than surface level the entire day. During that day, he did hover very close and try to listen to any information that other family members were asking about me, but did not ask me anything himself before leaving.

So now to the actual dilemma.
My partner’s parents are incredible and have single-handedly helped us make this wedding possible and are essentially hosting our wedding. Her dad deserves all of the callouts possible, including walking her down the aisle and a father daughter dance.

But how do I do this without making it weird that I won’t have either of those things?
My nephews are 14 year-old twin boys and are the loves of my life. So I’ve had a brief thought that one of them could walk me down the aisle and the other could do my father daughter dance with me, but I do feel like this draws even more attention to my lack of a father figure to do these things with. I’m just not sure how to handle the situation and at this point I’m not sure if my father will be there. So is it even weirder to have my nephews do these things while my father stands there and watches… I would love opinions.

We wanna go to the beach somewhere and just relax! We live on the East Coast, so a lot of the closer beaches are in the south which I'm a bit worried about, especially Florida. I got top surgery recently and would love to be shirtless.

Is West Coast our best bet? Is there anywhere in the Caribbean you've felt safe in? TIA.

My (29 F) fiancée (28 F) and I are eloping on the Oregon coast in September. As of right now, it will be just the two of us and a photographer. The photographer is an ordained wedding officiant, so we technically don’t need anyone else but I’ve been toying with the idea of a ‘standalone’ officiant instead of having the photographer do both.

For other couples who eloped, did you appreciate having an officiant to guide you through more of a ceremony, or did you like the simplicity of just the two of you reading vows? Neither of us are religious.

Thanks!

Hello!!

I am a fairly masc presenting woman and I cannot for the life of me figure out where to find masculine bridal wear!!!

I am not sure if I would want a traditional styled male suit but I know I definitely do NOT want a dress or a skirt

I am at a loss of where to find something with pizazz and bridal elements but isn’t feminine.

I also have never really tried on a formal suit before so I am not sure how I would look in it

I am in Seattle for reference in case anyone has any in person recs

maybe some people relate? Idk if I'm looking for advice or just sharing for the sake of sharing, Wanting to feel validated. Maybe just a vent?

Planning our wedding has been a shocking eye opening experience for me when it comes to the people around me. I'm trans masc, I came out when I was 14, had a relatively easy coming out process with my parents and immiate family. Generally it's been my family and some extended family is aware of who I am, have no issues with it, respect me, but don't acknowledge it. As I've gotten older, become an adult, my own person, it's become more and more comfortable, something we talk about a little more openly at home and with family. Same with my finances family, they were accepting from the very begining, clearly a little confused and unsure what to make of me for a while but never crossing any lines and generally receptive to explanations about queer culture and stuff.

When we told our families we were getting married his parents instantly had an issue. Saying things like "well why does it have to be a gay wedding your not really a man?" And many much more hurtful things. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, their very blunt people maybe they didn't realise how hurtful a statement like that can be. But even trying to respectfully explain that yes this is a gay wedding because we are both men even though I'm trans they wouldn't back down on it. Eventually they did and they semaed to understand but it was heartbreaking to realise that all this time this is how they've seen me. That it's a burden to them to call me by my name or use my pronouns. (Their own words, Even though those were the only pronouns or name they ever knew me by) It's frustrating and I'm angry but more than that I'm hurt. I'm aware that I'm not "passing" and people misgendering me doesn't bother me so much it's more that sorta betrayal feeling that I thought they were seeing me for who I was but this whole time they wernt.

When it comes to my family it's been a little less clear and dramatic but that "betrayal" is still there. Hearing my mom mention to someone "well it doesn't matter it won't be binding anyway" when talking about the details of our religious ceremony.

Or having them say their not inviting some of their friends because they "don't want to put them in an uncomfortable position". I don't specifically want my moms old highschool friend at my wedding but to know I'm "too complicated" for her to even tell her friends I'm getting married hurts more then I thought it would.

Having people who I thought were good friends say they couldn't possibly come to "that sort" of wedding.

Having my parents sit me down and beg me to limit how much I explain to my grandparents because they don't want me to upset them.

I've heard similar comments before, I've experienced much much worse than these comments due to my gender identity but for some reason nothing prepared me for how much these things hurt. I know Im lucky to even have my family at my wedding but I'm really having a hard time seeing the bright side here. It sucks.

* to be clear because I've already gotten a couple messages hating on my finance, he's been incredibly supportive especially when it comes to standing up for me to his family. boundaries have been set, rules have been layed out, I'm mostly just left with that icky hurt feeling because of what was said.

Hi! My partner and I have been talking about getting married and have agreed we want to. The problem is that we are both disabled with serious health issues and neither of us can afford to lose our health insurance, and if we combine our incomes, she almost certainly would lose it, and I might. So we talked about doing a commitment ceremony. But I'm worried we won't be able to find anyone to officiate for it because of us being two women and not doing the legal route. We also want a handfasting (I"m Wiccan and she's Pagan) which makes it trickier.

Has anyone done a commitment ceremony? We want to do everything basically exactly the same, we just won't be signing the paperwork at the end. We plan on having a very small wedding- probably about 25 people at most, and all are close enough to tell why we aren't doing the legal wedding. Still, I'd like to hear people's stories. TIA!

Hi … so I’ve been asked to be a best man to my gay? Bi? best friend. I’m straight but I’m not sure if that’s relevant. I’m not really sure what’s expected and googling is telling me just be a best man regardless of sexuality but I’ve not been one of those either and where I live few people have weddings as legally living together 6 months is equal to marriage so most don’t bother and instead buy a home given the extremely high real estate costs ie $1 million buys you a shack.

So far we landed on a bucks party of a drag show and I’m sorta working through my best man speech but that’s as far as I got. Am I missing anything that should be very gay centric that’s obvious? The complication is that my best friend is extremely private so most planning is unknown to me and they’re also interracial and mixed religion (one Muslim one Christian and both agnostic). I’m totally out of my depth here and it’s in 8 weeks.

Help?

Hey im 21F, starting my last year in uni this year, so im pretty sure i will have shaadi pressure from my parents in the upcoming months (they have forced me into marriage before too, i had to fight it a lot and protected myself) I’m looking for a gay man for lavender marriage (im open to any age from preferably 21-30) it doesn’t have to be an urgent marriage just want someone to commit, (might have to marry in the span of 1 year) so i have options when my parents do pressurise me into marriage, we won’t have to live together permanently, just have to do it to show my parents and for society and documentation, we can live our own separate lives as bsf later on, im from multan, so someone from multan is preferable but im open to people from other cities asw