If my wife and I weren't forced into wedlock by two old-fashioned religously-biased governments, we wouldn't have bothered. As it was, we did it in the quickest, easiest, least-expensive way possible. The ceremony cost $0 because we knew the judge, and the after-party (Mexican food, natch) cost about $200, if that. We don't even have rings. I think two photos from the day itself exist.

There's quite a good chance we would have never got around to it, if we hadn't needed to for legal reasons. We both loathe paperwork and bureaucracy, blah-blah, and have never once been up to the minute with all our papers/taxes/requirements in order. We knew we wanted to be "married" almost from the first, emotionally... but in terms of actually planning, submitting paperwork, etc... well, we might still be (after 17 years): "we really ought to get around to doing that, you know?"

"we really ought to get around to doing that, you know?"

We never would've thought that: we think the whole idea is bollocks [Patriarchial ownership of a woman, etc]. We're liberals.

We're romantics. But lazy romantics. :)

HOW Romantic, though? Did you take his last name?

Yes, I did. Because I like it better than my maiden name. If it had been like most Greek names, multi-syllabic, and virtually impossible for non-Greeks to pronounce - I would have been less romantic, and more ANTI-PATRIARCHY. heh. Anyway, my husband is so not the patriarchy, that it didn't even enter into the discussion in my head ... and he didn't care either way.

Did you start this thread just to goad ThePinkSuperhero? If so, I salute you, sir. It's quite a masterpiece. Not over-the-top, not trollish--it's subtle. But not so subtle that it'll go unnoticed. Oh, no, she'll be furious. Genius!

this has been on my mind lately, as my partner/SO/boyfriend/whatever and I are planning to tie the knot soon, and I'm having lots of incoherent thoughts on the subject. I am *so* not romantic (he is more so), and neither of us are religious, but I still like the idea of registering our relationship and making it 'official'. I guess I have an old-fashioned European view of the state as a fairly benign structure that wishes me well :) We want to be each other's 'default person' - 'next of kin' is the formal way to put it, I suppose. As things stand now, if he dies I am totally dependent on his mum if I am not to get thrown out of our (jointly-owned) house. (making a will would, of course, solve all this, but that's another story).

Probably a more important aspect is celebrating with our family and friends, though I have an increasing yen for the nip-off-to-registry-office-on-our-own followed by meal out that chuckdarwin did. I am trying to steer clear of the wedding industry as far as I can (though we will have plain wedding rings - I like that mutual symbolism, though I am not having an engagement ring because I'm not that into rings, and the asymmetry of that particular tradition repels me).

I freely admit to being a potential hypocrite on this issue - if I liked sparkly jewellery I would no doubt be sporting a rock now, and if I wanted his name more than my own (and if I hadn't established a career under my name) I'd take it. But this is how things are working for us.

It has struck me, though, that I'm having to do quite a lot of soul-searching about whether to adopt certain 'traditions' or not, whereas he only has to go along with all the defaults and everything will work out fine. Strange asymmetry there.

I wish my laptop would behave and show me Metafilter, as I can't see that thread...

mullacc, I don't know TPS very well. We kind of butted heads at one point, and I got the distinct impression that she dislikes me.

I won't say that I don't read her posts, but I certainly don't read the ones about her wedding...

okay... I missed something. I didn't know TPS and Stinky were getting married! Wowzer! Where de thread?

Strange asymmetry there.

My point, exactly. (Plus, the diamond industry SUCKS more than almost anything on earth... there's no way of telling how any given diamond was mined [i.e. how many people died getting it out of the ground])

If all men had to wear a dog collar when they got engaged because it's "traditional", how many of them would do it?

It's not always asymmetrical; we both wear wedding rings. They are cheap silver rings that we got at a mall, because we had no money to spare. My husband's has split, and it's always tarnishing, so he has to polish it up with aluminum foil and spit :) - and I told him that it wouldn't hurt my feelings if he stopped wearing it. He said, "no way!" It's his wedding ring. heh.

We are finally going to replace them this September, for our 10th anniversary.

taz, that's what I meant - I don't have an engagement ring but we will both wear wedding rings.

I guess I should learn to be more concise :)

taz, we had some (my mom and late father were at the 'wedding' - such as it was - and would've been deeply confused by a lack of rings) but we lost them.

Shock. Horror.

I think the two children we've raised together are a little more symbolic of the strength of our union than two pieces of metal.

Marriage isn't a contract. It's a covenant.

FWIW.

It's okay, chuckdarwin, because you guys agree and that's what feels right for you... But, I don't think militance is really a great stance regarding marriage as a general concept. If you see what I mean. No need to devalue what others place importance on, just because in some cases it happens to coincide with traditional or legal systems.

I kind of love it that my husband is attached to his "piece of metal" ... for us, it means something. That doesn't mean we care the tiniest bit if other couples do or don't have the same "meanings" in their relationships, and I would never tell anyone to have/not have a big/small wedding, a cheap/expensive/no ring, etc. I think people should just do what feels right for them.

No need to devalue what others place importance on, just because in some cases it happens to coincide with traditional or legal systems.

Point taken. I'm not militant against people who want to tie the knot as much as I'm militant against DeBeers (a company that makes the mafia look ethical) and all the various people/companies out there who prey on romantics. No wedding should cost more than $1000. The reason they cost more is because a bunch of greedy bastards get involved.

For us, it was a way to celebrate that we were in this for the long haul and we wanted our families and extended families to be a part of that. We've had a few rough spots and our families and friends have always been there for us.

Yeah, my feelings about weddings pretty much coincide with those of taz and altolinguistic. We married when we did because I would have been kicked out of the country, and we knew we wanted to stay together anyway. We probably would have ended up being married because mr. gaspode is quite traditional about things like that, and I didn't really care.

I really don't give a shit about the state argument, because I don't really care about marriage as an institution one way or the other except so far as it excludes a portion of society in this country. For that argument alone I wouldn't have gotten married if I didn't have the selfish need to not be living on the other side of the world as the person I loved.

People have been discussing the relevancy of marriage "these days" for at least the last 150 years.

Marriage is nice. Being unmarried in the traditional sense is nice. I never wanted to get married until my husband asked me. If something happened to my current marriage, I doubt I would marry again, but so far, marriage works for me.

I've got a big, shiny rock too. I wouldn't buy another rock but I'm not losing sleep over the one I have. And I took my husband's last name. It's sophisticated and pretty and personally, I feel it's a lot less complicated when children are in the mix.

Call me a shallow boob, but I like being married.

Marriage isn't a contract. It's a covenant.

I understand a 'covenant' to be a type of contract, and in particular a solemn undertaking to do something - in this case, to enter into a permanent partnership with another person.

I won't be making this undertaking in a church or any other religious building, and there will be no religious aspect to my wedding (not allowed in civil weddings in the UK). This may mean that my covenant (understood as 'a promise made before God' which is not how I use the word) is not meaningful in the eyes of some. I respect their right to feel this way.

I believe that non-religious people are capable of making solemn promises.

(LoriFLA, you're not shallow! I think being married is going to be a great thing for us. Glad it is for you. It is for my mum and dad too - 34 years and going strong).

I feel it's a lot less complicated when children are in the mix.

I quite like the hyphens. They're British, anyway: hypenated last names are de rigeur.

Under the common law a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract by the presence of a seal. Because the presence of a seal indicated an unusual solemnity in the promises made in a covenant, the common law would enforce a covenant even in the absence of consideration.

In contemporary practice in the USA, a covenant typically refers to restrictions set on contracts like deeds of sale...

In the 1920s and 1930s, covenants that restricted the sale of property on the basis of race, ethnicity, and religion were common throughout the USA, particularly in the South where the primary intent was to keep "white" neighbourhoods "white". Such a covenant prohibited a buyer of property from reselling, leasing or transferring "to any colored person or persons or any person or persons of Ethiopean (sic) or Semitic race or the any descendant [of such a race]." These were invalidated by the US Supreme Court by Hansberry_v._Lee in 1940. The playwright Lorraine Hansberry wrote the play A Raisin in the Sun based on her father's experience as lead plaintiff in that case.

That's it! As soon as I get my British citizenship, I'm filing for divorce. Covenants suck.

Call me a shallow boob, but I like being married.

I'm not going to call you a shallow boob; I say more power to ya! Marry all the people you like; it is the American way, after all.

My mom's been married three times, and my poor old dad was married FIVE times. Not all at once, of course... because that's called BIGAMY (I understand the state frowns on that sort of thing).

He was a lot of things, my dad (this is the point where I'd say God rest his soul if believed in Gods or souls), but he was no Mormon.

I believe that non-religious people are capable of making solemn promises.

And I believe that religious people are capable of making some catastrophically awful mistakes.

Chuck... this is getting weird. I don't think you mean to be snide to everyone who is married, planning on marrying, etc., but it's now beginning to sound that way.

And what's even weirder is that you're married. Perhaps you could get a lawyer or something, and figure out a way to stay in the UK without being married, now that you have UK citizens for kids, etc. But maybe you could lay off being nasty to other people who'd like to stay/get married? No one's trying to force you to stay married, or to like it while you are.

And what's even weirder is that you're married.

It's consistent with his expat dislike for Americans at least.

The totally non-controversial answer to your question, cd, based on the answers here:

Are weddings still relevant these days?

is 'yes, they're relevant to those for whom they're relevant'.

When I got married I had a large-ish wedding, with family from both sides there. It was in a Register Office (civil ceremony). I got married for the wrong reasons (which I won't go into here). But that day for the first time ever I felt beautiful.

After George and I fell in love we knew that the only way we could be together would be if we were married, as I couldn't move to the US any other way. Both of us were wary of marriage (he'd had a nasty divorce where his ex-wife had tried to take the farm that'd been in the family for five generations - and my ex-husband was a lying junkie) but we talked about it rationally.

Unlike George's first wife, I'd have been bringing in a sizeable chunk of cash from the sale of my flat, and we agreed that we'd get a pre-nup drawn up so that if we ever split, I'd keep what I'd brought in and vice versa. (Our plans were to invest my money in property in the nearby university town, to provide me with an income from student rentals.) The idea of a pre-nup was largely to placate George's mother, who still said she'd shoot George's ex-wife if she ever set foot on their land again! I can understand her feelings because the family has owned the land since the 1850s and the ex-wife had no entitlement over the fair settlement she was offered.

We didn't want a fuss. I suspect if we'd got married it would've been in front of the judge one day, George in Carhartts and me in Levis, with a casual announcement ("Oh, by the way ...") at lunch the following Sunday. That would've suited me. I wanted to be with him any way I could.

So the wedding wouldn't have been the important thing. The marriage would.

But maybe you could lay off being nasty to other people who'd like to stay/get married?

OK, Sorry, all. My sense of humour can be too caustic.

I'm marrying TheDude for three reason.

1) He can't afford health insurance and the good state of Texas won't let him use mine until we're married.
2) We live halfway across the country from our parents. The good state of Texas is draconian about the rights of non-married couples in health care situations.
3) His parents and my parents expect it, and we'd like to throw a party for all our friends.

We've discussed just getting the license now, and dealing with the "wedding" later, but I'm pretty sure my mom would flip.

Does my desire to "tie the knot" with TheDude make me anti-feminist? Of course not. I want to start a family with him, and if the state requires a certificate to say that we're a family, then I'll get that certificate. Someday, I hope that the US will recognize that families come in many forms, that any two people can want to make it work, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or desire to spawn a brood.

I'm not a marrier, and won't be until it's not a right unique to my sexuality.

Basically, as an atheist, I don't want to participate in a religious ritual unduly. I wouldn't go and get baptized, now, would I? And obviously marriage is a religious ritual or there wouldn't be an issue with any two people being bound by it, regardless of gender. Plus, if it is a religious ritual, I consider it a violation of church and state. Which is reason enough for me to boycott it.

relevant data points:

5 years in committed cohabitation with opposite-gender partner

Not eligible for civil unions/domestic partnerships until I grow a cock or turn sixty-something. I think it's 68. Fucked and random.

No health insurance

Planning a commitment ceremony for someday with dress, drinks, mindmeld, ketubah & chuppah tbd.

chuckdarwin's family got me thinking: what's the most times anyone you know *personally* has been married? For me, it's my cousin: she's been married seven times. Only six husbands, though; she married one of 'em twice.

okay... I missed something. I didn't know TPS and Stinky were getting married! Wowzer! Where de thread?

Oh helllllllllllll no. LOL. This is how rumors get started people!!

mullacc, I don't know TPS very well. We kind of butted heads at one point, and I got the distinct impression that she dislikes me.

I only dislike you because you never seem to miss an opportunity to bring it up. I didn't dislike you before you started doing that. You're the one holding the grudge, not me. Feel free to drop it anytime.

Feel free to drop it anytime.

Consider it dropped. I'm sure we'd get along much better in person than we have on the web.

It's a funny medium.

It's consistent with his expat dislike for Americans at least.

I didn't really like America much, hence the leaving forever bit.

Well good.

(good re:dropping it)

Oh and despite my "meh"-ness about the institution of marriage, I really like being married (as opposed to in a LTR). Don't know why, don't really care to examine why. Also, I love weddings.

Also, I know I've posted this here before but I think chuckdarwin might get a kick out of parts of our wedding ceremony.

gaspode, those are the coolest vows I've ever read.

I've played (classical guitar) at about 400 weddings, and I sat through some thoroughly horrible, cheesy weddings [perhaps this is why I make fun of it so easily?].

Yours sounds like it was pretty wonderful.

chuckdarwin's family got me thinking: what's the most times anyone you know *personally* has been married? For me, it's my cousin: she's been married seven times. Only six husbands, though; she married one of 'em twice.

Most people in my family seem to marry once or not at all - I can think of two exceptions, aunts who are on their second marriages, and in both cases the second ones seem to be for keeps. We're a boring lot, I guess.

Someday, I hope that the US will recognize that families come in many forms, that any two people can want to make it work, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or desire to spawn a brood.

So do I. It's one of the most backwards aspects of American policy and in desperate need of revision.

Yay! They made up by the end of the thread!!!

HANDS ACROSS AMERICAAAA METACHAAAAT
HANDS ACROSS AMERICAAAAAAAAAAA METACHAAAAAAT

:), chuckdarwin.

late to the thread as ever, but pretty much everything altolinguistic said.

i have no issues with marriage or people's reasonings, validations, desires, etc., etc., behind tying the knot. tho if you'd asked me a couple years ago if i were the knot-tying sort, i'd have said an emphatic OH HELLZ NO!! funnily enough, the mister was of the same mind before we met...

what i will say is that there is something very, very special about meeting the person whom you value so deeply, that all of a sudden the whole vous et nul autre bit makes uncommonly good sense.

perspective is everything. that and the right partner. the mister's a romantic idealist, too, so that helps. thankfully he didn't care HOW it happened, he just wanted to get hitched.

there's the crux of it. i think on the whole, the idea of formalising a partnership isn't really the issue. it's just that whole circus-wedding great consumerist patriarchial feeding frenzy aspect that sucks.

it's just that whole circus-wedding great consumerist patriarchial feeding frenzy aspect that sucks.

And to that I say - hell yeah! (and to your other points). Marriage rocks (IMO), much more ambivalent about weddings.

I wish I'd never been married about as often as I wish I'd never been born, which is to say, sometimes. The worst thing about it was that they weren't the best years of my life, and they should have been. But I didn't get married to preserve a deep and abiding love, I got married out of desperation and hope and a big dose of fear, and to a large extent because I had to. It was only half-official anyway, married in the eyes of family and god, but not the state (these things take more time abroad, and a bun in the oven can play havoc with schedules).

Never get married because you have to, or you should, or because it's the thing to do, or because it's that time of life. That's not easy for me to say. I don't regret my short marriage, just how it ended and what that did to my life. I hate to be selfish, but there is no other person, even remote, to share the guilt with or cope with the loss alongside. It's all on me, which I'm okay with, usually.

I have mixed feelings about marriage; then again, I have mixed feelings about love and loss and opportunity and closure. I had mixed feelings when I got married, too, but the situation crystallized while my feelings were fluid, and by the time it was over, all my doubts had turned to guilt.

Everyone has a unique perspective on this, perspectives that are held strongly and mean possibly a great deal to the holder. Often what seems like a dismissal or insult is directed inwards, or is misdirected, or, since these things are important, is a continuation of a conversation one had with others (or oneself) elsewhere and is thus heavy with baggage from the start. Sometimes the only way we can put what is a deeply held belief is in a manner that collides with the deeply held beliefs of others. It can be touchy ground for everyone, and just as the giver should be sensitive of the receiver's feelings, so too should the opposite be true.

We're all human, we're all trying, and we all fail sometimes. Sometimes things go wrong and we succeed anyway. Other times the end comes suddenly and without possibility of reprieve. Sometimes love works perfectly, and we never look back. That's a beautiful piece of hope right there, and I hope when the time comes again I can feel it and not the rest. Every once in a long time I worry that the fear and guilt involved in losing my family will poison my future happiness, but I generally don't think the future's worth a second thought. Nothing's guaranteed. I guess that's how I feel about marriage.

I don't think this is exactly on topic, but then, I don't much care, either.

Hugh, that was astonishingly lovely and right on point. thank you.

I worry that the fear and guilt involved in losing my family will poison my future happiness...

well i'm sure some will deride me for being a hopeless Pollyanna here, but i sincerely believe that the human capacity for hope, forgiveness and love is infinite... (here's the tricky bit) if we allow ourselves to do so.

trust me, it's not easy. especially during the times you get trapped in those endless labyrinthine passages of guilt, self-doubt, irritation, fear, anger, etc...

p.s., what a cool story this is! I'm jealous, lol.

I got married the first time because I was 18, pregnant and Catholic. My soon to be husband, who I'd known all of about 3 months (and we were already fighting) was 21 and Catholic. It was 1982 and single parenthood had not yet arrived in Charleston, SC. So we got married in the church and had a horrific, strained reception at my parents' house, with uncomfortable families and no pictures, and then, some 2 years later, it was all over, which was all for the best and few tears shed.

The second wedding had true love and all that and it was actually an excellent wedding (fun! on the Eastern Shore of Maryland! We sailed away in our wedding clothes in a sunfish! I made all the food and the 11 dogs in attendance stole a whole ham! 2 kegs of beer and a case of champagne! People camped! Small children threw rose petals! We had a sweet gay minister with grateful dead buttons on his cassock! I got my wedding dress for $10! Everybody took pictures and some of them were wonderful!) but again I did it for the wrong reasons: trying to make a dying relationship live again, symbolizing a reconnection after infidelity and a lot of anger and substance abuse and so on had chipped away at what we both thought was going to be a forever thing. Didn't work.

I have friends who've gotten married for every reason from health insurance to drunkenness to taxes to actual genuine true love and I can understand it. Would I do it again? Maybe. Maybe not. I'd have to be DAMN sure that this one was going to stick. To me it's symbolic, mostly, although after watching the hell my ex MIL went through to try to convince the state that she was entitled to some widow's rights after her live in for thirty years boyfriend died (they had gotten married when he was diagnosed with cancer, but the state of WV in its infinite wisdom tried to take their land and home away from her on the grounds that they hadn't been married long enough; eventually it got fixed but it was bad for a while there) I can see the sense of getting the piece of paper from the City Hall just to keep The Man at bay.

And then, you know, weddings are a great excuse for a party. ;-)

If all men had to wear a dog collar necktie when they got engaged a professional job because it's "traditional", how many of them would do it?

Lots.

Touche! (I never wear ties, thank &%$*!)

Everyone has a unique perspective on this, perspectives that are held strongly and mean possibly a great deal to the holder. Often what seems like a dismissal or insult is directed inwards, or is misdirected, or, since these things are important, is a continuation of a conversation one had with others (or oneself) elsewhere and is thus heavy with baggage from the start. Sometimes the only way we can put what is a deeply held belief is in a manner that collides with the deeply held beliefs of others. It can be touchy ground for everyone, and just as the giver should be sensitive of the receiver's feelings, so too should the opposite be true.

I think this disclaimer should be at the top of every page on the internet.

Everyone has a unique perspective on this, perspectives that are held strongly and mean possibly a great deal to the holder. Often what seems like a dismissal or insult is directed inwards, or is misdirected, or, since these things are important, is a continuation of a conversation one had with others (or oneself) elsewhere and is thus heavy with baggage from the start. Sometimes the only way we can put what is a deeply held belief is in a manner that collides with the deeply held beliefs of others. It can be touchy ground for everyone, and just as the giver should be sensitive of the receiver's feelings, so too should the opposite be true.

Never were truer words typed, Hugh. Thanks for that.

I can see the sense of getting the piece of paper from the City Hall just to keep The Man at bay.

And then, you know, weddings are a great excuse for a party.

You've summed up our marriage perfectly. We didn't have a choice, so we have tended to overthink it a bit. Why does the state have so much power over our relationship? It kind of pissed us off.

We did have a good party, though.

I had never seen that before, gaspode! Oh my god, I love it so very much.

I believe in marriage. I believe that two people formally and publicly joining their fortunes and futures is a beautiful thing. If I didn't think it was meaningful, I wouldn't get so angry about how our gov't denies this right to same-sex couples.

And weddings are fun. (Unless it's one of those weddings where the bride and groom decide to express their individuality by serving organic home-harvested wheat balls and doing interpretive dance to a lone flutist. Fuck that. Give me my crab puffs and Jungle Boogie.)

As was well-documented last year, me and pips, after eleven years together (with a few brief intervals) tied the knot last year in Vegas. It just seemed right and it was fun. I'm Catholic and she's Jewish, and we were married by a Protestant minister, in an inadvertant compromise (and Elvis, who crosses all denominations), so religion didn't really enter into it. It was fun and it seemed right to honor our commitment with a ceremony and it was a great bash. As for patriarchal-ownership and all that crap, marraige dosen't have to be that, so one man's bollocks is another man's happy day, sir.