Sunday 25 January 2015

Why we're getting fake-married: On planning a feminist wedding


As I said to The Boy the other night, "Oops." It wasn't that our plans for a wedding were secret, as such, but only our families and my best friend knew. And then I go and blurt it out to the whole internet, in an aside on a post about my 2015 goals. Oops indeed.

Round here, we refer to it variously as 'our fake wedding' or 'the love party' (which sounds somewhat, ahem, questionable in English but better in Dutch). There are a few reasons why we'll be doing the wedding without the legal bit. The Boy, when I met him, was adamant that he never wanted to get married. Turned off by the pomp and ridiculous expense of weddings, troubled by the fact that weddings are a perpetuation of patriarchal power structures, indifferent to declaring a commitment in front of God or the state, they were something he wanted no part of. From my perspective, I'd long been vocally opposed to the many elements of traditional weddings that are decidedly dodgy from a feminist perspective.

However, once we'd been together for a while we realised that it was actually important to us to have something to mark our love and commitment. Call it a yearning for a pretty dress and a big party or call it abandoning our principles, we'd started to suspect that this whole wedding lark might be something we wanted to be part of.

Bugger.

And so the question arose: how would we go about getting wed without subscribing to the archaic patriarchal traditions that we were both so opposed to?

First off, the idea that T would be the only one who gets to decide when the wedding planning began by getting down on one knee is frankly laughable, as anyone who knows us will realise. Instead we talked it over, for about a year in total, building up to the decision that yes, we wanted to have something: a fake wedding, a love party, a commitment ceremony, call it what you will. And slowly, over the past few months, we've been telling our family that, no, we're not engaged but, yes, we'll be having a wedding.

Going the fake route means that we can be completely in control; with no legalities to worry about, we can have it wherever and whenever we want. So there's no ring. There'll be no giving me away (hah!), no first dance. Speeches, yes, but from the women as well as the men, and not formal in any sense. There'll be lots of vegan cake, and good music to dance to. There'll be vows of commitment, with all of the people we love there to hear them. It will, in short, be all the best bits of a wedding with all of the crappy anti-feminist shit taken out.

Because let's face it, most wedding traditions are fucked up from a modern perspective. The part I find most troubling is the way in which they completely erase womens' agency. From the proposal right up to the wedding speeches, in a traditional wedding a woman's role is to look pretty and stay silent. She is treated as a possession, something to be passed from father to husband, and the name she's had since birth is whisked away in the blink of an eye. And you know what the mad thing is? These traditions are so ingrained within our culture that lots of kick ass, intelligent women (and indeed, kick ass, intelligent men) will often go along with them, without giving it a second thought.

Now, let me clearly state that I am in no way judging anyone else's choices about their own weddings: I completely understand why people want to go the traditional route on their wedding day. My criticism is of the traditions themselves. I'm excited to be able to design our own ceremony and party, one that can follow any structure we wish and be completely free of those pernicious traditions. As for the rest of the details, like date and place? Well, that's all to be decided. But one thing's for sure: as much as I'm looking forward to our kick ass, feminist fake-wedding, I'm looking forward to the rest of our life together far much more.

21 comments:

  1. Bravo! As you know I'm getting married soon. We're not having a traditional wedding. We are doing the legal bit but nothing religious, my Dad will walk me into the room to meet my husband to be but he won't be giving me away, I'm still his and nothing will ever change that.
    No speeches, no cake cutting, no first dance, no reception line and awkward posed photographs. Just an exchange of vows, a few readings followed by a meal with our closest family and then a big party.
    I will change my surname for two reasons - 1, my surname is ridiculous and 2, should we have kids I'd like us all to have the same surname, this will make us a family - a way of knowing who goes with who, I like that.
    I have got a fabulous dress because, heck, I love fabulous dresses and this particular one is kick-ass!! And we are having a cake - it's a party after all and my friend makes the most delicious cakes.
    We're not doing anything because we feel we have to, but because we want to. We want to share a great day with our favourite people but more importantly we want to be married. We want to make a statement of our commitment to each other, just without all the fuss. No one is allowed to say to us 'you have to do it, it's tradition', if they do, they might just find themselves uninvited!
    I hope you have fun planning your day.

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    1. The plan for your day sounds lovely, very low-key and special. And yep, the two things I was NEVER going to leave out are a fabulous dress and a tasty cake!

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  2. Yay! I've been looking forward to this post for what seems like AGES.

    I know a lot of people who did the legal marriage (for assorted reasons - children; ill health; simplicity) but stripped out the bits which felt outdated - several had no "giving away"; most had speeches from the women; some kept separate names - so I've been really curious to hear what your own take on it would be. I'm looking forward to hearing more about your plans as the day nears (whenever that ends up being!).

    I find the two extremes of the bride's role in weddings interesting - on the one hand, as you say, a lot of the traditions are about her lack of control over her own life; on the other hand, so many people still talk of a wedding as "the bride's big day" and assume that the groom will have minimal interest in the planning. I could waffle on about that at length but I'm sure you know where I'm headed with it. :)

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    1. Yeah, it has been ages. I found it really hard to write, for some reason, and also had to wait until all our families knew before I could post it.

      That's an excellent point - it's like, women don't get to decide when they get engaged but once they are, they're expected to do ALL the planning. Of all my friends who've got married, it's always been assumed by others that the bride has done the planning and the groom has got his suit... the end. I mean, to be fair, I love planning SO much that I probably will do a lot of it, but that's because I'm a bossy so-and-so who likes to be in control, not because it's 'my day'.

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  3. I love this! Love it love it! I completely understand, like you, why people want to do the whole traditional thing, but it still annoys me when my confident, outspoken beautiful friend the bride doesn't say a single word during the speeches, or when cards start arriving signed from '[groom] and [bride]' in the bride's handwriting, already with his name first (why couldn't he write his own name on the thank you card?). I've been to some traditional weddings, and some less traditional, more relaxed weddings, and without doubt my favourites have been the relaxed ones. And don't get me started on changing surnames! I wish you all the best with the planning and look forward to hearing all about it!

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    1. Yes, so much this! When I was bridesmaid for my best mate I sort of insisted on giving a speech, even though I detest public speaking, because I felt so strongly it shouldn't just be the blokes getting up there and having their say. And the 'thank you' cards thing drives me crazy!

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  4. I read this in the other post and went "Did I know this was happening? Have I not been listening somewhere along the line?" I'm secretly pleased it was an accident, I was thinking I was a pretty crap person.

    I love this for a lot of reasons. I've felt kind of similar, I've always been struggling to square the circle when it comes to weddings because there's a lot that I don't feel comfortable with.

    Also. If you're having a non-wedding that means that venues etc won't be able to charge you wedding prices which is my biggest annoyance about the whole thing. I always swore that if I did get married I'd never refer to it as that so I didn't get caught out in the price gouging!

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    1. Haha, nope you hadn't been a crap person, we were just keeping it fairly low key until I ruined it all!

      Yep, it should save us a ton of money - don't need a licensed venue, don't need to say it's a wedding. A lot of places I've looked up will have one price list for private parties and one list for weddings, and the cost somehow triples, at the very least. Crazy stuff.

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  5. This is a lovely thing to do, and I look forward reading more posts about you and the boy's day. Yay for lots of cake!

    I could go on (rant) for hours about all the outdated stuff that I dislike about weddings. However, its a bit off a touchy subject in our household (long story) and if it makes people happy doing all the traditional expected stuff then whats the harm in it. Although I hate it when people spend 20+K on a wedding and then complain about how they cannot get on the property ladder. Thats a deposit people!!

    Long story short, we snuck off and eloped. But it still involved a bit of planning in advance. We had to register our intention to marry at the local office and then they displayed it on their notice board. When we were filling in the paperwork the question of our fathers occupation was asked. But not our mothers. Was fuming! My mother works as well. Does that not count? What about the people who do not have a father? Etc, etc. Grrr, my blood is boiling just thinking about it again!

    Oops, I have started ranting!

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    1. That's another reason we don't want to do the legal route, the paperwork and everything is still so outdated and sexist. There were murmurings about some MPs wanting to change it recently but don't think it went anywhere.

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  6. Wonderful news! Finding the one other human you want to spend all of your days with is just perfect. I never asked Anna's father for permission before I proposed in light of the fact she is not property, and we went ring shopping together because we are peers, and her father did not give her away because again the property thing.
    Taking joint possession of the ceremony and driving it howsoever you see fit is a brave undertaking that perhaps many of us lack the confidence to do, or maybe it's that we're all too lazy and prefer the 'just add water' element of Standard Wedding #1.
    From what I can tell, you've got your ducks in a row already. I hope you have a really great day however you execute that when it comes. Enjoy and cherish every single day you have together.

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    1. Thank you! It's not going to happen for ages and ages, but it's nice to be starting to talk about it and plan what we want to do.

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  7. This sounds like the BEST WEDDING EVER! I can't tell you the amount of years I've been saying "if you think I'm not making a speech at my own damn wedding, you can get lost" haha. This is the perfect answer to all of the things that concern me about marriage and I'm so glad you brought this to my attention. I look forward to hearing all about it :) congratulations, you're clearly an awesome couple! xx

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    1. Haha, yep that's about the size of it: "Really?! You expect me to sit there and say nothing?!" It is far more likely that I would make a speech and Thomas would sit there saying nothing!

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  8. Your wedding sounds just perfect! That's what it should be all about, finding the person you want to spend the rest of your life with and then just doing whatever you both choose to celebrate that fact. We did our day picking and choosing what we wanted to suit ourselves - things like no first dance, no seating plan and although I did take the other half's surname, that was because I made that choice myself as I really didn't like my maiden name and thought the other one sounded much better! :-) xx

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    1. No seating plan is a big one for us - I don't want any of the formalities people tend to associate with wedding receptions. And I love your name - taking his surname made it so pleasingly alliterative!

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  9. How the hell did I miss this?! Congrats :D sounds like it's going to be a really fun party (which is basically what all weddings should be!). I know what you mean about all the traditional stuff, a lot of it is kinda fussy and out of date (don't get me started on the whole "you're not taking your husband's name???!!!" thing). I'm just grateful that people are questioning it (even if it's only some people) and that we have the choice to have the day however we wish. As you say, the important thing really is the commitment you're making. I'm guessing the rock'n'roll bride post reading has hit fever pitch ;)

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    1. Hehe, yep I'm totally obsessed with it at the moment and pinning like mad!

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  10. I love this idea. I did not have any desire for the traditions but my family did. It was weird. But it is all good now and having a committed relationship which I celebrated with all my friends and family was great. x

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    1. I really count my blessings in the fact that both of our families could not be more supportive of the fact we want to do things our way. I actually think they'd be pretty disappointed in us if we went the traditional route! Certainly my uber-feminist mum would never talk to me again if I took my husband's name.

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  11. Your fake wedding sounds great! And I totally get why you would leave out some of the elements of a traditional wedding (I echo others' thoughts about the necessity of a dress and cake!). I suppose I'd never really thought so much about just how sexist they are! Maybe that's because I'd not got to the planning stages. At my sister's wedding, all three speeches were given by women, two related to the grown, and me. If I get married, I think I would like to speak ('he' can too if he wants) and have speeches from either side, men or women (I have a few close friends-who-are-boys). The choice about whether to change my name has not been made yet and would be something agreed together I think. Depends on the surname itself too!

    Anyway, 'nough about me! Really happy for you guys! And I'm really looking forward to hearing more about whatever you choose to share! :D

    p.s. Possibly some typos/ poor grammar in here but my phone is being really crappy and letting me go back and edit!

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