Hello there!
There is no Emily Post etiquette guide for gay weddings.
I’ve been a very busy Caribbean destination wedding planner on a little island seven miles off the coast of Puerto Rico for five years, but I’d never really thought about that challenge before my client Patrick brought it to my attention as we were putting the finishing touches on his April commitment ceremony. He’s absolutely right. How have I missed that? His is certainly not the first gay wedding I’ve ever planned. I plan lots of commitment ceremonies because Vieques Island is very, very gay friendly and has a number of gay-owned businesses and accommodations.
Because there is no real etiquette authority (or rules) about how you do destination weddings (or gay destination weddings), I’ve been making it up as I go along. No really, I have. You see, I was raised by an etiquette aficionado. My cousin and I jokingly refer to my mom and her dad as “Ms.” and “Mr. Post,” respectively. They’re the only people left in the world that I know who flip over wedding invitations and run their fingers over the back to check and see if it’s real engraving before they ever look to see who is inviting them! Not saying there’s anything wrong with that. Just sayin’.
I was raised in a strict household with consistent manners enforcement. We called our parents “Ma’am” and “Sir.” Some people seem to find that appalling now, but I think it was a benefit. We all have lovely manners as a result. And I’m a lucky wedding planner who was brought up to know which fork is which, where to seat whom for special events (even when there are multiple spouses involved), how to properly address an envelope to anyone (The Honorable, The Reverend, etc.), how to properly set a table, how to write an amazing thank you note, and how to keep a polite smile on my face no matter how horrified I am by what I’m seeing in front of me. I spent 13 years in a plaid kilt and I was a Girl Scout with all the manners badges. See – now I’ve established my credentials and they’re probably better than most. So let’s proceed.
How have I been determining destination wediquette for the past five years? I’ve been winging it with a little common sense. This is a fun topic that I’ll probably blog about more than one time (hello, I see a book here!), but for today, let’s start at the beginning and tackle the etiquette questions that come up most frequently with my gay clients.
1 – How do you address the wedding invitations?
Believe it or not, that’s just as tricky a question no matter what kind of couple is getting married. Times have changed. If you want to involve your parents in the wording of the wedding invitations, you can refer to the old fashioned method of naming the people who are hosting the event. In this day and age, most couples are contributing significantly to their own wedding budgets so not everybody puts their parents’ names on the wedding invitations anymore. In fact, having mom and dad on there at all is less and less common. But if you are using their names, and if you want to do it the proper or traditional way, and if one set of parents are paying for a significant portion of the wedding, that set of parents should have top billing on the invitation. For example, if Bob’s parents are paying for the entire wedding, the invite would read (allowing for your own phraseology and style):
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Graham Smith cordially invite you
to the marriage of their son
Robert Graham Smith, Junior,
to Edward Thomas Black
If both sets of parents are paying or you want to acknowledge them equally regardless of financial contribution (more popular in this day and age than you can even imagine), you would add the line after the second groom’s name “son of Dr. and Mrs. Leroy Desmond Black.” Yes, I am making the names up (I knew you were wondering).
2 – Who sits on which side at the wedding?
Traditionally, the bride’s family goes on the left and the groom’s family sits on the right. But at a gay wedding where there are two brides or two grooms, it’s less clear. Joke all you like, but one half of each couple has always planned more of the wedding. That’s the person we put on the bride’s side if there’s a question about it. It’s certainly not a hard and fast rule, and you can do whatever you want, but if you need to ask me… I’ll tell you which one of you is the bride. J
3 – How do you seat the parents? Who gets treated like top dog?
Usually it’s the bride’s mother, but when you have two MoGs instead of a MoB, what’s the protocol? Well, if you decided to follow my first suggestion of putting whoever planned the wedding on the left side, you would seat the mother of the person on the right first, and then follow with the MoG who will be seated on the left (the traditional MoB spot).
4 – Should you do the first dance and cut the cake?
You should do whatever you want to do on your wedding day. If you’ve always wanted to smash your partner’s face with cake, why hold back? Yet, you don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. I have plenty of straight clients who opt out of cake cuttings, first dances and even the bouquet toss. You should do things that make your day more special.
5 – Who belongs on the “must invite” list?
The same people should be invited to your wedding regardless of your sexual preference. The only people you should invite should be people who love you and support your decision to get married. If you have some family members who don’t approve of your decision, you don’t have to invite them. Nobody negative should be included. Don’t try to be the bigger or better person. It’s your wedding day. The entire day is about the union you’ve chosen to form. Anybody who doesn’t get that and isn’t completely behind you doesn’t belong there on such an important day.
Etiquette is more than knowing that nobody’s plate should be cleared from the table until everybody at that table is finished eating. A lot of it is a framework to which you apply common sense. It gets tricky, however, when the social situation under consideration is a wedding or commitment ceremony because there are such a heightened level of emotions involved. Sometimes you have to stop, take a breath, and mentally step back from a situation to make the proper wediquette decision. Ask yourself what would EP (Emily Post) do?
Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra? Have you started planning your Caribbean destination wedding or commitment ceremony yet?
Sandy
Sandy Malone, a guest blogger with Purple Unions, is the owner of Weddings in Vieques, a full-service destination wedding planning company based on Vieques Island, seven miles off the coast of Puerto Rico. She and her team (including her husband Bill, a retired SWAT team commander) have planned and executed almost 400 weddings and commitment ceremonies in the Spanish Virgin Islands. Sandy is a veteran event planner from Washington, DC, with years of experience planning large and small weddings, press conference, and corporate and political events. She has planned countless events on Vieques Island, beginning with her own wedding back in 2004. Since that time, her professional staff has executed large and small weddings of all styles, including elopements, vow renewals and fabulously posh events at multi-million dollar waterfront villas. She has also planned family reunions, destination baby showers, corporate retreats and a variety of other events for clients from all over the United States and Canada. Sandy is also the owner of Weddings in Culebra (wedding planning on Vieques’ little sister island) and Flowers in Vieques (a full service floral and décor firm). Visit her at www.weddingsinvieques.com.
