Wedding Bells

I spent this past weekend back in good ol'Beantown for the wedding of my good friend Ty and his new husband James. It was my first gay wedding and I have to say it was fantastic. These boys really put things together well. The pictures will be added very soon but I thought I would recap to give any other grooms-to-be some ideas and offer some personal commentary (would you expect any less?).

The wedding started on Saturday afternoon with a small reception where friends and family (all 30 of us) mingled with full glasses of wine in hand.
Point #1- Giving guests time to talk is good, but adding alcohol to that is MUCH better.
After 1 hour of that the grooms took to the front of the small room, where a good friend of theirs said a few words. After a short introduction they placed the rings on each other’s fingers and it was over.
Point #2- It was long enough to be special and emotional but wasted no time with ceremony for the sake of ceremony. When I asked one of the grooms why there was no vows his reply was, “We talked about that, but then realized neither of us could probably make it through them.”
Following the ceremony, all the guests packed into a rented Trolley (yes, I said Trolley) and we were whisked around the city for an hour tour en route to the grand Boston Harbor Hotel. The tour was fun, especially for the out-of-towners and gave us another chance to mingle.
Point #3- Thinking ahead counts for a lot. If we had to find taxis that would have been a nightmare. This was a cute way to keep the party rolling.
Finally, we arrived at the hotel where we went up to the fantastic restaurant for an amazing 4 course meal. A note here is that the table seating was assigned even with a small group and really and truly I think it made everything better for everyone.
Point #4- Always assign seating, people come to your event to have fun and mingle, the last thing they should have to worry about is where they will sit and who they will know. Take the guess work out and be a kind host.
The grooms threw a great bash and I am genuinely ecstatic for them. They looked very in love and I hope they have a wonderful life together.

Weddings are an interesting time to reflect on each of our lives. Unfortunately, when we reflect we tend to reflect in a single, rose-colored light. I know sitting there, watching these two friends of mine proclaim their love for each other, I was emotional and nostalgic for love in my own life. Sitting there, my most recent relationship came back very strongly. Another one of those, “What am I doing with my life?!” moments hit me and for a second I too was singing, “All you need is love…” in harmony with the rest of a small crowd at a tiny ceremony in Boston. The reality however is that love does not save the day, it doesn’t make people more compatible and it can not bend the world to it’s will. These are observations from my and others relationships and I have yet to see them fail. Love seems, more and more, like the icing on the relationship cake for stable people with strongly built relationships not the cake itself.

And now I got myself thinking about cake…