Back from the wedding

[kodalai]

Feeling kind of sad and let down, but only in the way that you get after something good is over.

I just came back from Boston, attending my sister ayelle's wedding with nick zendzian. (Now Nicholas Paul Bennett-Zendzian, if I understand correctly.) It was about as good as weddings can get. The bride was beautiful, the location was beautiful, the ceremony was beautiful, and the party afterwards was fantastic. All of it helped along, I think, by my sister and brother-in-law's experience in theater, as well as the generous sprinkling of theater friends among the guests.

Also, on the topic of weddings in Massachusetts, you should read this story. It's very tear-inducing.

Comments

[sharona1x2.livejournal.com]

She looks so pretty! I love the color of her dress. I like when brides wear something less traditional. I hope they'll have long and happy lives together.

Society gives benefits to marriage because marriage gives benefits to society.

That's ridiculous. What benefits does marriage give society? It's not like people have to be married to have kids.

[okaasan59.livejournal.com]

I think there are benefits, though they are not limited to traditional marriage.

Marriage encourages a commitment between two persons, and ultimately between families. Bonds are forged that otherwise might not be made. And I think that although the level of commitment can be just as strong between two persons who are not married, it may not always look that way to those outside the relationship who may not understand. When you say "marriage", whether between an opposite sex or same sex couple, you immediately get a sense of the deepness of that relationship as compared to others the partners may be in. And I think that the faith and trust that these bonds encourage is a benefit to everyone in society. I just wish that more couples could be happily married. But that's another story.

[diatomacearth.livejournal.com]

I think one of the quickest and most obvious benefits marriage offers to a society is social stability--people in family units are more invested in the status quo, and more invested in other people. But marriage and family units can come in all sorts of configurations, as any sociologist, anthropologist, or historian can tell you at length. The nuclear family is a historical aberration, and arguably dysfunctional on a few points.

One of the (multiple) potential functions of a marriage is to create a safe and stable environment for raising children, also, but it's not the only potential function of a marriage, and there are many, many possible means by which an adult can end up involved in the raising of a child besides having given birth to that child or having directly contributed genetic material to that child.

The idea that society recognizes and rewards marriage because marriage is good for society is something I'm pretty down with; insofar as I think that all people owe society anyway, I don't even mind the idea that society has an valid interest in people's relationships. It's just that monogamous, two-person heterosexual marriage, families with children, and the nuclear family are not and never have been the only forms of marriage and family that offer benefits to broader society as well as to the individuals concerned.

[sharona1x2.livejournal.com]

Too often I see same sex marriages being dismissed because they don't produce children directly from the union, which was what I was thinking the person I quoted was doing. I'm a little sensitive to the subject, being a married woman who has no children (and never will have). It always makes me feel like my marriage must be lesser than others, because I'm childless.

That's really where I was coming from when I answered the post. That, and the fact that my parents were divorced. I'm not sure what that gave back to society...

[velvet-mace.livejournal.com]

Divorce didn't give anything back to society, but it probably made your parents happier and more able to go on and find other people to remarry.

Don't listen to the anti-gay rights crazies, they paint marriage as being a flimsy and near worthless state whose sole purpose is to bolster their bigotry. They'd have you believe it's not about love or faithfulness, but about fearing God and sacrifice.

[velvet-mace.livejournal.com]

The married couple take care of each other. They support each other when one is laid off, or sick, or needs things done. They are more able to take care of sick parents, siblings, children. All those services would need to be picked up by the state if there wasn't someone with an emotional investment already ready to work for free. And when things go really wrong it makes it easier for medical decisions to be made in a timely way, for funeral arrangements, wills and powers of attorney to be handled, distribution of property.

The state has a huge vested interest in seeing that couples are married -- has for ever, otherwise the institution wouldn't exist or would be nothing more than the non-binding, unrecognized "blessing" ceremonies that are the best that gay couples can have in many states.

[foxglove6.livejournal.com]

definitely a good kind of sad :-)

and that article? yeesh! i'm bawling!! :-( I'm glad there are still some sane states. I hope there will be more.

[okaasan59.livejournal.com]

Your sister is gorgeous! I am so jealous of her beautiful hair. And I think it's wonderful for a bride to wear celebratory red--the Chinese are so right about that!

Thanks for the link to the article. I really enjoyed that and passed it on. (Hope the surprise remains a surprise!)

[diatomacearth.livejournal.com]

I appreciated--and so did the audience--that the minister started the ceremony with a recognition of the fact that Massachusetts has marriage equality. I can't remember whose idea it had been originally, but both the minister and the couple had loved the idea when it came up during the service planning.

I think the name issue still technically undecided? But I've labeled all my photos ABZ/NBZ-W anyway.

More than a sprinkling! Almost a third of the attendees were people they knew through that theater group. Man, I love those guys. They seriously know how to party.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

*is full of awwwwww*

When John asked us to think about "what we would like to be reminded of" when he gave his homily (since, one would hope, nothing he said about marriage would actually be *new* to us!), I found that marriage rights for all was very much on my mind. I was thinking about people who choose to put off their own opposite-sex marriage indefinitely as a protest until marriage is avaialble for all (and how that kind of protest is widely derided...), and I wanted to make some sign indicating how important those rights were to us, too. So we asked John to talk about the state's commitment to marriage for all, which he was only too happy to do, seeing as his own daughter married a woman here in MA not too long ago.

We're going with Nicholas Bennett Zendzian, it seems. (Unlike me, no hyphen; Bennett will be his middle name.) It's been a tough decision, that's for sure. I genuinely did not expect his parents to object to that, particularly not after we'd already TOLD them what we wanted to do... argh.

[ayelle.livejournal.com]

And that story had me in TEARS! And it appeared on August 8th! Awww!!!

[velvet-mace.livejournal.com]

Congrats to your sister. Her wedding looks beautiful!

[orion117.livejournal.com]

Everyone looks beautiful, and I love your sister's dress! The lace around the waist and down the side is gorgeous. But where are the pictures of you? I'm glad everything went so well for their important day.

It always slays me that the groups who preach about "family values" are, for the most part, the same people who oppose same sex couples from making their own families. Weasels.