What do you do when you can’t get legally married where you live?

Go to Canada.

Oh it’s just like the draft, except for the love part and the no killing part. And the h’ors d’oeuvres.

It’s not exactly that flip. I grew up in Canada. my whole family lives in Toronto.

We’ve decided to have the wedding-wedding here in San Francisco where our community a year from June. We originally though it might happen earlier. But between multiple surgeries and unrelated medical school it didn’t.

But we want to be legally married as well. So we’re gong to do that in Toronto. Christmasi-sh-time, because that’s how school holidays are organized. With some family and people to celebrate because my family are Jews and they’re gonna shep naches whenever they can. You want to know why weddings are a big deal to Jews? Because it’s a legitimate occasion for happiness. Those don’t come often, so Jews have to cram all the happiness and tummelling they can whenever they get the chance.

And I’m their oldest child and my mum has watched her friends have weddings so finally, she gets a chance. Let me tell you. If they wait long enough, it won’t matter that it’s a lesbian wedding. It’s a frickin’ wedding. Ladyporn.

And now that Stace is going to med school (in Long Island no less) she’s as good as Jewish. She gets 58 bonus mitzvah points. I thought she was going to be a dance therapist when I met her. The last thing I wanted to do was. like my mother, marry a doctor. (That’s a much longer story, or play, to come later.)

I’m thrilled that they’re thrilled. It was a 10 year journey with my mum to go from glum faces and anxiety attacks to “I want to make a wedding for you.” She came around before it became legal in Canada, but it sure helps.

Stace’s folks haven’t had as long as mine to deal with this and they still live in a small town in the midwest. They’re not planning on inviting extended family or friends to either wedding.

I imagine it’s weirder in some ways to be a parent of someone gay than to be gay yourself. I mean when I came out, I got to sleep with cute girls. What did my parents get out of it?

So now it’s gonna get to the details. This is he part that can make weddings not fun. We will plan our wedding-wedding in San Francisco fully ourselves. Celebrating after City Hall we can leave to the grown ups. My parents want Stace’s folks to feel comfortable too. Who will come? How will the fun happen? Stay tuned…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Jew, law, life, wedding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.