Like many feminists, I have always regarded the institution of marriage with some skepticism. While at one point in my life I thought I would never get married, I changed my mind when I met my husband, Chuck.
Being with him made me feel like I wanted to experience everything life had to offer — including marriage and whatever that entailed. I wanted to celebrate our love and our life together with the people we care about the most and honor our commitment to each other.
But marriage will always be a tradition borne out of the patriarchy. So there I was on our wedding day, a feminist dressed in ivory, clutching my father’s arm while he walked me down the aisle. Making a wedding “feminist” is a tough task — nearly impossible, and I found myself having to make concessions along the way. For example, while I originally wanted to walk down the aisle alone, in a nod to my independence, giving my dad his moment and avoiding hurting his feelings was much more important to me.
Luckily, I still found some ways to incorporate feminist values into my wedding that made me feel comfortable. This is not meant to define for anyone else what a feminist wedding is, and I do not claim that the way I did things is the “correct” way to have a feminist wedding. In fact, fundamentally I think what ultimately makes a wedding feminist is when the bride and her partner have the freedom to create the type of wedding celebration that feels right for them.
1. We picked a progressive officiant
We had a woman Justice of the Peace conduct our ceremony who was on board with the type of wedding we wanted to have and was willing to work with us to create a ceremony that reflected our philosophies. I met with her before the wedding and told her how important feminism is to me and gave her some suggestions of language I wanted her to incorporate in her remarks, like a reading from bell Hooks’ book, All About Love. She also let me veto several of the traditional customs in wedding ceremonies — like when the officiant thanks the father of the bride for “giving” her away — a notion that implies the woman is a piece of property being transferred from one man to the next. Our officiant understood what we wanted and didn’t want and became our partner in creating a customized ceremony.
Top Comments
A feminist wedding is anything you want it to be.
Unless you want to adopt your husband's surname and the honorific "Mrs".
So your feminism made you sceptical (we spell it with a "c" in Oz) of marriage but then you realised your feminism had hoodwinked you and that maybe all men weren't overbearing arseholes after all? But you still allowed feminism to colour your views of every last detail how a wedding should be run?
And, for the record, most of your choices sound like a typical, modern, secular wedding. Hardly ground-breaking or unusual. Did your partner have a say in anything?
Interesting that the editors chose to illustrate your article with a picture of Mr and Mrs Clooney.