If you're gay, you probably haven't spent your whole life planning a dream wedding. Until New York passed the marriage equality bill, many of us never really thought that we'd ever have a real wedding. Before gays and lesbians were granted marriage rights, my "partner" and I figured we'd just go to Connecticut, find a judge and get hitched quickly and painlessly. But even though it'd have been legal, it didn't feel to us that that was going to be the real deal. We told our friends and family, "Oh, yeah. Not a big deal. We'll go out to a nice meal next time we see you."
Then the law changed, and that date that we'd set for our wedding became a sort of deadline. Suddenly this marriage was going to be a real thing, you know? The pressure was on! We could no longer go out of state. We had to actually invite people. We had to spend money, throw a fun party, and still figure out how to pay for a needed renovation to our bathroom. We had to find venues and vendors who were available on that kind of short notice. And most importantly, we had to figure out what exactly we wanted this wedding to be.
Assuming that other gays in Brooklyn are planning weddings and are struggling to figure out exactly how to throw a big party for friends and family without breaking the bank, I'm here to help.
Step 1: Finding a Spouse
Ginger's Bar / Photo via brooklyngay.com
OK, you're mostly on your own here. I met my spouse at Excelsior on 5th Ave, on my birthday. My best suggestion is that you go there, or to Ginger's , or to Metropolitan, or one of the other gay bars in Brooklyn. Introduce yourself to someone cute and offer to buy them a drink. It worked for me. Oh! Keep in mind that for purposes of getting married, you have to be at least 18 years old, and so does the person you're marrying. So, if you're looking for a lipstick lesbian underaged Courtney Stodden sexpot, or you've got a thing for a little blonde sumpthin-sumpthin of a twinkie, just make sure the kid's of legal age before you get too far along in the process.
Step 2: Getting a License
You and your intended have to show up at the Marriage Bureau in Room 205 of the Brooklyn Municipal Building on Joralemon Street in downtown Brooklyn. They're open from 8:30AM to 4PM Monday through Friday. Go in the morning, and plan on being a little late to work. The lines in Brooklyn aren't that long, and you can save yourself a lot of time if you fill out the forms online before you go. After you fill out the form, show up with your significant other and your confirmation number and a photo id, and get your license! There's a special FAQ just for the gays, if you want all of the minute and excruciating details of how to get a license.
Step 3: Finding an Officiant
You can just go ahead and get married at the Marriage Bureau, if you want something quick and easy. There's a 24-hour waiting period though, so if you're going to have to wait at least a day, you might as well plan a party and do it the right way. If you're big on Jeebus, you can choose one of the many "accepting" churches that puts rainbow flags on their sign out front. We decided, however, to have a friend perform the ceremony. It was economical, and it made our day extra special because someone who knew and loved us was performing the ceremony. I suggest that you get your best friend ordained over the internet, and have them do the ceremony. They'll have to register their credentials with the Marriage Bureau, and for that, you have to go into Manhattan. They won't register officiants in Brooklyn, because of, um, I don't know, reasons, I guess.
Step 4: Choosing a Venue
The Prospect Park Boathouse
There are some really cool places in Brooklyn to hold your wedding. If you're doing this on short notice, and you're not trying to have some gigantic Sex and the City wedding with a performance by Liza, you'll need a venue that's available and affordable. Prospect Park is a terrific place to get hitched. Prospect Park has simple and affordable "Tie the Knot and Toast" packages, where, for under $3,000 (not including catering), you can have a Saturday morning wedding at the Picnic House. You can rent out the Boathouse, or the Picnic House, or if you want a simple wedding outdoors, you can just get a permit and do it yourself--maybe in the bushes just off a footpath, where you and your new spouse first had sex?
As for us, we had our ceremony mid-day on the Friday of a three-day weekend at The Farm on Adderley in Ditmas Park. We're regulars at The Farm, and we love it there. It'd have been fun to have a big wedding in a space where we could have had a DJ or Band and dancing, but when we though about what our priorities were, we decided that we wanted good food, above all else. Huffington Post recently listed The Farm as one of the Top Ten Sustainable Restaurants in the United States, and we knew the food wouldn't disappoint. Plus, the atmosphere at the restaurant was cozy and comfortable, and we wanted to be someplace that felt like home. The restaurant can accommodate a max of 110 people, and for a weekday afternoon meeting, our total food and booze bill was pretty reasonable--meaning under $10K. The Farm on Adderley does off-site catering, as well.
There are tons of other venues you can rent, of course. One cool and increasingly-popular event space that we considered briefly was The Green Building in Carroll Gardens. It's got a great vibe and you can actually check availabilty on their website. Of course, if you're going for high camp, you might as well just head down to the Grand Prospect Hall, where, according to their commercial, they'll "make all your dreams come true." Fair warning, though: those dreams are more along the lines of frothy pink nightmares.
Step 5: Websites and Invitations
From Letters Lubell
Here's where I fucked up our wedding. My huzzzzband (pronounce that word as though you're Jackee on an episode of 227) and I decided that we wanted to be somewhat green, so we did as much of our save-the-dating and inviting and thank-you-ing on line. We thoroughly investigated wedding websites, and although we really liked NearlyWeds, we went with WedSimple, because it was free for us. At the same time, however, we sent out an e-vite to people. And some of our guests weren't good with e-mail and computer machines, so we ordered some free cards from VistaPrint and sent those out as well. Bottom line, we had too much going on, and at least one VERY BIG ERROR happened as a result of it. Somewhere along the line, one of my oldest and dearest friends got left off the list, and I don't know how exactly that happened. I guess I was keeping too many different lists, and they weren't reconciled properly, and by the time the big day arrived, I just assumed that he'd not been able to make the trip down from Boston. It was a major-fuck-up, and though I've sorted it out with my friend since then, I continue to feel shitty about the mistake.
So, here's a better option for you. Take the time to find out your guests snail-mail addresses, make one good list, and send out really nice paper invitations and notes via the post office. It might be a bit more expensive, and maybe a couple of trees will die as a result, but if you ordered pressed invitations from Letters Lubell, for example (again...they're here in Brooklyn), you'll get exactly what you want, and you probably won't have to mend the fence with one of your best friends.
STEP 6: A Photographer
My niece Ann, via Meredith Zinner
I've known Meredith Zinner for years, and I wanted her to take the pictures at our wedding. She's an actor by training, and started her photography business by taking head shots for other actors. From there, she branched out to photography of children, and more recently, she's been photographing events, including weddings. She did a phenomenal job of capturing all the love and warmth that was in the room when we got married. She put all of the photos into an online gallery, which we could send to our friends and family so that they could order pictures directly from her website. And she sent us a DVD of all of the photos she took. She's based in Park Slope, and her pictures are just gorgeous. Check them out, and hire her.
STEP 7: FLOWERS
We asked Sycamore to do our flowers. It made sense as they were just a few doors down from our wedding venue. But they'll do events of any size--even if all you want are two bouquets (or two boutonnieres), for a city hall wedding. For our wedding we set the tables with mason jars of sea holly, ranunculus, and rosemary. They were lovely, and it didn't break the bank.
Step 8: Happy Hours or After Parties
We decided to have a bar night where we met: Excelsior. We billed it as our "Where it All Began Happy Hour," and since we had a daytime wedding, it was kind of like an early-evening after party. It was great. It was a fun, relaxed atmosphere, and Mark (one of the owners) let us set up tables of food. For booze, we just ran a tab. We got some wristbands for our guests, and at the end of it, our total bar tab wasn't bad at all--probably because, you know, Jews Don't Drink, so half of my new spouse's family was out of the mix. We brought in food from The Chip Shop across the street. Their catering menu was perfect for a bar night. Or, if you don't want cornish pasties at your wedding, you could get trays of food from Rachel's, and that'd work out equally well. Our bar night was a terrific way to include other friends who we weren't able to invite to our wedding (or who couldn't attend, because we did it during the day on a Friday).
Step 9: Gifts for You, or for Your Guests
A dog currently up for adoption through NY Animal Rescue
Even though we set up a registry, we only did that because we knew that some people would insist on getting us gifts. Like many gay couples getting married though, we already had a shit-ton of crap. Hell, we'd been living together for years, you know? So even though we accepted gifts graciously, we also encouraged people to make donations to local charities in lieu of wedding gifts. And, at our wedding, instead of giving out party favors to our guests, we asked our guests to "vote" for a local charity by depositing their place card in a designated box as they were leaving. We then made a donation to those charities, in proportion to the votes of our guests.
One of the charities we chose was Sean Casey Animal Rescue, in Kensington. We're animal lovers, and Sean Casey runs a terrific program, just south of the Slope. They take in rescued, confiscated, neglected, injured, ill, unmanageable, or otherwise unwanted animals rehabilitate them, and find new, loving homes for them. Encouraging that kind of good juju is exactly what you want your wedding to be about, right?
The other charity we chose was the Ali Forney Center. The Ali Forney Center's mission is to protect homelss LGBTQ youth and to help them grow into maturity and independence in a safe environment. They run programs in Brooklyn in Sunset Park and in Ft. Green. What better way to celebrate your gay marriage than by donating to help gay kids who've been run out by their families because they're gay?
Step 10: Now, Go Out There and Get Gay Married!
David and me on our wedding day
That pretty much covers it, I think. As of press time, my marriage has outlasted Kim Kardashian's -- I see that as a sign that we planned our ceremony and party perfectly. Still, I know that other folks have had really fantastic weddings in Brooklyn, as well. If you've got a line on a vendor or venue that we've overlooked (meaning: most of them), leave a comment to clue your fellow FiPS readers in on the scoop.
And stay fabulous, everybody!
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