New guest blogger!

I’m so happy to introduce my first guest blogger…and hopefully not the last! Carl and I “met” on the Indiebride boards a few weeks back, and I knew instantly that he had to post about his wedding planning experiences….I’ll let his intro explain why….

About 6 months ago, I got engaged to the man of my dreams and started to plan our wedding. You’ve probably heard that about a million times before; it seems to be what so many women have hoped for ever since they were little girls.

Thing is, I’m a guy.

For my journey “down the lavender aisle,” there aren’t any roadmaps for me to follow. I don’t have any other gay or lesbian friends who have reached this point in their lives. And some of the gay wedding books out there are so, how can I put this eloquently, cheesy, not to mention condescending and already outdated.

I recognize that – gasp – there are more gay people like I who are going through this without any other perspective as they try to navigate how to plan a gay marriage, commitment ceremony, or celebration of their lives together. It seems a lot of people on this wonderful blog recognize this as well…

When Brooklyn Bride asked me if I would be interested in guest blogging about my planning experience, I jumped at the chance. At home with my partner, I’m only allowed to talk about wedding plans on Sunday nights. After dinner. For an hour. Max.

Now I have an outlet!

I don’t want to be presumptuous and say that I have all the answers. Hardly. What I will promise is to share my experience with you and give you a frank, inside look at my planning process – forks in the path, road blocks and all. From my engagement to breaking the news to our parents to finding the perfect venue to finding an officiant…any officiant!, I hope you’ll appreciate my stories, get a laugh from them, or potentially even garner some ideas for your own wedding/ceremony/celebration.

Maybe you have a gay friend who is getting married. Maybe you are that gay friend. Regardless, I hope you at least find my musings entertaining and I hope you will share your thoughts with me along the way!

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Why “lavender”?

In Ancient Greece, the Greek word for lavender supposedly also meant a gay man. In the 60s, the color became popular as a symbol for gay pride. And in recent years, it has been used to describe powerful gay executives in the media and other industries, “the lavender mafia.” So when it came time to name the blog, “down the gay aisle” just didn’t cut it. To get my point across, I borrowed a shade with a colorful gay history and “down the lavender aisle” was born.