Initial thoughts.
OK, I am a writer, but I have never blogged before. The whole enterprise intimidates me, as I am on the tail end of a generation whose worst nightmare was having their diary read by anyone. I know, I know, this is a not a diary, and these days, my worst nightmare is not that my diary might be read, but how boring people would find it. But, I procrastinate.
This is a blog about my impending (ahem), upcoming nuptials. My wedding is planned for a little over a year from now, and the stress has begun.
Here's the thing, it is not the bridezilla-stress made iconic by shows like, uh, lets see Bridezillas, for starters. Its not the idea of a perfect wedding, or a perfect space like in Bride Wars, and it is certainly not a worry about the guy and whether he's the one for me, like in the...oh god, there is not enough time in the day.
No for me the stress is getting behind the idea of a wedding in a way that is not a total compromise of my feminist ideals. My partner and I are adults who been together for 7 years, lived together for four, and we are entering into a legal and romantic contract with our eyes open, our expectations realistic, and despite this clinical explanation, we are very, very in love.
He wanted to get married. And so did I, in a way. But we put it off. And off. And off. There were lots of reasons, I could fill 10 more blogs. But one of the reasons is the fear of becoming part of the consumer wedding machine, of losing my identity and, perhaps worst of all, compromising my feminist ideals in pursuit of some fairy tale wedding, which I don't really believe in, and I know will have no bearing on my actual marriage. (Marriage? What does that have to do with a wedding.)
I gotta tell you, I am don't see myself tripping down that particular rabbit hole, at least, not consciously. But I have decided to keep this blog as a way of tracking my research (yeah, I'm doing research about it) and share my pro-feminist wedding plans with anyone who is interested.
And also as practice with this whole "blog" thing. I figure I should give it a try. Since it really seems to be catching on.
Hey Alix, congrats on the blog and the wedding prep! I'm trying to think if my wedding was feminist - my husband doesn't think so, but what does he know? We did a lot of traditional things, but here's my suggestion for your research - to get out of some of the complications of the ketubah we wrote our own "tnai b'kiddushin" which basically says if we God forbid got divorced in secular court and he didn't give me a get for 6 months, the marriage would be annulled. so it gives me power, where traditional Judaism does not. we had that document signed by 3 female rabbis!
ReplyDeletegood luck!