While in California my amazing girlfriend (now fiancé) proposed to me – and I said yes! Obviously. This woman has been the best part of my life for the past three and a half years, I couldn’t image what life would be like without her.

Now that I got the gooey stuff out of the way… on to the planning! And opinions. You hear that everyone has an opinion about your wedding, but it doesn’t feel quite real until it smacks you in the face. We’ve been engaged for a month, and if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard ‘well have you thought about’ I would probably have enough to buy me some nice sparkly shoes. I shouldn’t be that mean, people are just excited and they want to help.

What I’ve found interesting so far is how we are navigating around the hetereonormative wedding traditions. There is something truly freeing about not feeling like you have to do this, or have to incorporate things into your wedding. It also kind of sucks? Don’t get me wrong, I love bucking the norm as much as the next queer lady, but I would like at least a road map to start from. Nothing has been clearly defined as gay wedding etiquette and that’s pretty awesome. From food to music to what we want to wear, it’s all up to us.

What’s even more interesting is how friends and family have been managing it. “Are you both wearing dresses? Do you guys do rehearsal dinners? What about cake?” Since neither of us are marrying a dude, people think that we automatically have to be unconventional. We’re bucking the norm because of who we are- I love being unconventional but it’s not something that I need to do. Nothing has to be traditional, unless we want it to.

It feels like we’re free and under a microscope all at the same time. Every time I call a space to look at I’m afraid they won’t even talk to us. Every time I fill out a form where they ask me who the groom is I get mad because I don’t see myself in the bridal industry.

Everything is a reminder that we’re different. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I like being different. It’s something that I need to get used to because I know everything isn’t going to change as fast as it should or as fast as I want. Change will come by being our beautiful loving selves who will throw an awesome celebration. It’ll come when people realize how we’re the same, yet extraordinarily different.