Getting Engayged With Zara Barrie

Let Zara, the unlikely bride-to-be cure your bridal malaise!

Photo by Owen Gould

How To Get Excited About Your Lesbian Wedding When You’re Missing the Wedding Gene.

This fall, I’m doing something that I never imagined I would ever do: I’m getting married. Even stranger, I’m having a wedding. Like, a real, grown-up wedding teeming with freshly-exfoliated guests and chic hors d’oeuvres and crystal champagne flutes. So what’s the big deal? Here goes, babe: I’m a rare creature who was simply born without the wedding gene. I’ve never cared for weddings; in fact, I’ve spent my life mocking them! I think white weddings are creepy. I’m allergic to bridal showers. I have a visceral reaction to bachelorette parties. I dry heave at the mere mention of of an “engagement shoot.” The whole wedding circus makes me gag!

So, was it the power of love that metamorphosed the apathetic cool girl into the basic bride?

Here’s the tea: I knew that my fiancée wanted us to have a “real wedding” and that despite my brilliant acting talents, I wouldn’t be able to sustain mustering up faux-enthusiasm for the next nine months. I had to either hop on the bridal train or sulk at station “cynical lez.” The latter wasn’t an option! I realized that in order to get genuinely excited about my wedding, I would have to shift my thinking, radically. “What if I take the framework of a traditional wedding, but make it my own?” I wondered. And just like that my bridal malaise was magically cured! I decided to adorn my “bridesbitches” in bubblegum pink suits, in lieu of dresses.  Instead of flower girls, we’re having glitter girls. Instead of my bridal party reading aloud bible versus, they’ll recite cryptic Lana Del Rey lyrics. I’m. Not. Wearing. White.

Tossing aside the expectations of what a wedding should look and feel like has been unexpectedly enlightening and empowering. It’s made me realize that deep down I’ve always longed to experience a celebration of love but didn’t know I had the option of doing it my way. It’s awakened me to the fact that my lifelong bout of bridal malaise isn’t genetic; it’s rooted in my distaste of the heteronormative “traditions” that alienated me growing up. But you know what? I knocked the “girl-must-love-boy” tradition into the ground, so why can’t I do the same for my wedding? I can. And I will.

So for all the newly engaged lesbians who are feeling wildly apathetic, I challenge you to look at your wedding through a new lens. Let your wedding serve as an honorarium to your strength, as a gay woman. Despite the rampant homophobia that tarnishes our culture, you attained the wherewithal to live and love authentically. And that alone is worth celebrating.

So close your gorgeous eyes and let go of the preconceived ideas of what “weddings” are supposed to look like. Visualize the wedding of your wildest dreams and bring that shit to life. Oh, and invite me to your wedding. Afterall, I saved the day, amIright?

Zara Barrie is the Executive Editor of GO Magazine. She identifies as a “mascara lesbian” and lives beyond her means in Manhattan. The advice offered in this column is intended for informational purposes only and should not replace or substitute for any medical, or other professional advice or help.


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