A Memoir by Heather Emmanuel
You know there won’t be anyone to walk you down the aisle, so you never let yourself picture it. The guest count will be uneven; your family is considerably less tolerant of all this. The wrong person—a well-meaning plus one who has never been to a non-denominational wedding—will ask, where are your parents? Every detail is paid from your own pocket. A meal costs more than you make in an hour unless it’s time and a half. Figures flash above potential guests’ heads. Expenses make you resentful. Registries are now inconsiderate. You can’t get married first because her sister has been waiting nearly a decade for her proposal. And you can’t perpetuate that stereotype. Why not have a long engagement? You need to be married. Parental rights don’t exist for you until you say I do. Is it still a stereotype? You’ll wear a dress, and she’ll wear a suit. Of course. Isn’t that—? Venues call themselves inclusive. You are called nontraditional. Would they have made an exception a decade ago? You cannot ask this. You flick through the brochure, past posed photographs of couples who look nothing like you. The spreadsheet has too many names, too many guesses. When the word first leaves your lips—elope—you watch relief bloom across faces before they can hide it. Oh, good. And you know you’ve solved something for them. The word modern scratches your teeth. Maybe it’s for the best. Sensible equals tolerable. Another question will come, eventually: why didn’t you have a real wedding? Do you give them the real reason? What makes a wedding real if not for two scrawled signatures and recognition for what you already know to be true? Why didn’t we have a real wedding? We did. Oh, we did. You just weren’t invited.
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Heather Emmanuel is a Black British writer of contemporary lesbian literary fiction and prose poetry. Her work is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, The Offing, SWWIM, Maudlin House and Gone Lawn. You can find her at heather-emmanuel.com or at @heather.emmanuel8