(Illustration via Delightfully Engaged)
If you listen to conventional wisdom, you’ll learn that you won’t remember a single moment of your wedding. It will all be a blur. And that is true for some brides. I’ve known several of them myself. I’ve known women who spent the entire day in a fog, or in tears, or stressing out over minute details nobody else noticed who missed their entire weddings.

Me? I wasn’t like that. I’ve known a lot of other brides who were more like me. They spent their wedding days really at their weddings and remember them clearly years later.

You may simply be the sort of person who gets caught up in emotions and forgets the details. It happens. But if your fog or forgetfulness springs from another source, there are ways to get more in touch with the moment and truly enjoy yourself at your wedding.
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This happy couple is Lela McArthur and Stephanie Figarelle, personal trainers both hailing from Alaska. They didn’t marry there. The place they’re standing is the observation deck of the Empire State Building in New York City. On Valentine’s Day, McArthur and Figarelle became the first same-sex couple to marry in the Empire State Building after winning a contest on Facebook to get married there with the services of celebrity event planner Colin Cowie. The contest, called Wings of Love, also required the happy couple to accept the choices of Facebook users to determine their wedding rings, floral arrangements, reception menu… pretty much everything.

Figarelle wore a black suit provided by Men’s Warehouse, and McArthur wore a strapless white gown sent from Kleinfeld, setting of Say Yes to the Dress and it’s myriad offshoots.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Figarelle said:

‘It’s unfortunate it’s not more understood or accepted in our country. Love is genderless. It’s two souls, that’s it,’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2101001/Lesbian-couple-Alaska-sex-pair-wed-Empire-State-Building.html#ixzz1mesndXX3

I couldn’t agree more.

In all, four couples won weddings in the Empire State building. Aterwards, all four couples’ weddings will be voted on again to decide which had the nicest one. That couple will win a $100,000.00 cash prize.

I hope you’ll join with me in wishing the very happiest of marriages to all four couples: McArthur and Figarelle, Phil Fung and Shawn Klein (the first male/male couple to marry in the Empire State Building), Angela Vega and Lubin Masibay, and Paula Cubero and Enrique Cattler. Whoever wins the prize money, you have all begun an amazing journey. Best wishes!

Yes, it’s Kate and William Barbie and Ken. According to an article from MSNBC, Mattel plans to release the hound… er… dolls… er… collectible figures in April to coincide with the royal couple’s first anniversary.

The pair will be dressed in wedding finery modeled on that worn by the actual couple, from her Alexander McQueen gown to her diamond tiara and the groom’s Irish Guard uniform in striking scarlet.

Of course, some couples get immortalized as Barbie dolls faster than others. Last month, Mattel released their Twilight line Edward and Bella Barbie and Ken… and they were only married last summer.

Then again, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are available for pre-order at $100.00 a set, while Edward the Sparkly Vampire and his eternal bride go for just $29.95 each.

For those looking for something down the middle, Mattel did release their wedding edition Faith Hill and Tim McGraw wedding Barbie and Ken for $69.95. They come with microphones.

When wedding photographer Jerry Tomko survived stomach cancer in 2007 thanks to the excellent care he received at Thomas Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia, he wanted to give back to those who had saved his life. And so it was that he asked the center to find a cancer patient or survivor who needed some nice wedding pictures.

For quite a while, the center didn’t have any ideas who Tomko could help. Then along came social worker and mother of four Melinda Muniz.
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Yesterday in a vote of 55 to 43, the Washington State House passed a bill to legalize same sex marriages. The Senate approved the measure last week, and Governor Chris Gregoire is expected to sign it into law as soon as it hits his desk.

In fact, Gregoire issued a statement after the vote that it is:

“a major step toward completing a long and important journey to end discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

It was passed without proposed amendments that would have allowed bakers and photographers a waiver from providing services to same sex couples due to religious belief, such as are granted to churches. Since the last time I heard, bakers weren’t churches, I think this is only right and fair. After all, in my bookselling days I had to sell books to people who were homophobic, racist, sexist, and all kinds of other things I find wildly offensive. As long as they weren’t breaking the law or strongly disrupting the business I was engaged in, I had to serve them to the best of my ability. I didn’t have to enjoy it, but I had to do it.

The new law is scheduled to go into effect ninety days after the end of the session next month, but opponents are already working to put a measure on the next ballot that would negate this vote.

Still, this signals a major turnaround in state marriage politics since the state legislature passed a Defense of Marriage Act in 1998. While the state Supreme Court upheld the act in 2006, it was overturned that same year by a gay civil rights measure. In 2007, a domestic partnership law was passed which the voters upheld.

Washington state legislature, I salute you! And may the voters of your state be more fair-minded and less paranoid than the ones in mine.

In a 2 to 1 decision, the 9th Circuit Court has declared Proposition 8 a violation of the rights of gay Californians.

In his write up of the decision, Judge Reinhardt wrote:

“Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”

Reinhardt was quick to say that this decision is only about this issue in this state, but the court’s decision that denying same sex couples the right to marry violates their rights as human beings and as citizens could well add weight to the case for marriage equality when it comes before the Supreme Court.

Sometimes justice is slow, but I firmly believe it will come for all of us. Today, I got another proof that my faith is justified. It is my fond hope that California will rejoin the ranks of those who offer full rights to all its citizens soon.

After seven years of marriage, three children, and yearly reaffirmation ceremonies, Heidi Klum and Seal announced yesterday that they are filing for divorce.

No very specific reason was given for the split, but the couple did release a joint statement, saying they had “grown apart” and that their separation is amicable.

Whatever their reasons, I do have to appreciate the fact that they are refusing to air their dirty linen in public. That, my friends, is how to do it the classy way.

The other split that made the news this week is Aretha Franklin and fiance Willie Wilkerson, who announced the end of their engagement just weeks after announcing its beginning. While the engagement is off, though, there is no word of whether or not they have ended their romance.

Franklin’s statement said that she and Wilkerson had decided they were moving “a little bit too fast” and said there were “a number of things that had not been thought through thoroughly.” The upshot? “There will be no wedding at this time.”

Whatever their issues, it is my fond hope they can be resolved to the satisfaction of all involved. But if they can’t, I do believe it’s better that things end in a broken engagement than a painful divorce down the road.

None of this is happy news, but the heart is a resilient muscle. May all four parties find happiness in the long run, if not at the moment.