5 Things NOT to Ask a Lesbian About Her Wedding
My daughter is getting married!
I’m so excited and proud for her, after all, doesn’t every parent want their children to find someone who treats them like the amazing people they are?
However, as she is lesbian and is getting married to another woman, people feel they are entitled to ask her some… intrusive questions about the big day.
Maybe I can do my part as Mom to the Bride-to-Be, and take a little break from the mindfulness-based posts, in answering some questions that you may have and feel too embarrassed to ask.
I also wanted to throw in that my son is getting married this month and I am so proud and excited for him as well! (This way no one can accuse me of favoritism later.)
1. So… who’s going to be wearing a dress?
A friend of ours, in a very well intentioned way, asked this of my daughter the other day when she was visiting home.
While I know he meant well, I could see her getting a little bit peeved that she was being asked this.
Does it even matter? How my daughter and her fiance choose to dress themselves for what will be one of their most memorable days together isn’t really what’s important.
Maybe they’ll both wear a dress, maybe they’ll both wear a suit, maybe they’ll have their wedding on a nude beach and wear nothing at all.
In the end what matters is that they’ll both feel absolutely stunning for the big day, and that ha less to do with the clothes and more to do with the love and support of the people around them.
2. Which one of you is THE bride?
Say it with me… both. They’re both the brides. They are both women, they identify as women, so they are both… brides, yes!
Regardless of if one of them may present more masculine traits (at least in terms of social norms) and the other more feminine that doesn’t make either one of them any less or more of a woman.
“Here comes the brides, da dum da dum…”
3. What are your families doing for the wedding?
This could be a particularly hard question for anyone in the LGBTQA+ community to answer.
You never know what their home life was like growing up. Some members of the LGBT community have had to go through truly horrible situations in order to become comfortable and celebrate all of the parts of themselves.
I’m so thankful that my daughter and I have a loving and supportive relationship and that she trusted me enough to be a part of her special day, but not everyone is so lucky.
Again, assess your relationship with this person.
Are you at a point where you could ask a very personal question and get an honest answer?
If not, don’t ask.
In addition, you may be able to figure out the answer to this question via context clues anyway, if they aren’t really talking about their family that much, or avoid the topic, it’s probably painful.
You wouldn’t want anyone else poking around in your personal family business, so why poke around in someone else’s?
As a happier side note, here’s a wedding planning site specifically geared toward lesbian/gay weddings with some beautiful photo albums and ideas for very classy and beautiful events.
“In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.”
4. What about your wedding night…?
Essentially, the answer to this question is… NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
You wouldn’t ask a straight couple what they were doing for their wedding night unless you were ex-treme-ly close with the couple, so why would you ask a lesbian couple?
The rule of thumb here is, are you close enough to the couple that asking about their sex life wouldn’t be deemed rude? If the answer is AT ALL in doubt, just don’t ask.
If you want to read a ridiculous list of the things that other lesbians get asked all the time, here’s a link to a blog that lists 30 common and ridiculous questions that lesbians get asked. (Spoiler alert, most of them are about sex.)
5. What about children?
Again, not that it’s your business, but that’s up to the discretion of the couple.
Some couples want to have children right after they get married, some want to wait, some may not want children at all.
In the past, the next, logical step after getting married was to try to start a family, but as the years have gone by the age at which people get married and the age at which people become first-time parents has inched ever higher.
While the “traditional” route may not be what lesbian couples use to have a child there are plenty of options ranging from adoption to IVF, and even new science coming out that will allow two eggs cells to be merged to create a zygote.
If you really want to explore what it takes, here’s a site that walks with lesbian couples step-by-step to discover what paths to motherhood would be the best for them.
All in all it’s probably not your business.
While people who are different than you may be an object of curiosity, it’s not always the polite thing to do to ask a bunch of questions that could be potentially annoying or painful for someone to answer.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on the LGBTQ community, but I’ve done my research in order to better support my daughter.
We live in a time where you can find out, in real time, what’s going on on the other side of the world. If you’re really interested, most things you want answered can be found online. One example being, “what does the Q stand for in LGBTQ?” Answer: queer/questioning!
Be human, enjoy that two people are in love and don’t worry about the details.
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