With this week came the fab news that gay marriage is now legal in New York. About time! I've never been New York so most of my opinions of what its like has been formed from 'sex and the city' and 'friends' but i would think they would be strong believers in rights for the gay community. In celebration of this achievement my post today is about civil partnerships.
- What is a civil partnership?
A civil partnership describes the legal relationship for same sex couples, aged over 16. It gives lesbian and gay couples the same legal benefits as heterosexual married couples. These include rights to survivor pensions, recognition for immigration purposes and equal treatment for tax purposes such as inheritance tax.
For a civil partnership there are 2 options and that's a registry office or a licensed venue. I myself am getting married in a licensed venue and my tips would be to book early because not all venues are licensed and to make sure you are totally aware of all the costs involved. From a budget point of view it's hard to say which is cheaper. With the registry office the hire of the registrar is cheaper and sometimes venues charge additional rates for the use of the ceremony room even though you are having your reception there so a registry office can work out cheaper in that respect too. However getting married in the same place that you are going to have the reception means a share of the transport and decoration costs.
There are many churches that seek to be as open to different communities as possible and may like to work with the couple after their ceremony to give them a blessing. The blessing could be as intimate or as extravagant as you want with your choice of readings and music and your decision of who you would like to join you to celebrate your blessing. A typical blessing involves promises made by the couple, blessing of the rings, indication of support from the congragation, prayers for the couple and a signing of the document to make the occasion (sounds pretty much like a full ceremony to me!).
- What happens with the processional?
It is traditon for the bride to be walked down the aisle so what is the traditon with a gay marriage? Well whatever you want! You can still have one spouse waiting at the top of the aisle while the other is escorted down, you can walk down together or (my favourite) you can have a seating arrangement with 2 aisles that both join up at the altar.
Whether you're gay, straight, bi or a leprechaun a wedding is about wearing whatever you want. There is an increasing amount of 'alternative' wedding wear coming into the mainstream such as short wedding dresses, trouser suits and a variety of different suits for the groom so its about choosing something that represents you and that you feel comfortable in. I saw a lesbian wedding where both the brides were wearing wedding dresses but their choices were totally different to one another because their style was so different, it looked fab!
ALWAYS an issue, regardless of sexuality. I've
written a blog post about this before and its worth checking out because it can apply to any type of wedding. In the modern times anyone and everyone can contribute to the wedding but its important to get it sorted out before the planning occurs.
Again this is totally down to individual choice. You may not want to change your name at all or you may feel that its a great way to show your union. If you want to change you could go double barrelled, pick the best name out of the 2 surnames or i've even heard of merging your names to create a totally new one (think Brangelina with surnames).
