Wedding Blog
Lately, we are getting this question a lot: So, what is different about marriage? And to be honest our reply is, “absolutely nothing.” This question has got Mr. Cookie and I wondering why we got legally married. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mr. Cookie with all my heart and soul, but we really didn’t need a piece of paper or a pastor pronouncing us husband and wife to seal the marriage deal. We were married in our hearts a long time ago.
Sans a marriage certificate, we’ve been leading a nuclear family lifestyle. We eat breakfast and dinner together every evening—I do the majority of the cooking, but Mr. Cookie knows his way around the kitchen! I clean up the bathrooms, while Mr. Cookie has doggie poo duty. Mr. Cookie pays for the mortgage, while I pay off my student loans. And we both take care of our beautiful Pomeranian. We called it domestic partner bliss.
But, you may be asking, isn’t one of the advantages to getting married a tax break? Actually, not for us Cookies. Ever heard of the marriage penalty? Well, the marriage penalty is going to hit us hard this year, and that means no tax breaks for the Cookies. If you would like a longer explanation of the marriage penalty, ask Mr. Cookie, as he is the financial analyst in the relationship.
Besides love, what motivated us to get married?
A little over a year ago, Mr. Cookie and I were passing through United States customs after a vacation to Europe—the vacation where Mr. Cookie proposed to me. In the six countries we traveled though, we were always allowed to go through customs together and never once were asked if we were married. We approached the United States customs counter together and were promptly asked by the customs agent, “Are you married?” Mr. Cookie replied, “No, but we are engaged.” The customs agent looked directly at me and said, “Madam, you are going to have to wait behind the yellow line.” OK, so I get the need for security, but we were both a little taken aback by the incident. Mr. Cookie is my partner. He is my family. Why couldn’t I pass through security with him? Six other countries had let us, without question. Bu without that little piece of paper we were not recognized in the eyes of the United States Government as anything but single. Legally, without that little piece of paper we had no rights as a couple.
Joanne Mock, left, and Beth Kerrigan speak to a reporter in front of the Connecticut State Supreme court in Hartford, Conn., on Monday, May 14, 2007. The two are part of the court case Kerrigan & Mock et al v. Connecticut Department of Public Health, which deals with same-sex marriage and will be argued before the state Supreme Court.
In a 4-3 ruling, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Friday that gay couples have the right to marry. The ruling follows behind Massachusetts and California, and Connecticut will be the third state to allow same-sex marriages. To read more about the ruling, I encourage you to read the Associated Press article.
Before getting engaged and our experience through customs, gay marriage wasn’t a matter I paid much attention to. It didn’t seem relevant to my life. However, after our customs encounter Mr. Cookie and I understood what that little piece of paper meant, especially for gay couples, and the right to be married to the person I loved seemed more relevant to my life than ever before.
Mr. Cookie and I got married because we love one another. We are each others’ family, we want to be with each other for the rest of our lives, and we want to have the right to be recognized as a married couple in the eyes of the government. I couldn’t even imagine being denied the right to recognize Mr. Cookie as my husband, or me as his wife.
Why did you and your partner decide to get married?
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Great post, Cookie. 
That’s wonderful news about CT! I wish Michigan would jump on the wagon, hopefully someday soon.
Could Mr. Cookie do a guest blog entry about the marriage penalty? I am very interested to hear more!
My husband is in the canadian military, we were going to wait a few years after being engaged to get married. But because we knew that he was getting posted to another base within the next year we decided to get married sooner because that would make it easier for me to move with him and then we moved our date up a few months earlier because we found out he was going to be deployed to Afghanistan. So really.. my government had a lot to with me getting married!
If you think it’s an issue having to go through security separately, try dealing with the medical system. Before you were married, if Mr. Cookie was in a car accident and was taken to the hospital, they wouldn’t even legally be able to tell you which hospital if you weren’t his wife. If he needed surgery, and was unconscious, you would have to get one of his parents to sign the authorization. Upon his death, you would not be automatically entitled to any money from your joint accounts, or anything that he had owned separately - you could lose access to your own money if it was in a joint account until after probate. Except in a few states, you wouldn’t be able to share insurance benefits. Having to stand a few feet apart for a few minutes is really the absolute least of the potential problems you might have.
In our case, it’s also probably true that not a lot has changed in our normal, day-to-day lives. We are collectively saving about $600 a month, now that DH and his kids are on my insurance rather than his more expensive small usiness benefits. Plus they all have dental now, which they did not before - that will save a few thousand a year. We are also in a situation where, because we earn about the same amount of money, there is no tax benefit to getting married. However, and especially since we were not living together before we were married, we don’t expect to feel bad about the extra taxes - we expect that difference to be far overcome by the money that we collectively save.
However, we didn’t actually get married to save money either. We did it to show our commitment to each other, and to share it with our family and friends. I find that most of the people we know treat us at least a little differently now that we are married. People acknowledge our relationship and their happiness for us in a way that the did not when we were “just” dating. It’s pretty clear to me that there are social factors at play as well, although that may be more or less obvious depending upon whether most of your friends are married or not.
What a great post, Cookie! Thanks for spreading the word on the exciting news in Connecticut. You’re right, being allowed the privileges of marriage is something that nobody should be denied. I’m so glad to see the progress in other states!
i agree with PP that this is a great post.I am so happy that CT is allowing Gay marriages.
Yay, Connecticut!
Oh the irony -
The add between your post and the comment section for your post is for protectmarriage.com - a ‘yes on prop 8′ political site. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the proposition - a yes vote re-writes the California constitution to make marriage only between a man and a woman valid. In other words - a yes vote for 8 is a vote against gay marriage.
I was willing to take Mrs. Bee’s statement that eharmony didn’t discriminate against gay people at face value until I saw this ad. Weddingbee just lost a reader.
That’s great news and this is such a wonderful post. I’m also curious about the marriage penalty…
We got married so we could stay together.
I only had a month and a half left on my visa, we had talked about the option of the fiance visa a few months ago, but neither one of us could bear to be separated again. It had been too hard for us already before. So we just did it. We got married to have our chance to be happy, because we couldn’t imagine our lives without the other one being there.
I have to say that I was surprised how big of a deal being married seems to be in the USA. It’s a lot more laid back in France; people live together for years before they do anything, if they ever feel the need to.
As you, being married is mainly a piece of paper. Although I have found over the past year that one tiny thing has changed, there is a deep, kind of feeling, the kind that you are not fully aware of but that stays in the back of your mind. It’s the feeling of certainty that you love one an other and wish to spend your life together. And at the same time because of that certainty, you remind yourself that you have to work everyday, not to forget that you have to make it work, that you have to do the effort and not take it for granted.
At least that’s how it feels for me.
And as for the CT news, I heard it a few weeks ago and I’m happy about it.
Ironic that the add is right on your posting! But, I just used it as an excuse to write those close-minded, pushy people about exactly how I feel about their ideas! It’s amazing how judgemental people can be when they let their fears run wild instead of minding their own business! Sorry for the tangent, but I just don’t get this thing against gay marriage. And I wanted to let you know that even if there is a retarded ad on your blog page, it can still be used to fight back against this close-minded folks by contacting them!
i feel just the same way! why should anyone be denied the right to get married to the person (of whatever sex) who he or she loves? it’s just as simple as that (for me). what i find ironic is that right below your post, there’s an ad for “Vote Yes on Prop 8″ - the California constitutional amendment initiative that would ban gay marriage in California if passed. why is that advertising there? it bothers me that i read your wonderful post, only to see this anti-gay, intolerant ad below it…
@anon: “I was willing to take Mrs. Bee’s statement that eharmony didn’t discriminate against gay people at face value until I saw this ad. Weddingbee just lost a reader.”
Are you talking about the Google Ads(I don’t see a prop 8 ad at all, I see different ads)? I believe those are generated by google based on key words in the post…not something Mrs. Bee/eharmony specifically selected.
Yes, please a guest blog on the “marriage penalty”!
@anon: I believe Mr. Bee posted about a previous controversial ad stating that all ads are generated by google. Don’t leave!
Honestly, cookie- we decided to get married because we couldn’t imagine it any other way! We’re just best friends:)
We’re getting hit really hard by the marriage penalty too, and I can’t for the life of me understand why. We have to withhold about half our paychecks for the rest of the year to make it up. Mr. Cookie, please explain!
Mrs. Bee/Mrs. Peng - Is there anyway to prevent spam such as #17 above?
@kathy: Hey Kathy - I marked comment #17 as spam (the new comment #17 is the old comment #18).
Hope that helps!
@anon: Hey Anon, I didn’t see that ad and your comment is the first report we’ve heard of it! Our ads are auto-targeted by Google. We would definitely never want an ad like that on Weddingbee.
I’ll ask our Google Ad rep to ban all ads with the word “Prop 8″ in them.
Incidentally - in the future, we’ll be moving away from using Google Ads. Hopefully that will prevent these sorts of automated ads from slipping through. I’m sorry about that!
Hmm I just reviewed the last few hundred ads manually, and I didn’t see an ad for prop 8. I will keep an eye out!
According to my contact, we can’t ban keywords - only specific advertisers. If you see a specific ad, please let me know the name of the site that it links to! That would really help in finding the ad, so we can ban it.
Thanks,
Mr. Bee
Bravo to Mrs. Cookie **claps** Wonderful post! And great job Mr. Bee…you are so on top of stuff.
Why wouldn’t you want an ad like that on weddingbee?
You have an LDS bee who just got married in an LDS temple. The LDS church is definitely all about passing Proposition 8 (as am I).
I think if weddingbee is going to be tolerant, that should extend both ways. I continue to read weddingbee even though it has a couple of same-sex bees (or more? I’m not sure. Or maybe even just one now that GB left) because I value what they have to offer even though I do not agree with legalized same-sex marriage. I hope that the same courtesy can be extended to those of us that support marriage between one man and one woman.
the ad shows up on the upper right hand corner for me and is the protectmarriage.com site. it looks like a java ad, so there isn’t a link that says adsbygoogle at the end of it. perhaps it only shows up for california readers since prop 8 is only in california?
imho, i agree with mr. bee and think that political ads of any sort (whether for or against) should not be on this website. it is one thing to have bloggers and readers give their opinions, but another for someone to pay to publicize it.
Great post Cookie. I completetly agree. The idea that people are denied the right to commit to eachother in a loving relationship is sad. Ona related note, can someone answer me this? I had always thought that Hawaii allowed same sex marriages as well. Is this not the case or did they at one point? Thanks
We are getting married because we love each other and we want the stability that commitment offers us. Many may think that this is an allusion buit getting married makes it a lot harder to break up, it entwines you in the eyes of the law and insurance companies. For instance my FI is a volunteer Fire Fighter and he has a policy through the fire department that ensures his family will be taken care in the event that he is injured or killed. I am not eligible to recieve that benefit until we are married as I am not a relative.
We also want to have a child and being married may nto effect that child in the first stages of life but it is some assurance of stability as that child gets older. I’ve talked with cousins who had parents who never married but have been together for thier entire lives but only married when the kids were preteens and they admit to a sense of insecurity about the parents deciding to break up until they got married.
Mrs. Cookie, was there a particular reason why you 2 decided to wait to get married after you felt you were married in your hearts?
I live in Connecticut and was thrilled when I heard that same sex couples are now allowed to marry? YEA! Who the heck am I to tell someone how to live their lives??? If you’re in love, you’re in love - end of story. Heterosexuals are NOT superior to homesexuals/lesbians,etc. We do NOT hold the key to happiness in marriage.
Great post Cookie because I think a lot of people question the difference between marriage or not. Marriage basically closes that “circle” and it is a deeper commitment.
@Elizabeth: We don’t generally allow advocacy ads. We’ve also banned general political ads for and against McCain and Obama.
The “marriage penalty” is pretty simple. Any tax advantages you might get out of marriage are designed for the situation where one spouse makes a whole lot more than the other - essentially, where two people are now living off one income. For those of you eventually planning to stay home to raise the kids, you will eventually get some of this advantage. If, as in fact is more and more common, you make about the same amount of money, there is no tax benefit to being married. If your individual salaries are sufficiently high that together you are pushed up a tax bracket, you now both pay a higher percentage of your income in taxes than you would have alone - hence the “marriage penalty.” There may or may not be some benefit to filing separately as opposed to filing jointly.
There are several websites out there that, given your separate and joint incomes, will estimate your taxes either way, to help you figure out what might be best. Investing in a program like TurboTax or TaxCut will also let you play around with your filing, in order to figure out what you should do and what the impact will be.
Interestingly enough, when you get married at any time during the year, you file as married for that whole year. So if you get married in November or December, you may find yourself owing quite a bit in taxes that was not held out of your paychecks. It’s therefore a good idea to start playing with the numbers as early as possible.
@Mr. Bee: The ad was for protectmarriage.com or something like that.
Mrs. Cookie - I’m sorry your post was tainted by this discussion.
That is strange…. we’ve always gone through customs together… even back into the US and never been asked if we were married…
I think we wanted to get married because it is a chance to declare to the world the commitment you have for each other. It is solidifying everything you both already know … how committed you are and making it pubic knowledge.
@suzanno: Thanks for highlighting the more serious medical and financial issues that non-married couples could face if something were to happen. I think it so interesting that something so small and trite like passing through customs with your partner can be denied to you if unmarried. For me it pointed out that not only is that little piece of paper VERY important in the eyes of the government, but marriage rights are human rights.
Also, thank you for the marriage penalty explanation.
@GetMarried4Less/LadyT: I should clarify. Mr. Cookie and I did not wait to get married until we were married in our hearts. My point was that since we have felt married long before we ever got married, why did we need a piece of paper to say we were married if we already were deeply committed to one another.
Yay, Connecticut!!
@suzanno: @suzanno: Thanks for the explanation of the “marriage penalty”!
Rights have a lot to do with our decision to get married too. Even though cohabiting couples have it reasonably good here in UK, I want to be officially family just for those few things where you’re treated differently. And unmarried fathers’ rights are not good here, so it makes sense for us to be married before we have children.
[...] those readers in the U.S., Happy TAX DAY! In my post titled, “What is Different about Marriage“, I briefly mentioned the “Marriage Penalty” and some readers asked if Mr. Cookie [...]
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Mrs. Cookie, Denver
Age and Occupation: 25, Nonprofit Fundraiser/Theatre Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Financial Analyst
Engagement Date: September 2007
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: May 8, 2008
Venue: Ten Mile Station
About Me: With a degree in Theatre I never realized that planning a wedding was a lot like Theatre Management, until I started planning my own. I am a coffee addict, especially Starbucks' Grande Mochas, yummy! I love to cook (especially chocolate chip cookies for my honey), travel to exotic places, and be creative. As a couple, Mr. Cookie and I are extremely practical, down to earth, and children at heart. We live in a cozy abode with our adorable Pomeranian, and love to play board games and watch movies into the evening.
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