Weddingbee

Remember the good old days of airline travel?

Wait, what? Sweet rolls? What a relic of the past. Having just flown across the country, I can confidently say the friendly skies are a thing of the past.

There’s a lot to consider when planning your air travel, especially if you are off on your honeymoon and want to have more than one change of clothes. Weddingbee reader, rebecca, posted information on the Boards about American Airlines’ new policy on charging for all checked baggage! Alaska Airlines, US Airways, Continental, Delta, Northwest and United are charging $25 extra if you want to check a second piece of luggage.

I am dreading the thought of all the passengers who overstuff their carry ons to avoid the extra charge. Last night I sat next to a guy who was peeved at having to check his carry on at the gate. I am sure if they then tried to get him to pay to check it, he would have punched someone.

American and Delta just increased the fee to check bags with a skycap at the curb. By the way, this money goes directly into the airlines’ pockets and does not benefit the skycaps in any way. In fact, a group of skycaps at Boston’s Logan International Airport (who only make about $5/hour) are suing American Airlines for lost tips.

So before you book your next ticket for that out of town wedding or your honeymoon, it’s worth doing some research to see what new restrictions await you. You’ll likely already feel the pinch with the fuel surcharges, so I doubt you’ll want to be charged an extra $80 for two checked bags on American Airlines.

Do these new airline charges impact your travel? Are there other hidden charges that you know of that we should be aware of?
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Here are the lyrics:

me and my baby on a february holiday
’cause we got the news
yeah, we got the news
500 miles and we’re gonna make it all the way
we’ve got nothing to lose
we’ve got nothing to lose

it’s been 10 years waiting
but it’s better late than the never
we’ve been told before
we can’t wait one minute more

Read the rest of the lyrics here.
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Thank you so much for your help, Miss Gingerbread.YOU ROCK!

(image source)

How 1950’s can you get? We are SO PUMPED!!

The car’s owner, Rob, is also very excited by the thought of his car being in a 1950’s - style wedding, and told us we could decorate “Walter” however we wanted! Woot! Woot!

What is your wedding transportation?
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Too proud to admit defeat we continued the half hour drive up to the summit. We froze our asses for about 10 minutes until we decided that it was a really stupid idea to try to sleep in the open Jeep for 6 hours. We drove back down to the camp singing along to whatever the radio was playing (”If you like pina coladas and getting lost in the rain…) Now that is one of our favourite memories of the trip.

Here it is that song in all of its cheesiness.

Here’s a bonus tip for anyone planning a honeymoon in Maui. Go at sunset. It’s just as beautiful, less crowded, and then you can sleep in instead of braving the cold at dawn.

So, am I alone here or do any of you have an embarrassingly cheesy “our song”?
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I really wanted Miss GB 2.0’s input on the ring design so I told her about our good luck. We met with the jeweler and he drew up various designs. Miss GB 2.0 wanted something channeled and we decided to go for two identical rings. After several months, we finally had our rings.

Here is mine (hers looks just like it):

Please ignore how strange my hand looks in this photo :p
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So now what? I want to keep celebrating, but unfortunately reality is setting in. In the short term, same-sex couples have the right to get married in California. Unfortunately, our celebration may be short lived because groups opposing same-sex marriage have been able to qualify a ballot measure onto the November ballot to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. This means that while the State Supreme Court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to get married is unconstitutional, if the amendment passes in November, banning same-sex marriage WILL be constitutional.

I assume from the 70+ supportive comments that you left yesterday that you don’t want to see this happen. What can you do? LOTS! First, talk to your friends and family about the issue. This is the single most important thing that you can do. Even the Republican Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, does not want this constitutional amendment to pass. Second, donate your time and money to groups like Equality for All and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Those in favour of a constitutional amendment which would strip same-sex couples of their right to marry have already poured $2 million dollars into placing the constitutional amendment on the ballot. They are talking about spending $10 million more to pass it in November.

So while most couples who plan to marry are tasting cake and debating about colours, same-sex couples in California also have to worry about this constitutional amendment. It would be fantastic if our supportive allies would chip in to help « Hide it

I hugged many couples as they cried when their marriage licenses were deemed void in August of that same year. Can you imagine the government informing you that you are no longer married less than 6 months after your wedding day? It was heartbreaking.

In March 2005, another judge ruled the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples as unconstitutional in the state of California. Again, there were hugs and tears and hope. That case was appealed and overturned. Now we wait for the most important verdict of all.

Miss Gingerbread circa 2005.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the California Supreme Court’s historic 1948 ruling that found it unconstitutional for the state to restrict access to marriage based on the race of the spouses. Last year was the 40th anniversary of when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to end anti-miscegination laws when it ruled on the Loving vs. Virginia case. Just this month, Milred Loving died. She believed that just as couples should not be discriminated against due to race, they should also not be discriminated against because of sex. My parents were an interracial couple, so I appreciate the trail that the Lovings blazed for us and I appreciate her support for our current struggle.

If the California Supreme Court rules in favour of marriage equality, Miss GB 2.0 and I still won’t be able to come back to live in California since immigration is a federal benefit of marriage. But it will do my heart good to know that the state that my family has lived in for over 100 years believes in equality for all of its citizens. It will feel like my home state is leaving the light on for us. And I will celebrate for all the couples in California who will be able to get married (in some cases for the second time) to the person they love.

Whether the verdict is in our favour or not, there will be a statewide Celebration of Love and Family on Thursday evening, May 15. I wish I could be there.
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For many women, those rights and these freedoms do not come free or easily, but often at a cost.

A few weeks ago, Mr. Shortcake and I were watching Saturday Night Live, hoping that the lovely Amy Adams would bring some comedic crisp to the usually very stale show. In one of her skits, Adams played a marriage counselor determined to psycho-analyze her way into figuring out the dynamics between a newly-married and poorly-matched young couple.

Will Forte and Amy Poehler teamed up to play the young couple, who, like many of us, argued about sex. Unlike most of us however, the two had met on the docks - Forte had “fallen in love” with the Russian “Bogdanna” after seeing the stowaway jumping out of a barge. Poehler as the haggard and underwhelmed Bogdanna spent the skit pleading with Forte to sign her citizenship papers because she had already “give[n] the sex.” Forte, however, was dismissive of Bogdanna’s requests and needs and when discussing the relationship with Adams, continually sugar-coated their relationship with a glaze of lovey-dovey bull sh*t.

For many women, becoming an overseas (or “mail-order”) bride can be an opportunity to escape a life in a developing country that, for whatever reason, is unsatisfying or even oppressing. Marrying into a richer country (like the US, Canada, UK, Australia) is seen as a way to gain job opportunities, to obtain life opportunities that otherwise would not be available in their home countries. If love occurs, good, so much the better.

Defenders of this practice often compare it to other forms of match-making, declaring that choosing cuties from an online catalog is similar to, if not the same as, internet dating sites like eharmony.com, in that the ladies list themselves, advertising their appearance, personalities, interests. Yes, I can see the similarities. But when I look at the ages of these women (often 26 and younger) and at the countries represented by these email-order sites, and think of the standard of living in those countries, I can’t help but be skeptical about these ladies’ motivations. Now, before I continue, let me make this clear, my beef is not with the immigration of these ladies in these marriages - you do what you gotta do - but rather with the men, and their motivation.

They remind me a little too much of the smug Forte.

From www.goodwife.com, one of the leading mail-order bride sites:

“We also have the question of a Western woman vs. a Foreign woman. This is commonly refered to as a Mail Order Bride or MOB….Are there any good women left in the West? Sure there are. Are they easy to find? Not on your life!…We, as men, are more and more wanting to step back from the types of women we meet now. With many women taking on the “me first” feminist agenda and the man continuing to take a back seat to her desire for power and control many men are turned off by this and look back to having a more traditional woman as our partner.



So, what do we as men want in a woman, partner, friend, and wife? Do we want her to “fix us” after we are married? If we were good enough to marry in the first place then what is this bix fixation (pun intended) on fixing us? Do we want her to stop taking care of herself after we are married? (No need to bother looking good now right, I’ve already got him so I can quit trying to look my best and I can gain all the weight I want.) Do we want her to be the boss? Do we want her to put her career first? Do we want to come home to a bag of delivery food? Do we want to change everything about us that made us who we are? Do we want to spend our evenings and weekends taking the latest “relationship test” from some magazine to find out how inadequate we are?”

Wow. So I broke the pencil I was holding while reading that.

It’s chilling enough to read that kind of chauvanistic cr*p, but to then read that “the rates of domestic violence against immigrant women are much higher than those of the U.S. population” - that young women have died at the hands of these “traditionally-minded” men, makes me feel sick to my stomach.

What do you think about mail-order marriages?

Read more:

About mail-order brides and new legislation
Violence against women act
http://www.american.edu/ted/bride.htm
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/anderson/brides/pg1.html
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1390/context/archive
http://cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/1997/V11n1/Finland.htm
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I don’t know the story of farmor’s ring, but I do appreciate that she gave her granddaughter a toy truck and a pretty ring. Thanks for not pigeonholing me, farmor And while I don’t plan on keeping my wedding dress for future generations, maybe my granddaughter can wear this ring at her wedding.

Are you planning to wear any “family jewels” for your wedding?
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