Third finger, left hand.

Interesting question because me and my roommate were discussing this the other day when I went into a fit because a bunch of really annoying girls near me in a restaurant were planning a wedding and I wasn't (I think I had PMS or something).

Anyhow, I was thinking I'd like to do the Vegas thing because they let you hire celebrity impersonators to be your witnesses for your wedding, such as the Spice Girls and the Monkees, and that would be so wicked cool. However, the more I thought about it, the more I want a big ass wedding, so I could A) rub it in the face of all my unmarried friends and drive them to drinking B) wear a pretty wedding dress and look like a fairy princess C) spend a lot of our parent's money. Plus - a dance floor and open bar, you have to have that and Vegas just doesn't offer that kind of thing.

I do think that marriage is irrelevant but my view has changed from "FUCK NO" to "It's a party, innit? A party with FORMAL DRESS!" and formal dress always gets me excited.

So then we started planning shit and I already decided like my entire wedding party and what the bridesmaids will wear and the color scheme and what I will wear, until I realized that, um, I'm not engaged and don't particularly want to do this any time soon, therefore this was psychotic behavior.

But I do want to get married someday, sooner rather than later cos the older I get the less fairy princess I'll look in that gown, and that's really what's important here.

Are you taking a survey for a reason?

It IS just a piece of paper, but it makes dealing with other people easier, and I'm lazy enough to just get married so people won't lecture me. Also, there'd be the security thing. It's harder to geta divorce than to just walk out.

I'd like a small ceremony in a church because I really adore churches. Requirement: at least one stained-glass window.

Will Never Marry.

I'm a bit scared of any institution with a) fairly uninspiring failure rate, and b) one of the main benefits being that it's a commitment that's very hard and painful to get out of, regardless of the circumstances.

I definitely want to get married in the Church of Elvis in Vegas. And I am serious. I imagine that there will have to be a full- blown "official" ceremony, though, so that the families (my family especially) won't have coronaries.

I think we are better then marraige. Considering its history i do not know how anyone could be clamouring for it !

I am with the llama fur guy. I'd go the Vegas route, but Mom would kick my ass up and down the block. Unless... I eloped with a nice Jewish girl, then Ma would be really conflicted.

I am with Ally on the big dress thing. I am going to have the hugest dress in the world so when we start dancing I will take up the whole dance floor and none of the relatives can get close enough to kiss me or grab my cheek like usual. I suspect that my mum has an Emma's Wedding Fund as she keeps telling me that my Big Day will be no expense spared and I can have whatever I want. More worryingly my dad picked up a brochure from Woburn Abbey Sculpture gallery (which is to be the venue, it seems) and we spent a happy afternoon planning menus and picking the wine. I even have an engagement ring! (Well it was my grandma's but has a great diamond which can be easily reset).

However as my mum points out with annoying regularity I have to find someone to marry me first. Why can't I just have the party?

You are a posseion as a woman when you get married. It was once and until recently still is a form of slavery. First of all why would you choose to particapate in this cheap humilation.

You are a posseion as a woman when you get married. It was once and until recently still is a form of slavery. First of all why would you choose to particapate in this cheap humilation. Second when fags have commitment cermony it is saying i want to be just like Ma and PA Normal over there. I am proud of surving as a Queer . Why i should i suck the teat of hetrosexist privllage.

i don't really have any strong feelings on marriage one way or the other. i guess it'll happen if it feels right, or it won't if not. some old shit like that anyway

I'd marry somebody, as right now I have no assets. Situation may change tho.

Yes, as I keep saying, the marriage project is urgent and key. I've felt this way ever since watching Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married.

Anthony, your rhetoric wolud not hold up under the full-bore Southern ire of my wife.

Having gone through a wedding, I can safely say that the days when the woman was considered to be a possession are GONE. If anything, _I_ was an accessory to the whole affair. At any rate, marriage is like an umbrella contract that grants you particular property rights over your partner's stuff. Not romantic at all, but certainly important for two people living together as equals in a household.

I find it very funny that a man who is never going to marry a woman is lecturing women on how humiliating marriage is due to becoming property. That's just simply untrue nowadays, at least in places like where I live.

Anyhow, I really just want to have the party. My dress is going to be fantastic, it's going to have this kick ass corset on top and then this huge tulle skirt, and I'm going to have these amazing high heels on that I won't even be able to walk in but damn will they look good. And I'll get my hair all blown out and I'm going to hire Kevyn Aucoin to do my makeup. Well, I'll probably end up doing it myself but I'll think of him while I do it. The bridesmaids are going to have these spectacular dresses, which will be either dark blue or dark maroon (haven't decided), that are sort of the same construction as the Marilyn Monroe Gentlemen Prefer Blondes pink thing / Madonna in the Material Girl video. We will ALL have fucking elbow length gloves. My friend wants to wear her butterfly wings, but that's right the fuck out, it'd look ridiculous and hippie.

And I want top hats to be involved in the men's dress somehow. I'm going to convince my dad to don a kilt too.

I just have to rope someone into doing it, because really Emma's right, no one will let you just have the party.

I am having no bridesmaids as I don't want anyone thinking they look better than me. And Ally you can't have long gloves as how will you get the ring on? If the ring doesn't touch your skin directly the marriage can be anulled.

I am going to a wedding in Sri Lanka in October where I will be a bridesmaid and wear a gold shimmery sari. Beat that!

wedding in sri lanka=dud, surely?

Well my friend is Sri Lankan hence the venue. It is a great excuse for a holiday and therefore classic.

You take the gloves off during the ceremony! I want loads of bridesmaids, but since I am the prettiest of all my friends, I'll look best anyhow. (Yes, I'm checking to see if anyone is listening)

Really though, you have to have bridesmaids cos who else is going to get you things and run around for you and tie up my corset otherwise? No one. That's what they are for. Plus, the bridesmaid dress I picked is really not going to look good on one of the girls I'm picking, so she'll look awful anyhow. And if I don't hire my sisters into the ceremony somehow, my mom will hate me forever, so I need to have Megan, Jamie and Kate in it. And my psycho roommate will stab me with her hunting knife if she's not in it. Plus my friends so I need like 10 bridesmaids, maybe 15.

My mum has always disapproved of adult bridesmaids on the grounds that it is unfair to make grown women wear something you have chosen for them, and I tend to agree although small bridesmaids are less good at getting you a drink, looking after your makeup etc. I am glad to be a Sri Lankan bridesmaid though cos I get to wear a great outfit. Also I am one of eight, my friend is planning to give us each little jobs to do - I think mine should be 'manage to stay upright and not trip in sari' as it seems they are very hard to walk in.

No, no, no. They have to be adults. That's how it works. It's part of the humiliation and debasement and the rubbing it in. Only flower girls should be little girls. I don't know any little girls though, so I'm going to have an adult flower girl - now that's some kind of happening humiliation.

How about Hanle y as Ally's flowergirl?

This is a US / UK thing - any girls / women attending the bride are bridesmaids here with none of that flower girl bollocks. I was a bridesmaid when I was eight and very sweet I was too in my pink and white dress with white satin ballet shoes. Some bitch trod on my foot with her 80s stilettos and I had to spend most of the wedding on a couch. My and my brother capitalised on our cute childness to nick all the sugared almonds & danish pastries off the tables (my brother was 6 at the time and had to wear pale grey velvet knickerbockers and waistcoast, white pop socks, very tight grey shoes and a shirt with a ruffle. Ha! But his little skull cap thingy had silver stars on so that was cool.)

I'm going to make Otis Wheeler be the flower girl.

I am sorry. I grew up with an angry second wave femminst who was bitter about her divorice. I did mean to disparage anyone who chose to marry.

Reread what you wrote very carefully. You're either trying to slip an insult past us or that's the best typo all day ;)

Ally , i just ran it through a spellcheck and i am not sure what you mean. My apology was sincere.

Heh. Read it out loud to yourself, anthony. Word by word.

I did mean to disparage anyone who chose to marry

You did?

Oh, this joke isn't funny anymore, I can't explain things over and over.

Anyway.
Wasn't too long ago that I hated the thought of marriage, but now I'm all for it. I'd really quite like to be married, if and when. But the ceremony...
I deffo DO NOT want the big EVENT type wedding. What I want is to find the smallest church in all of England, invite NOBODY and tie the knot there. After all, marriage should be a private ceremony, for two people and two people only. It's not an excuse to have a disco and buffet where the brides squaddie cousin can get pissed and start a fight when he thinks someone's looking at his wife. And those beach weddings abroad are also Dud. I don't want to be sliding the ring on the finger whilst some tango-skinned woman and her husband with his hairy, fat gut hanging over his speedos, flip-flop past. No ta.
So yeah, I'm thinking small. The thought of being the centre of attention to two whole sets of families = DUD DUD DUD!
Saying all that, I'll probably hook up with a woman who has an Ally/Emma idea of a wedding and I'll be BULLIED into having a big, sodding Charles and Di caper. Spare me the pain.

But why wouldn't you want an excuse for a disco?

I've been trying to visualize skin that resembles a formalized, sensual Latin dance, but I just can't.

Dan, you are so twisted.

"I've been trying to visualize skin that resembles a formalized, sensual Latin dance, but I just can't."

That's because you're just not trying hard enough.

Err.. I meant [capital T for] Tango - the sickly, insane orange coloured (and, alegedly, flavoured) carbonated beverage.

Well, yeah, okay - any excuse for a disco - BUT NOT WITH GRANNIES AND TODDLERS FER CHRISSAKES!!

Wedding bashes are great. If you are wis, you first find the free beer, then comandeer it and take it to a good vantage point from which to watch the drama unfold. There's always a lot of good entertainment to be had from a big wedding party.

DID NOT MEAN TO DISPARAGE

I haven't been to a wedding since I was 5, and I'm not about to go to another one ever again, unless I can wear what I wore to that one, a blue windbreaker and a clip-on tie.

You aren't even going to come to my wedding?!?!?!?! I let you eat my entire box of Chex, you fucker!