My Big Fat Jewish-Irish-Scots Irish-Cherokee-Hawaiian-Southern Wedding

This is where we seem to be:

DATE:

The wedding will be, probably, August 12. I am planning to doublecheck this with a lot of people, but basically, August. We were planning on October, because we have always celebrated October 8 as our 'anniversary'. However, by October he'll be back to school, midterms will be approaching, I'll be working--it will be crazy. If we want a small honeymoon, it will be hard.

I proposed bringing the wedding forward to August, and was met with resistance. This is not because Groomra is sentimental--no, it is because Groomra has learned the October date, and cannot be expected to learn a new anniversary.

"All right," I said. "Why don't we just say that we will keep October 8 our anniversary, regardless of what day we actually get married on?" We've agreed to this, and have worked out that it has some additional nice advantages. To wit, if we forget one, we have a chance with the other, and also, this way we will get to celebrate our first anniversary two months after getting married.

THE WEDDING PARTY:

I have invited about six of my girlfriends to be bridesmaids, matrons of honor, attendents, mamans d'honneur, color guard--whatever they want to be called, it's all good. They will wear whatever they see fit--if they want to buy a new outfit, excellent, if not, whatever's in the closet is fine. All of my friends work hard for their money. Many have small children. They all have good taste in clothes. I am not going to make them spend money on a taffeta nightmare they will never wear again. (and there is NO color that will look good on all of them).

However, since Bridezilla secretly wants to put them all in taffeta nightmares WITH BUTT BOWS, I have given some thought to getting a half-dozen taffeta butt bows, with no dress attached, and pinning them to the bridesmaids for the photos.

The groom has invited a couple of friends to be attendents. I think the whole wedding party will gather at the chuppah, and we'll dispense with this business of matched attendents. Too Roman, anyway.

THE VENUE:

San Francisco City Hall is beautiful and neutral. May be too expensive, may be hard to get the date we want. Golden Gate Park? The Clement Street Bar and Grill? All I've ruled out for sure is the city offices of El Cerrito, CA. NO.

THE OFFICIANT:

As God is my witness, I haven't the slightest idea.

Here's the problem:

I am, as you may have noticed, Jewish. Groomra is not. Groomra is a cultural Protestant of some sort, but hasn't got the slightest interest in religious matters.

The rabbis I feel close to won't marry me to a Gentile. I don't feel like paying to be married by a Reform rabbi whose sole connection to my family and wedding is that he or she will do the ceremony.

We have friends with Universal Life Church ordinations, and the county of San Francisco will empower a civilian to do marriages for a day. But who? One parent rather than another? One of my friends but not his? We don't have a mentor in common.

Currently leaning to the idea of having a City Hall employee do the wedding, and then we can hand out ceremonial duties at the chuppah later.

THE OFFSPRING:

(Not imminent, but my mother-in-law-to-be called last night with a list of possible names. No pressure. No pressure!)