The Complete Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings by K. C. David and GayWeddings.Com: Book Review

When my partner and I started to sit down and really plan our wedding, we were interested in reading information on not just weddings, but specifically gay weddings. Sure one wedding is like another, but there are idiosyncrasies to everything and we wanted something that spoke to us. One of the books we ended up getting and reviewing was "The Complete Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings" by K. C. David and GayWeddings.com. Now this book didn't turn out to be our one stop information resource for our wedding, but it help us think through the event, cover things we hadn't thought of and in the end, I think helped us plan a really special and enjoyable day.

While my partner new a bit more about weddings in general than I did, I don't think that either of us was all that well versed in exactly what made a wedding. Sure, I'd been to weddings, but I was never actually part of one. That's where this book was good because we probably discovered 101 things we hadn't even thought of (okay, I may be exaggerating there, but you get the idea).

What's in the book?

This is a pretty comprehensive book that hits upon a lot of different gay wedding topics. There's everything from the legal planning involved to honeymoons. In between there's information on all these topics:

The Engagement
Letting the Families know
Planning and Organization
Your Budget
Wedding Attendants
Wedding Planners
Dealing with Stress
Creating Your Wedding Style
Guest List and Invitations
Choosing a Location
The Ceremony
Writing Vows
Wedding Customs and Traditions
Wedding Apparel
Catering
Contracts
Gay-Friendly Vendors
Flowers and Florists
Wedding Cake
Music
Photographers
Transportation
Registering for Gifts

As you can see the book pretty much contains a soup to nuts description of what you'll need to put together your wedding, from the very early stages right through to the end.

The book doesn't dally in those sections either. Each chapter is direct and to the point. It provides the detail you need along with the background information so you know why you are doing something. Another feature I really like about almost all the chapters is that there are checklists for the various activities that you can either use right in the book or just copy from the book. These came in very handy for us as we'd use them to make sure that we were tackling all of the things we needed.

One thing is that this book is a bit out of date, even though it's only five years old. It only includes the fact that Vermont offers Civil Unions. Today Massachusetts and Connecticut allow same-sex marriage and Civil Unions are available in Vermont and New Hampshire. New York recognizes same-sex marriages performed in other states, but doesn't sanction same-sex marriage in its jurisdiction. In addition California allowed and then, by ballot initiative, denied the right to marry for same-sex couples. So the somewhat murky legal landscape for same-sex marriage isn't really explored in the book. For example, my partner and I are now legally in Massachusetts and that marriage would also be legal in Connecticut and New York, but in other states we wouldn't be legally married. In addition when it comes to everything Federal, the US Government doesn't recognize our marriage.

Besides the legal issues which are always changing though most of the information is fairly timeless. Budgeting is budgeting and you aren't going to be writing your vows in some radical new way just because a few years have passed.

There aren't too many illustrations throughout the book. The writing style is clear and straightforward and where there are important concepts, like I said earlier, the author pulls that information out into either a checklist or otherwise highlights the information.

Another helpful feature is the extensive index. You can quickly shuffle back and forth through the book to find the sections and/or concepts that you are looking for. The resource section doesn't have any information that you won't easily find elsewhere (names and addresses of major gay and lesbian organizations). The recipes section wasn't all that helpful for us either, but for someone planning on cooking for their reception, it would probably be helpful.

Final Thoughts

While we still had to get some other wedding resources to help us plan our wedding in Massachusetts, the first book that my partner and I read was The Complete Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings. It spoke to our unique situation as a same-sex couple getting married and it really helped us think about things we may not have otherwise thought of, or at least wouldn't have thought of early in the planning process.

I know this book helped our wedding planning and if you are planning your own same-sex wedding, I suggest you get yourself a copy of this book as early in the process as you can.