As some of you may know, a week from now I’ll be a married woman. Since my partner and I decided on Valentine’s day earlier this year that we wanted to be wed, I’ve navigated the strange world of the “wedding industrial complex” and tried to figure out, on my own terms, what it means to me to be a married feminist. That meant dissecting the tradition bit by bit and disposing of things that didn’t feel right for me (changing my name, my Dad giving me away, legal paperwork, a white dress), but it also meant having to justify a lot of the things that did (bridesmaids, a limo, an expensive pair of shoes, and a hair and makeup appointment.)

Here at Shameless we’ve talked about how it can sometimes be difficult for feminist writers to talk about their healthy relationships, and we’ve also talked about wedding pressures on women that seem to supercede love, and one’s feminist beliefs. (And then there’s marriage traditions that supercede sanity, but that’s another post entirely.) In the end, I feel like both of us have been true to the things we love and hate about declaring your lifelong partnership to your community, and although at times it’s been hard to negotiate satisfying our own needs and the needs of those we care about (okay Mom, we can have flowers), I think overall we’ve done a pretty good job. Getting married and planning an event to celebrate that transition has been a wonderful way to solidify not only my feminist beliefs in the context of my relationship and my community, but to understand the value of compromise and understanding. I’ve always been very anti-marriage for a variety of reasons, but I realized that it is possible to make a public promise to the person you love without sacrificing who you are or what you believe.

Sure, there will still be people who will be disappointed because they didn’t get a monogrammed wedding favour or a chicken or beef option, and there will be folks who don’t think we’re “really married” because we didn’t go the legal route, but what really matters is how we view our (personally defined) committment to each other.

So in honour of the planning being close to over, I thought I’d post a video of one of my favourite married couples singing about exactly what I think marriage should be.

Extra special wedding-related bonus from our beloved Joss Whedon (which will likely make it into a wedding speech) after the jump.

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