A bit of background about me:
I might be what people these days call "Gender Fluid." Though my personal aesthetic tastes lean more the feminine I do not feel any particular attachment to the gender binary. While I plan to get electrolysis and maybe one day even facial feminization surgery, I do not have a burning desire to get my downstairs plumbing rearranged. I'm more ambivalent than anything else, and if I woke up with lady parts tomorrow I'd be fine with that. Same with a penis. I have a great appreciation for the feminine aspects of life, but as of now I have not taken any steps toward transition, neither chemical nor surgical.
A few months ago I made a post entitled, "My best friend almost made me cry tonight" or something along those lines. In it I mentioned how that night, while dropping me off after a night from gaming my best friend in the world asked me to be the maid of honor in her wedding and hugged me, leaving me in a rare state of being overcome with emotion.
Well, after months of preparation the wedding finally happened last week. Here's a bit of what I went through:
1.)Excitement! I'm sure I don't have to explain to anyone here why it was exciting to be asked to be in a bridal party. I was excited, honored and touched all at the same time. I generally try to avoid having emotions but when she asked me I totally had some. I felt extremely grateful also, being one of the very few people born male who has not transitioned that would get to experience this. It wasn't all school-girl giddiness though.
2.) Trepidation. Do a quick google search for "transgender bridesmaid". Or even "crossdressing bridesmaid." What you'll find is either fantasy stories, or perhaps an LGBT wedding, or pictures of crossdressers gleefully trying on wedding dresses. You know what's really hard to find though? Evidence of a T-girl being Maid of Honor in an otherwise "normal" wedding. Let's be realistic, I'm probably not the first to do this in the history of mankind. But it's rare enough that the internet, a place where you can find clown porn and sinking-in-quicksand fetishists, said, "Nope, that's a new one on me." It made me wonder if what we were doing was really SO wrong? Sure, there was a lot here that wasn't traditional but honestly I never really put much stock in tradition. Traditions are traditions because the first time people tried them the world didn't explode, and they all had to start somewhere. Still, that doesn't make going against them any easier. The mother of the bride, while fully excepting, was worried about her parents, whom she said were intolerant and casually racist. She actually felt the need to tell them ahead of time, "Now look, Rachel's Maid of Honor is going to be a black woman." I just learned this tonight, but her grandma's response was "Oh.. really? That's o.k., we'll just say she spent too much time in the Sun." LOL Alright then! She and I laughed about it tonight, but back before the wedding she told me nervously, "I need you to pass for this event." Not only would I be marching down the aisle in front of everyone, I would also be making the Maid of Honor speech. You know what else didn't help?
3.) The Naysayers. This part was perhaps one of the most nerve-wracking, yet interesting part of the whole process. Rachel (the bride) has a stepfather who is really, really, REALLY conservative. The very idea upset him quite a bit but Rachel was like "Violet is my best friend so that's your problem." If the groom had any concerns at all he didn't voice them. By now he had seen me many times as Violet for other geeky, non-marriage related events. Rachel made sure that the Groom's parents also knew also. They are quite liberal and in no way even acknowledged my transgender status the entire time. Some people thought it was really cool, some people laughed a bit but even some of my more liberal friends paused when I told them. And they wouldn't say "that's not right" but they would say "so... what made you decide to do that?" Um.. have we met? Hi! I've been wearing dresses since I was 4, in public since 18. Nice to meet you. One of my bosses at work, who hired me to perform as Violet for her husband's retirement party thought that I shouldn't do it.
I had one woman I do improv with flat-out tell me "You shouldn't be up there." When I asked why she said, "because the Maid of Honor has to be married already." A friend, who had been Maid of Honor four times, corrected her: "That's the Matron of Honor, not Maid." Now if she had thought about it that wouldn't have made sense anyway because that would mean that two lifelong friends couldn't be in each other's weddings because their of them had been married yet, but just her gut reaction was NO. Even here on this site when I made my original post I had a few people tell me that I shouldn't do it. I'm not surprised, just because someone is a CD doesn't mean that they are on board with everything. Socialization is Socialization.
4.) Preparation. Dear Lord. The trying on dresses. And more dresses. AND MORE dresses. Measurements. Alterations. Finding shoes. Decor, and color, and font, and decorations, and taking off of work to do a lot of this stuff. The guys were like, "Tux acquired. DONE!"
5.) Maid of Honor duties. The mother of the bride controlled essentially every aspect of this wedding, and so I didn't really feel as though I had a lot of opportunities to step up and fill some of the roles that were traditionally left to the Maid of Honor. Heck, be the right woman for the job? I was just trying to be good at being a woman at all! Still I think Rachel's main expectation of me was just to be by her side at the wedding. I did however do some things a Maid of Honor was supposed to do, such as compiling the guest list for the bridal shower, and organizing her bachelorette party! It was her first time out dancing and she enjoyed herself, which made me immensely happy.
6.) Pronouns. Pronouns were a significant aspect of my role in this wedding. We decided that if people didn't figure out that I was biologically male, we certainly weren't going to give them any hints. So it was to be female pronouns for the duration. Many of our common friends were going to be there who have known me most often as a male, and so automatically used male pronouns. We would be in mixed company however, to Rachel personally asked everyone to refer to me as Violet and as "She" for the duration. There were a few missteps here and there but everyone was generally cool about it. Most interesting was the morning of the wedding hair and makeup session. The hairstylist and Makeup artist were meeting me for the very first time, and I was showing up in male mode. They saw a male, so they began by using male pronouns. But everyone was around them was still in a "That's Violet" frame of mind, and eventually the "He" pronoun melted away for that time we were all just girls getting ready together. Which reminds me..
7.) Wedding weekend beauty preparations! It was awesome! Many firsts for me. First time setting foot in a beauty salon, first time getting a mani-pedi, first time having my hair (wig) styled by a professional, first time having my makeup done by a professional. My facial hair can be notoriously uncooperative and my skin is so oily I'm surprised the U.S. hasn't invaded it, so I was worried about what this woman could do with it. But she was great. She had worked on trans people before, and she was able to do things with my face that I had been trying and failing to do for years. I can honestly say that I was more confident in my face than I had been in quite a while!
8.) All the stuff that went wrong. It did not go off without a hitch. Mother of Bride was not pleased with the catering. The bridal party's jewelry was supposed to match (there were two of us and the bride) and I being so nervous on the day of the ceremony left my necklace and matching earrings home. I got my ears pierced specifically for this event. When I first tried the dress on it fit me too tightly, and it became apparent that I needed to lose weight. By the day of the wedding I had accomplished this far too well, and the dress was obviously too big. I spent the whole day pulling up my strapless gown. I forgot my shape-wear, had to make a mad-dash home, got it, but left without my purse and wallet, so there goes touching-up my makeup during the evening. When it came time to proceed down the aisle a very large bee became interested in my bouquet, and by extension my hand. It flew away eventually but by then I was halfway down the aisle, and nervous enough without the bee. But despite all this:
9.) Everything turned out beautifully. Rachel. Was. GORGEOUS. Her father could not be there due to injury which devastated Rachel but she powered through it. Sam did great. The minister did a great job, the ceremony was like clockwork, Rachel's stepdad, whom we both knew did not approve made a sincere effort not to be a jerk at any point during the weekend. Even her bigoted grandparents seemed to have a grand old time, and grandma remarked to their daughter (Mother of the Bride) complimenting me on my looks. Apparently my speech was a big hit, as my performance instincts took over. Rachel's grandfather said to me afterwards "You should be a comedian!" LoL nice to know that I chose the right profession! They're vacationing now, and Mother of the Bride, who agonized over every tiny detail of the wedding was quite pleased with how everything turned out. As am I. I'm so grateful for the ups and downs and even as the guys seemed to have it easy in most respects, I was glad and honored to suffer and stress alongside the women lol. I really learned a lot about myself during those months. It may have been Rachel and Sam's wedding, but it was one of the most defining moments in my life, too.
Originally Posted by Candice Mae
