WHERE WE did it:

The 29 Palms Inn out past Joshua Tree, California was the only venue we considered, as it’s a place that’s super special to us and we’ve returned to often for grounding, respite & joy during our ten-year relationship. We visited 12 months and 6 months ahead of the wedding to think through the setting, the light, and where exactly we wanted to site the ceremony. For the weekend of, we blocked out all the hotel’s cabins and the majority of guests stayed on site (not quite everyone could fit!). I loved walking through the pool area before we started getting ready on Saturday, and seeing my cousin’s husband Tim talking to our friends Herbie and Shannon while their kids swam next to each other in the water. It’s such a deeply relaxing place and we loved our wedding weekend being associated with rest, play & pleasure. One of our biggest goals was for people of disparate parts of our lives to connect with one another and to “strengthen the web” of our relationship. The 29 Palms Inn setting definitely facilitated that. The hotel staff was super helpful and made us feel like we were having a wedding at home, which we really appreciated!

We had a “welcome dinner” for all guests on Friday night at a nearby venue in Twenty-nine Palms that we found very randomly via Google search called Rasta Rita Cantina. We booked it sight unseen! It was very spacious, private, unpretentious, and worked out perfectly. Taco bar, speeches, a ball ritual (see below), and dancing!

Seeing our friends, family, and chosen family get to know each other over the course of the weekend was a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it was so beautiful to witness.

what we did A LITTLE differently:

Emilia Richeson-Valiente - our chosen officiant/”Reverend”/beloved friend - is the creator of Pony Sweat, a fiercely non-competitive dance aerobics practice whose mantra is “fuck the moves.” We rigorously applied “fuck the moves” mentality to all aspects of our wedding. Every decision was rigorously considered and weighed - from who we invited, whether we wanted a chuppah to honor Zoe’s Jewishness, getting ready together, walking down the aisle holding hands (no parents involved, sorry guys), what we wanted to be “pronounced” as, whether we wanted anyone to stand up with us during the ceremony (we didn’t), if we wanted to do a first dance (we settled upon jumping around to Whitney Houston’s “Milllion Dollar Bill” Frankie Knuckles’ remix and then gesturing for our friends to join us after 30 seconds), should we invite kids (YES!), what drinks to offer our sober friends, what to name the tables, etc. Taking what we liked and fucking the rest, when it came to the wedding industrial complex and its inextricable relationship to heteronormativity and queer exclusion, made the entire experience feel genuine and true to OUR values.

We really thought hard about why we wanted to have a wedding. Most of our guests were coming from the Pacific Northwest and the East Coast, and we wanted to feel that we were asking them to make the (long, expensive) trip for an intentional - and not compulsory - reason. We created a Squarespace website that had wedding Core Values on it, including priming our families to be thoughtful about language and pronouns for our predominantly queer friend group, and a list of our favorite spots in the surrounding area. We made a 3 hour long “29 Palms Highway” Spotify playlist of our favorite songs for guests to listen to while driving in the desert. We almost didn’t do a registry, but then Emilia said that straight people are comfortable asking for gifts and we should take advantage of the opportunity. So we spent HOURS on the internet identifying items we could really use, ideally from small businesses, and made a Google Sheets spreadsheet to share with guests via our website. This DIY approach worked well aside from the fact that we have no clue who bought us the pistachio-colored Moccamaster that we use every single morning and are obsessed with (come forward, benevolent guest!!).

WHAT MADE IT EPIC:

We were really happy that we asked everyone to commit to both Friday and Saturday nights, and had a welcome dinner so our guests had more time together. It was crucial to us that all guests were invited to all events so there didn’t become a hierarchy of who had access to what. Plus, we wanted as much time as possible with everyone! At the end of Friday night, Emilia kicked off a goofy “ball ritual” (pronounced so it rhymes) where everyone stood in a circle and said words & blessings about the wedding/our marriage when the ball (a hand-drawn half soccer ball, half basketball made by our friend & soccer teammate, Maddie) was rolled/tossed to them. Everyone was laughing a lot and we got to hear voices that wouldn’t otherwise have been witnessed by the collective group. It was very playful and sweet!

I absolutely loved the wedding ceremony and am proud to have conquered something I had truly been terrified of for most of my life - giving my speech to Zoe (we called & conceived of them as “tributes” rather than “vows”) in front of 90 people. I was nervous I was going to sob uncontrollably and not be able to get through my speech, and that didn’t happen (but I did cry during it). When Zoe and I got to the chuppah and stood in front of Emilia, we let the Hot Chip song we’d chosen play out and all did some grounding in our bodies (touching our hearts, closing our eyes, having an awareness of our feet on the ground). This was really helpful at feeling more present, even though it was a very surreal experience! Emilia had created a beautiful zine book to lead us through the ceremony, which was so thoughtful and more visually pleasing than a phone or piece of paper. It’s also something we saved & will cherish forever! We also had an ancestral acknowledgement, where we lit some orange tapered candles (that belonged to my Grandma Philo who passed away in 1995) and read a little bit about who our grandparents were and what they meant to us. We also talked about the history of the land we were gathering on, an oasis in the desert whose naturally-occurring water provided food and sustenance for its stewards, the Serrano people, for centuries.

The age range at the wedding was amazing! We had four kids ages 3 to 11 present (two cousins and two friends’ kids) and the pure inner child JOY & freedom of expression that they brought, particularly on the dance floor, was something we hadn’t expected but totally loved. It also felt powerful to model for them a fuck the moves, queer wedding. On the other end of the spectrum, my grandma Lolo who was 88 (and is now pushing 90!) was able to attend, flying all the way across the country (and then driving from 3 hours with my Uncle Kevin) from rural New Hampshire. Her glowing presence was incredibly profound and something I will ALWAYS cherish and consider a miracle and blessing from the universe.

We also had a LOT of toasts/speeches both nights - we demanded this of selected friends/family members, heh - and that was something that was a priority to us - to hear multiple perspectives on our relationship over its 10 year span, and get everyone laughing about funny stories. Our dear friend who set us up back in 2013 opened the speeches Friday night with a truly beautifully-crafted story of how it all went down (love you Noah), Becca & Camille compared us to Buffy & Spike which was epic, Shannon and Herbie called us “queer royalty” and made us cry reflecting on the power of queer friendships. One of the pieces of feedback about the wedding I really appreciated was from Zoe’s aunt. She said she felt like our tributes (and those of our friends & family) “brought her into our world” and she got to know us a lot better. That felt really meaningful!