Fling Before The Ring
Bachelor and bachelorette parties before your big day are a must
R Y A N W I L L I A M S - J E N T
My husband and I had a relatively simple wedding from the comfort of a friend’s
back yard in Nov. 2016, days after an election we were eager to forget
and surrounded by the majority of our friends and family who wanted to do
the same. It was perfect for us, a mixture of my eccentric tastes and his sensible nature, the
culmination of plenty of pre-marital planning during our nearly two-year engagement.
Since we’re fortunate enough to have
a large number of generous and talented
loved ones, the majority of that planning
was done within the last six months of our
engagement. That’s because our venue,
where I’d also proposed, had long been
decided for that reason. It’s also because
we knew dear friends were going to bake
our gorgeous wedding cake, touch our
hearts as they officiated, dazzle us with
their photography skills and provide
buzzworthy booze for our guests. It was
quite a bit off of our plate and truly made
our wedding a family affair.
If it sounds like there wasn’t much
else for us to figure out on our big day
and you’re thinking of doing it all on your
own, I’d still recommend utilizing the
many advertisers featured in these pages.
Wedding planning is incredibly stressful,
even with all of the assistance we had,
and oversights are all but guaranteed. If
it weren’t for another friend who plans
professionally, we’d have forgotten
garbage cans for our reception that
welcomed nearly 100 guests. Can you just
imagine the trash talk?
While we’d underestimated
the amount of details that go into
wedding preparation, thankfully
our best men hadn’t done the same
when it came to accounting for our
last days as bachelors.There weren’t
many blueprints for how grooms or
brides-to-be could bid bachelor and
bachelorettehood adieu, but we knew
we wanted to celebrate our upcoming
milestone ahead of time in some way.
For our bachelor parties, we knew
we wanted to celebrate outside of our
home in Tampa Bay. Our best men
rallied the troops and we departed
for Fort Lauderdale, sharing a rented
residence with our wedding party and
creating one of the most memorable
weekends of our lives.
My husband and I are fond of our
independence from one another,
recognizing its importance and that
two strong halves make a stronger
whole. Still, we’ve grown quite fond
of one another over the years—hence,
marriage—and knew we wanted to
celebrate the end of bachelorhood
together. Especially if we were
out of town.
My best men and his, our respective
“sides,” agreed that was all well and
fine, especially since we wanted to
enjoy the weekend with all of our
friends who’d made the journey, not
just some. They wanted to see one
another as well and so a compromise
was struck.
My husband and his side of the
wedding party, along with a number of
our friends, began our first evening in
Fort Lauderdale on one side of town.
My side and I began it on the other. The
city has a large number of LGBTQ and
LGBTQ-friendly locales, giving us a wide
array of establishments to choose from.
Even when we’re apart, my husband
and I communicate regularly. That’s
the nature of a relationship. But not
this time: the beginning of the end for
bachelorhood was radio silence and sans
our cell phones. Only our friends stayed
in communication to ensure we didn’t
bump into one another prematurely.
Our individual parties went on for
hours, with friends bouncing back and
forth between the two caravans to spend
time with each of us. The evening was
unique and fabulous, albeit quiet on the
technological front, and finished at the
city’s largest LGBTQ hotspot toward the
end of the evening.
My husband and I walked down the
aisle together during our wedding, so
there was no surprise reveal at the altar.
The closest moment came when our
bachelor parties converged. After the
entire evening apart—dining, drinking
and dancing in another town—we were
reunited. He took my breath away and I
knew I couldn’t wait to marry him.
One of the beautiful aspects about
marriage equality being in its infancy
is that the L GBTQ community is finally
free to make marriage our own. It’s
also a gift that applies to our bachelor
and bachelorette parties and that’s
exactly what we did. Make yours your
own, too.
WA T E RMA R K ’ S WE D D I N G G U I D E 2 0 1 9 10 C E L E B R A T E Y O U R L G B T Q L O V E .