Married myself 25 years ago, on a whim

And here I am, celebrating my silver anniversary with the one companion I’ll never shake. Me.

A few years earlier, one of my mentors was dying of cancer. As a way of distracting her, I concocted an elaborate plan to have a groom-optional wedding… on September 9, 1999.

Somehow this led to a discussion of the then unique ‘zine by Paul Lukas, who I decided right then I would invite as an optional-groom. I emailed him that day about this idea. He politely dodged. That he wrote back at all is frankly more than I deserved. I am now not sure if I even bothered to invite him when I finally had a solid schedule. There was a lot to distract me. That mentor died the next day. Per her suggestions (“dying wishes” of a sort), I moved Away, and went to my first Burning Man. (She’d read about it in Wired during chemo, and told me I should go. That is literally all I knew about it before I bought the ticket.)

Digging through what’s been preserved on the wayback machine, Oh I had such glorious ambitions of what I wanted the day to be. Basically, a multi-media festival of a sort I had not yet experienced.

I rented a church

Hired a band, and ordered flower wreaths hoping for something giant and ridiculous like the ones in Dead Poets Society. The rest was potluck. My ex-roommate made a bouquet with parts of the creepy purple plant I had (and still have) from a cutting of a parent plant in the Art Library during my senior year at Vassar. Other folks brought the wedding cake, even favors, beyond the ring pops I handed to anyone that asked.

People clinked spoons, and asked if we were planning to have kids. Folks took turns giving their best man speech.

I was added to same sex marriage mailing lists. A manager threatened to have my paycheques made out to my hyphenated last name. Within the year, self-commitment ceremonies were a trendy, proto-GOOP-y sort of thing, so I was invited to speak about mine. As woowoo as I do get, I was mostly being a goofball. That’s sometimes how those sorts of mystic epiphanies work. It probably helped someone.

More than one clever boy asked, “Are you and your spouse into threesomes?”
In that sense, certainly.
There were even moments when I began hoping I’d have to stage my “funeral” so my widowed bride could remarry.

I celebrated my 9th anniversary

at No. 9 Park. They heard my friends wish me happy anniversary, and arranged a bonus special dessert, but could not figure out who my spouse was and where to point the treat.

My 10th anniversary happened during the (first) final tour of Nine Inch Nails. Trent got really sick. (So-called NIN-fluenza, or H1NIN, because he’d inevitably give it to all of us in the mosh pit). Shows had to be rescheduled, to the heartbreak of folks who had flown in from around the world and could not extend their holidays. At the time, there was a real risk this was It. I flew home to host my own party on the 9th, flew back for the “final show” in LA on the 10th, then to Cambridge in time to stage manage a show on the 11th. I can sleep on flights, but of course I still got sick. Even before everything we can’t unknow as a result of COVID, flying to LA & back for a 4 hour event was hairbrained. I guess it’s funny to say I did it. Once.

“We” are still together!

As someone concluded in The Wedding Pool: How long do you give this Marriage? “They’re stuck w/ each other now!!”

Numerous folks forwarded me the news of some Influencer’s solo-marriage ending in divorce. Uh… how does that work? Apparently, sologamy is a thing. The term is fairly new to me. Had I seen this back around my 20th anniversary, I might’ve contacted the author, who’d been unable to find a self-marriage from before 2003. (Ha!) The quoted bride (who also married herself on 9/9!) raises valid points. You have to love and respect yourself before you can really do the same for your friends. Put on your own oxygen mask first, etc.

But, take it from an old grey silver bride, if you’re going to Couples’ Therapy just for yourself, it’s ok to just call it Therapy.