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I Don't

Why one Californian, delighted with his newfound right to marry, won’t dare walk down the aisle again.


As thrilled as I am about marriage equality in California, I’m not getting married again. I had a lovely garden wedding two years ago. It gave me memories that will last a lifetime, but I would rather put a lit cigarette out in my cornea than gather my entire Filipino family in one place again. Everyone in my family is a tortured creative genius of some kind, which I can attribute only to hundreds of years of colonial Spanish inbreeding and poor diet. My mother, the only person for whom we all collectively behaved, passed away 16 years ago. Without her around to keep everyone in check, my wedding day was a fucking free-for-all.

My husband’s family arrived hours before the ceremony began and immediately assisted the caterers in arranging chairs and tables. My family arrived half an hour late and immediately started to complain. “I’m cold. We’re hungry. Is this free?” My father, a diabetic with a million food restrictions, clicked his tongue at every verboten canapé and proceeded to eat them all before they were passed. My brother, a recovering alcoholic, got a little too manic at the sight of all the Veuve Clicquot. My younger sister suffers from chemical depression, so while guests were gathering out back for the big cocktail meet and greet, she sat in the living room watching Tomb Raider. Mercy, my stepmom from the Philippines, showed up with five people I’d never met before and a baby. I spent eight months meticulously planning the seating assignment for each table, and in two seconds she turned it into a barrio fiesta. She compensated by toting her wedding gift: a blue velour blanket with a Siberian white tiger on the front and an eagle in flight on the other side in an enormous see-through plastic bag labeled "size queen".

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