How I Let Go of the Stress of Whether to Invite MAGA Family Members to My Wedding
Choosing who to invite based on their support for your love
A few months before my wedding, I was on a FaceTime call with my sister. We’d been talking about wedding planning, and my responses were short and shut down. I said through tears, “I want to celebrate with everyone. I’m just not sure that they want to celebrate with me.”
Among my 14 first cousins and three siblings, I’m the youngest and the quintessential “gay cousin.” They watched me grow up, and I watched most of them get married, buy homes and start families. While I didn’t come out to myself or anyone else until I was 22, there’d long been a part of me that struggled to see myself in the futures they’d arrived at.
A few months before that FaceTime call, as we were finalizing the invitations and our wedding website, I’d mused to my fiancé that perhaps we should put a disclaimer somewhere: Please don’t come if you wouldn’t vote to protect our rights. I was only half-joking. No one in my family had denounced me or our love to my face, but based on some questionable-to-downright-objectionable Facebook posts and red attire, I could be reasonably certain that a handful of family members did not “agree” with it — on principle or in law.
If you’re on the fence like I was, if you are struggling with the unfair burden of having to make this choice at all, consider the option of reallocating that burden.
If pressed, I imagined they’d say they loved us — just not our “lifestyle,” something like that. I wanted to shield myself from this kind of love. My fiancé understood where I was coming from with the disclaimer, but she was adamant that she didn’t want our wedding itself to be a political act — not any more that it inherently was. She wanted it to be about nothing but our commitment to and adoration of one another.
Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about the lens through which some family members and family friends might see us. Not only would our wedding be the first queer wedding for many of them, I knew some of them probably didn’t know any queer people at all. I couldn’t help but imagine the disdain or disgust, even if subconscious, some might look at us with. Despite the facts — the majority of my friends were queer, I lived in a queer-friendly major city and my social media feeds were overwhelmingly queer — I worried that as I stood at the altar, which was a giant tree in the middle of the woods, it was this disdain I’d be thinking of. I worried I would be set back years, the hard work of untangling internalized homophobia and self-hatred undone.
I considered my options. I could invite everyone, or I could exclude those I was weary of. I knew that many queer people choose the latter option, understandably so. It was alluring. I tried to imagine the sense of freedom it might bring. But then I walked through the logistics of it. Inviting some members of my family without inviting others wouldn’t go unnoticed. I’d have to tell my father, who was helping with the planning and paying of the wedding. I didn’t want my choices to impact his relationship dynamics, nor did I want this elephant in the room at the wedding or future family get-togethers. I didn’t want to field questions or confrontations about it. I wasn’t afraid of people being upset with me, but I was adverse to any extra pre-wedding stress or drama.
Instead, I realized, what would bring me the most peace and least amount of stress was to invite everyone and place the burden on whether or not they’d show up on them. They could create the awkwardness. They could make this choice that would impact the future of their relationship with me.
I also realized that the allyship of those attending our wedding did not, actually, have to concern me. I could allow myself to remember what I knew to be true: I loved being a lesbian, I loved my soon-to-be wife and I loved myself. Nothing could change that. Plus, it wasn’t actually in my values to expect perfection from people. I believe that people are complicated, and I believe in growth and change.
If someone showed up, that act of love and support could be enough for me for that day. I figured that those who felt strongly enough about it — those who, maybe, wouldn’t grow or change — wouldn’t come.
I know this isn’t the right choice for everyone. For some people, the option that offers the most ease and, importantly, safety is to know for sure that the people who don’t unequivocally embrace them with both their hearts and their politics won’t be there. But if you’re on the fence like I was, if you are struggling with the unfair burden of having to make this choice at all, consider the option of reallocating that burden.
In front of the big tree in the middle of the woods, I kissed my wife, and I didn’t think of anything else. Oh, and the people I’d considered not inviting? Most of them didn’t come anyway.
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