Queerly Beloved

44. Affirmations for LGBTQ+ Couples Planning Their Wedding

• Anna Treimer • Episode 44

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PLANNING

  1. Just because I don’t always see my kind of love or gender expression represented, does not mean I am any less worthy of being in this space and having happiness.
  2. Our love has just as much of a place in the world as anyone else’s
  3. Our love deserves space in the world.
  4. We don’t need others to understand or validate our process or love.
  5. My love and how we love each other is worthy and valid.
  6. Hate has no home or place in our planning process.
  7. Even if we encounter mean spiritedness or hate, we know that it does not say anything about ourselves or our love, but about who they are.
  8. We are deserving of every happiness that comes our way, including the joy of planning our dream wedding.
  9. We promise to do things that feel right for us, even if it’s not what the world traditionally expects
  10. As we plan our wedding, we honor the courage it took to be true to ourselves and to find each other in this world.
  11. In the midst of planning, we find joy knowing that our love is a beacon of hope and acceptance for others in the LGBTQ+ community.
  12. Every detail of our wedding reflects the authenticity of who we are as individuals and the depth of our love.
  13. We affirm that we will choose to dress, present, show up and be our truest selves on our wedding day because that is the kindest thing we can do for ourselves and for our community.
  14. We take pride in ourselves, in our identities and in our unique love story.
  15. We will do our best to find the good and block out hate in every step of this process.
  16. Today and every day, we celebrate the beautiful truth that love is love, and our love is worth celebrating
  17. We are a sexy couple lol. 

DAY OF

  1. We are so happy and grateful to be here as those in our community have gone before us have paved the way for us to be here and to make this celebration of love be recognized as legal and equal
  2. Today, surrounded by love and support, we affirm our commitment to each other in front of the ones who matter most.
  3. Regardless of what happens today, regardless of what people say or do, regardless of how people look at us, we have found love and safety in one another and we will lean into that all day long.
  4. Today is about celebrating our love and recognizing that others celebrate our love too.
  5. At this moment in time, it is legal for us to get married, but regardless of if that changes, our love stands strong and will stand the test of time as life changes.
  6. Our love is no less worthy simply because some guests chose not to come.
  7. We take pride in being here with each other and our loved ones, knowing that us showing up here and doing this is an incredible act of pride.
  8. Our fellow lgbtq+ family members love and support us, even if they’re not all here with us.
  9. WE deserve to be respected
  10. We will dare to feel joy on this day even when or if it feels scary.
  11. The queer ancestors before us are celebrating with us and are so happy to get to see us do this together.
  12. You’re my person and that’s  why this is right for us.
  13. We don’t need to justify our relationship to anyone. 
  14. The family w

The intro and all instrumentals were written, sung and recorded by @JaynaDavisMusic

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Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)-2:

Weirdly beloved. Welcome back to this week's episode. I am so, so glad for all of you that are joining today that we get to gather here. Yeah, it's just been such a, a beautiful time of building community here and the people who join in and listen, I am so grateful for you. So. Thank you so much for continuing to tune in. Episode after episode. For those of you that listen more regularly, I'm sure you may have noticed that there wasn't an episode last week. It is starting to become the start of wedding busy season, which is so exciting. Yeah, I mean, It's hard to not get excited this time of year for all of the lovely, amazing couples that are getting married and the weather has been so beautiful. And. The most exciting part, just getting that set the most exciting part because your wedding is the most exciting part for me, but. Pride month is starting. June is just around the corner and there's going to be lots of exciting things happening around. The wildly connected photo world. So definitely stay tuned for that. And I hope all of you, whether you're allies or in the community have really exciting plans for pride. If you don't please come join me at the twin cities pride. I would love to see you there. So. That's kind of all I have for updates. For this week's episode, we are talking about affirmations for LGBTQ plus couples. As they're planning. And for their actual wedding day as well. And I'm just going to start out by saying I'm fully embracing the cheesiness of this episode. Because, yes, I do think that sometimes like affirmations or encouraging things, they do feel a little bit cheesy and sure. Maybe they are sometimes. But I also think that it's something that continues to exist and people continue to recommend because they do work and they're nice things to hear. And. It's important to speak kindly to ourselves and to each other. And so, yes, I'm embracing the cheese, but I'm also wanting to acknowledge how important this is. Of course this isn't to say that. Couples outside of the queer space, don't deserve to have affirmations as well. But if you have listened to the past couple of episodes, I've talked about, you know, the stresses of wedding planning and just the idea that wedding planning and weddings in general. Come with a lot of stress. But there's just so many added layers of stress when you are a queer couple. Aye. Talk to queer couples all the time. That's like the biggest part of my job. And so with that in mind, something that I hear a lot of couples express. Is stress from different areas of planning or stresses or worries or concerns they have for their actual day. And whether or not some of the things that they are worried about actually ever happen, like reaching out to vendors or being rejected or being rejected by friends or family members. That does happen. But even if it doesn't, I think just even acknowledging that those worries are there for so many people. Is really important and. I mean, this podcast exists because the reality is that. Being an LGBTQ couple in the wedding space. Like we just, we all face unique challenges. And so having a little bit of extra and Encouragement and support is really important. And. I've talked to so many couples who, you know, have said. Like. It's just, it's really scary or. Honestly, sometimes just like sad or disheartening, like not seeing our love represented as much. And so. I just felt like this episode was really important regardless of the cheese, because I think. Even like picturing myself in my own journey with my queerness and in my relationship and in my wedding planning process, like it's hard, there's so many things to think about. And. So. I'm just going to stop rambling here. But. I do. Really, really intend this to be for the queer folks, listening to my podcast. If there are allies here and you want to just get some inspiration, maybe for some things that you can share with the LGBTQ folks in your life, please do. And. I would encourage you all to share this episode with someone who you feel. Might need it. And that has nothing to do with analytics or likes or follows, but just to like some of them a quick encouragement and. This episode is basically just going to be me sharing affirmations, and I'm going to copy and paste all the ones I've written in the show notes so that you can go and copy and paste or. Steal any of the ones you want, please do. I did write all of these. So one I need to acknowledge I'm not really a writer like writing super eloquently is not my biggest star. But also acknowledging like, I did sort of just let my brain flow and write these, but there's also a possibility that I've heard. This before or heard something similar or some variation of this already exists in the world. So my intention is not to copy or steal from anyone else. These were just things that came into my mind that were a reflection of. You know, worries that couples have expressed in the past or even things that come up in my own mind. So just wanting to acknowledge that. I'm going to break up the affirmations into two parts. So the first part is for the planning process specifically, because. As they mentioned, there's unique worries and stresses that come with that already. But then all the layers too, of reaching out to vendors and not being sure of things and because not always, but the planning process can be quite a long time. Obviously some people get married in a shorter amount of time and that's amazing too, but a lot of times the planning process can be like 8, 10, 12, 16, 18 months long. And so it's kind of a long time to be sitting in this space. So I wanted to specifically address that. And then also have some ones that maybe felt more fitting for like your actual wedding day that you could be reminding yourself of and saying to yourself on your wedding day and to each other. And there's some overlap here too. Again, snap that serious around these podcast parts, but just wanted to kind of say that. So again, I'm just going to go ahead and read these. Please take what you want. Leave what doesn't feel fitting, maybe all of these don't apply. Maybe only some of them do. But I'm hoping that you all get at least a little something out of this. So here we go. This is for the planning stages of your wedding or elopement. Just because I don't always see my kind of love or gender expression represented. Does not mean I'm any less worthy of being in this space and having happiness. Our love has just as much of a place in the world as anyone else's. Our love. Deserves space in this world. We don't need others to understand or validate our process of planning or our love. My love and how we love each other is worthy and valid. Hate has no home or place in our planning process. I'm an amazing person. My partner is an amazing person. And together we make an amazing team, especially as we plan this special life event together. Even if we encounter mean spiritedness, mean spiritedness or hate, we know that it does not say anything about ourselves or our love. But about who they are. We are deserving of every happiness that comes our way. Including the joy of planning, our dream wedding. We promise to do things that feel right for us. Even if it's not what the world traditionally expects. As we plan our wedding, we honor the courage. It took to be true to ourselves and to find each other in this world. In the midst of planning. We find joy, knowing that our love is a beacon of hope and acceptance for others and the LGBTQ plus community. Everything about our wedding reflects the authenticity of who we are as individuals and the depth of our love. Together. We faced any challenge with grace and determination as we always have. And as we always will. We affirm that we will choose to dress, present, show up and be our truest selves on our wedding day, because that is the kindest thing we can do for ourselves and for our community. We take pride in ourselves. In our identities and in our unique love story. We will do our best to find the good and block out hate and every step of the process. Today. And every day we celebrate the beautiful truth. But love is love and our loves worth celebrating and every way possible. Now, this last one is a bonus one from my lovely fiance, Angie. I wanted her expert opinion, if anything was missing. And she told me to tell you all that you are an attractive couple and that sometimes you just need to look at each other and say word attractive couple. And it is silly, but it's very true. I think so, make sure to remember that you're dang attractive, sexy people. And you make for a dang attractive. Couple. Okay. All right. I just have a few more and buy a few more. I mean, like 18 more But for. This is for your day of And again with these, like, I'm not expecting you to like memorize all of them, but if any of them stand out to you. Maybe you can just like write them down and have them. On a sticky note somewhere, or if you're doing a lot of planning on your laptop or computer, maybe have it somewhere where you can see by your computer. Maybe you make it your phone background or have another creative way to just be able to think about it and remind each other. So. These ones are tailored a little bit more for your actual wedding or Loman time. Today we affirm our love and its purest forms. Promising to cherish and honor each other for all the days of our lives. We are so happy and grateful to be here. As those in our community have gone before us. And have paved the way for us to be here, to make the celebration of love. Be recognized as legal and equal. Today, surrounded by love and support. We affirm our commitment to each other in front of the ones who matter most. Regardless of what happens today. Regardless of what people say or do. Regardless of how people look at us. We have found love and safety in one another. And we will lean into that all day long. Today is about celebrating our love and recognizing that other others celebrate our love to. At this moment in time. It is. Legal for us to get married. But regardless of, if that changes, our love will stand strong and stand the test of time. Our love is no less worthy, simply because some guests chose not to come. Our love is beautiful. We take pride in being here with each other and our loved ones, knowing that us showing up here and doing this is an incredible act of pride. Our fellow LGBTQ plus family members love and support us, even if they're not all here with us. I deserve to be respected. We deserve to be respected. We will dare to feel immense joy on this day, even when, or if it feels scary. The queer ancestors before us are celebrating with us and are so happy to get to see us do this together. You're my person. And this is why it's right for us. We don't need to justify our relationship to anyone. The family we have here loves us so much. Even if they're chosen family and not by blood. You are my family. And the last one is just finding something simple that you two can say to each other throughout the day, like. I got you. Or. I choose you. Or we're in this together. Like something like that, that just feels. Just hits different for you, you know, just as simple something and something that you could even kind of say with your eyes, if you know what I mean. So those are all the affirmations. I feel that it's no way. A fully comprehensive list. Like I think there. Is room for so many other things and maybe even. Affirmations for more specific topics. And if I, if I missed anything, which I'm sure I did, I hope that this can act as inspiration for you to maybe write your own affirmations. Like. Take this energy and run with it and, and write some words that feel right for you or address like the specific worries or stressors that you. As individuals and as a couple are having to deal with.'cause I think everyone's experiences a little bit unique and what might feel really stressful and is a big burden to one couple may not be present in another couple's life. And so. Yeah, feel free to take any of these and change them or tailor them to your own unique needs. But I hope that has you real listening to those, even if it feels a little bit cheesy that you were still able to let some of those good vibes. Seep in because. I think those statements are all so true and. It's just, it's my hope and my dream that every couple can. I feel these things and go back to these things. In their process and on their day to just be reminded that they're so valuable and so loved and. If anything, just take that with you today. Whenever you might be listening that you're so valuable, you are worthy. You are so loved. And so is your partner. And so is your unique love story. So. That is all I have for you today. I hope this gave you good vibes. I'm giving you all a big virtual hug, or if you're not into hugs, then high five. And I hope that you all have an amazing day. Please remember to share this with a friend, a loved one, your partner, whomever might need it. And I will see you all in the next episode.