The Countdown Begins

In 365 days, I am getting married.

Our families already know. So far, the most measured response we’ve received was from my mother, who is only disappointed that we won’t be spending her sixty-fifth birthday at Disneyworld, reprising the trip we took for her last landmark birthday five years ago. Other than that, mom and my stepdad are appropriately thrilled. My brother and sister-in-law, Adam and Rebecca, have been heroic in their enthusiasm, despite the fact that they will be first-time parents of an eight-month old on August 19, 2011. I can imagine how stressful it must be to know that they will be traveling halfway around the world with a person they haven’t even met yet. A person who, due to the somewhat peculiar circumstances of our wedding, is going to need a passport soon after he receives his birth certificate.

Eric’s parents responded with the same unadulterated joy that accompanies any good news from their children. His mom squealed so loud we could hear her from her house in Washington State, despite our current geography on Interstate 80 in Western Pennsylvania. We told her over the phone while Eric and I were driving from New York to Ohio to meet the rest of Eric’s family for a wedding/reunion outside of Toledo. We were able to tell the remaining Rogges in person, a lucky rarity as his parents live 3,000 miles away from our apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

With a year to go until our disparate set of anniversaries (the day we met, the day I legally changed my last name to Eric’s, and so on) gets washed away in lieu of one authoritative Wedding Anniversary, we have the same concerns as any other couple embarking on this time-consuming, stressful, and possibly quite expensive venture: how many guests to invite? How far in advance do we send out invitations? Isn’t it redundant to contact people via email JUST so we can find out how to contact those same people via regular mail? Can we pile all of our guests into the courthouse and have the ceremony there? And, seriously, how much is this thing going to cost?

In many ways, we are the typical American couple: we were introduced at a mutual friend’s Oscar party four and a half years ago, moved in together two years after that, and relocated to New York earlier this year to be closer to my family and, god bless it, further from LA. We work full-time. We wish our New York apartment were just a little bigger. We have two cats and one day want kids. We spend Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his. We vote and pay taxes. We are The Real America.

Except that we cannot legally marry in this country. And so, in order to gain recognition as a married couple by a federal government, we are taking our wedding to a place where we can be legally married. A country we think deserves our money, and if the news is to be believed, they can really use it.

And so, next August 19, on a Friday afternoon, Daniel and Eric Rogge will be married in front of their family and friends in Reykjavik, Iceland.