A poly wedding: My decision to marry my boyfriend while I’m legally married to my husband

When my boyfriend first mentioned the possibility of getting married someday, I was taken by surprise.

“Sure, I'd marry you if it was legal,” I told him. And he asked me: “Who cares if it's legal?”

We're polyamorous, and I've been legally married to my other partner for over a decade. But in spite of my longstanding support of same-sex couples who choose to marry even without legal recognition, and my deeply held belief that the state has no real business defining personal relationships in the first place, I had somehow never really considered that we were free to get married, too, regardless of whether or not the law would ever recognize it.

Once I began to seriously entertain the idea, it was a short leap to start daydreaming about the wedding. But as someone who's committed to challenging cultural norms, I was extremely hesitant to simply indulge those fantasies. I wanted to understand why I wanted a wedding, and to know I was doing it — if I did it at all — for the right reasons.

Questioning my motivations

My boyfriend and I were already committed to sharing our lives together, building a family. Did I really need some kind of ceremony to solidify that? Would I just be buying in to social expectations, trying to make my non-traditional relationship appear more “normal” by getting married just like everyone else? Were my wedding fantasies still just a lingering product of all those fairy tales I had thought I'd rejected when I walked away from monogamy?

I thought long and hard about all of these things. But when I decided that I did want to go ahead with planning our wedding, it wasn't because I decided my motivations were somehow free of all social conditioning. It was because I finally realized that didn't really matter.

At the end of the day, I want to have a wedding for the same reasons I imagine most people want to have them, and for the same reasons I wanted my first wedding: to bring the people I care about together to celebrate a love and a commitment that already exist, to stand in front of my friends and family and declare that I love this person and he loves me and we intend to stick together for the long haul.

Wonderfully defiant

And yes, in this world where I constantly feel that this wonderful, healthy, happy relationship is seen as less real and less meaningful than monogamous ones, there is a part of me that wants the cultural validation of marriage, of declaring that this love is as real as any other. I used to worry that this part of my motivation was somehow inauthentic, as if I would be using my wedding to prove something. But I've since realized that this desire for validation is actually very human, something I should let myself off the hook for.

Instead of thinking of it as a kind of “giving in” to social constructs, I've come to feel that there's something wonderfully defiant about standing up and saying that neither the state or society can dictate whether or not we are fully committed to one another.

Of course, we're not naïve to the fact that many people will refuse to see our wedding (and our relationship) as “real” no matter what we do. And no matter how much we dislike that reality, we accept it. Ultimately, we're doing this for ourselves, not for anyone else. But if there's a little part of both of us who want to make some kind of statement, I'm okay with that. And if there's a little part of me that is still a little girl who wants to believe in fairy tales, I'm okay with that too.

Fighting for an expanded definition of love and commitment

Some people think that non-monogamy itself is unromantic, but I think my happily ever after just looks a little different than most. In fighting for relationships like mine to be recognized and accepted, I don't have any interest in un-romanticizing anything. I'm all for believing in true love, making commitments, declaring that love and commitment before the world. Rather than asking people to abandon old notions of love and commitment and family and romance, I'm far more interested in fighting for an expanded definition of what those things mean. I believe that we can take the old traditions and infuse them with whatever meaning we choose, as long as we are conscious and intentional about doing so.

Next summer, I'm going to marry an amazing man, who I am absolutely certain I want to spend my life with. I'm not sure how many people we can expect to show up, but I know that we will be surrounded by the friends and family who truly support us. And that, to me, is what weddings are really about.

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UPDATE

Here's the perspective from Angi's husband, Korwin. He commented below, but we think it's worth including here:

Hi! So… I am Angi's husband. Since there seems to be a lot of questions regarding where I fit into the picture, maybe I can explain a bit. I want this day to be THEIR celebration. Angi and I did that already (11 years ago!!), so I've already been there with her for this stuff.

I'm also the one who gets more of the recognition both legally and socially, so yeah, I really want them to have the focus for once that they don't normally get.

I'm 150% supportive of them — they're my family! Any excuse to party in their honor is fine by me.

I will, however, distract some attention from them with my culinary expertise. I am looking forward to cooking for a larger group of people. I've never done anything quite like that before. 🙂

UPDATE 2:

Here's the wedding!

WANT MORE POLY WEDDINGS?

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