My friend of 13 years was getting married. A few months before his wedding I came out as non-binary. I was my friend’s “best person,” and, knowing that weddings are very gendered, I told him and his fiancée that it was okay, I could still act “like a girl” for his events and their big day, and be referred to as such.

They said that it may not be necessary to do that, and they would do what they could so everyone, including me, would be happy and have a good time.

First, my friend asked which party I wanted to attend: the bachelor or bachelorette. He also listed me in the program and referred to me by the gender-neutral “best person” honorific, and his fiancée sent the tuxedo rental place information so they could get me a custom suit.

Finally, I sat down at the wedding dinner and saw that my place card said, “Mx.,” a neutral alternative to “Mr”. or “Ms.”!

I am still not out to everyone, due to family and work concerns, so being recognized in these ways, especially on their day, nearly made me cry.

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(Dinner at my nephew’s wedding is delicious. It’s also Southern: barbecue, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans cooked with onion and a ham hock. The wedding cake is red velvet. There is one lonely-looking salad, included perhaps to keep the entire menu from being blackballed by the American Heart Association.)

Out Of Town Guest: *poking the chicken dubiously* “Maybe if it was baked…”

Local Guest: “Oh, honey. This is Missouri. We don’t bake anything.”

(My 94-year-old grandmother is totally deaf in her left ear, and has normal age-related hearing loss in the other. She wears a hearing aid on the right side only, and talking to her left ear is totally useless; she won’t hear you. Those of the family who have met her know this, and we are conscious of which side of her we sit on if we want to talk to her. My cousin’s wedding has people who know who my grandmother is, but I guess did not know the specifics. This takes place in the after party. My sister and I are sitting at the table, watching over our grandmother. A guy who I don’t know, but who knows my grandmother’s name, sits down next to my her, on her left side.)

Guy: “Hi, [Grandmother]! Enjoying the party?”

Grandmother: *looking somewhere else, doesn’t even notice the guy*

Me: “You’re on her bad side.”

Guy: *totally flattering and missing the message* “No, she doesn’t have a bad side.”

Sister: “You’re on her DEAF side. She can’t hear you.”

Guy: “…oh.” *gets up and leaves, not even trying*

(My grandmother never noticed. There was just too much ambient noise and people moving to-and-fro. I think if the guy had put a hand on her shoulder or something, she would have noticed and would happily have tried to talk to him.)

(I have been DJing weddings and all kinds of events for many years and am vigilant about the content of the music and my audience. A lady approaches my table early on at a wedding after I had played the song “Brown Eyed Girl” By Van Morrison.)

Guest: *angrily* “This song is inappropriate.”

Me: “I’m sorry if you think so but I’ve played this song for years and never had a complaint.”

Guest: “The line ‘making love in green grass’ is not appropriate for children.”

Me: “I do apologize, ma’am.”

(The rest of the night I ended up playing quite a lot of top-40 music with much worse content but “Brown Eyed Girl” was the one that was inappropriate.)

(This happened to my dad a long time ago. He and Mum had recently emigrated from Britain and didn’t know very many people in their new Canadian city, so when his boss invites him and Mum to Boss’s daughter’s wedding, it is a very nice surprise. Mum is thrilled by the invitation, and she pinches pennies so that she and Dad can afford decent clothes for the event as well as a babysitter for me.)

Boss: “Ah, [Dad], there you are! Here, you’ll need this.” *hands Dad a camera*

Dad: “What’s this for?”

Boss: “To take photos of the wedding and reception, of course.”

Dad: “But… I’m not a photographer. Didn’t you hire one?”

Boss: “Why pay some photographer good money when all you need is a camera and someone to use it?”

Dad: “But that means I’ll be leaving my wife alone for a large part of the day, and she doesn’t know anyone.”

Boss: “Oh, she’ll be fine.”

(Dad gave up at that point. Poor Mum had a miserable lonely day, since she was quite shy and no-one bothered to try to include her in their conversations. Dad did his best to take some nice photographs, but unbeknownst to him, the camera had jammed after the first couple of pictures. He didn’t realize this, because the camera wasn’t one with which he was familiar. So, because Boss was too cheap to pay a professional photographer, his daughter didn’t get any photos of her big day. I always wonder what she had to say to her father about that.)