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Wednesday morning, I woke up and the first thought that sprung to mind was: “I’m supposed to try on wedding dresses today, but I don’t know if I can legally get married next year.” I felt a tightness in my chest and the start of tears as I grappled with what my life as a gay, engaged woman would look like in Trump’s America.
I’ve always been a pragmatic optimist—realistic enough to do the work, yet always holding the hope that it could make a difference. I spent the weekend before the election canvassing in Pennsylvania and making calls to Wisconsin, where I felt uplifted by positive pro-Harris conversations I had with swing state voters. Women were coming out in droves, it seemed, saying they voted for her, and some lifelong Republicans were going to cross party lines. While I absolutely encountered a few fiery, flag-bearing MAGA supporters circling our canvassing headquarters in pickup trucks, they just seemed to want to make their presence appear bigger than it really was.
Today, the one thing that scares me most is I no longer feel like I can envision my future. Will a stacked Supreme Court overturn my right to marry? Would I ever be allowed to have children with my fiancée via IUI or IVF? Will I even be allowed to adopt a child? If we do have a child, would we both be able to be their legal parents? If we cross state lines, would our marriage not be recognized? Would I not be able to visit my future wife in the hospital if she gets hurt or sick? Will my family be recognized as a family by my country?
My fiancé Liv and I had planned our wedding for November 2025 in our Brooklyn neighborhood. As a weddings writer and editor with years of experience covering celebrations, it has been so overwhelmingly exciting to finally work on planning my own celebration. But when I woke up on Wednesday, the first thing I did was to turn to Liv and tell her that we should get legally married at City Hall in the next few months. I expected her to protest and say I was overreacting, but she agreed it was not a bad idea. Our text group chat with our parents agreed, too. We didn’t know the future, but we thought that if we had a legal marriage now, it would be harder to void it later. And, if we ever needed to move to another country, the immigration process together might be easier. I was not alone in this idea. After a quick DM check-in with another queer, engaged friend in the wedding industry Jove Meyer, he said he had the exact same conversation that morning with his fiancé. Clearly, the ticking clock was loud enough for us all to hear.
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