The invitations have been sent, the venue has been booked, and the cake and catering have all been sussed out. We’ve decided on wedding dresses, our friends threw a fancy bridal shower for us, and thank you cards have been sent. In thirty two days, I’m getting gay married to my favorite person in the world. I get to stand up in front of our friends and family and make this big public commitment to the person I love most in the world. Psyched is an understatement.

I thought I’d be more upset that most of my family isn’t coming. I thought I’d be overwhelmed and exhausted by to-do lists and tough decisions (and certainly there are moments where I have been). I thought we’d argue about the caterer, the ceremony, the seating. But we haven’t. More than anything, I’m just excited.

There are tough parts of this whole wedding thing to be sure, but they’re not what you’d expect. We are still deciding what to call ourselves. I was married in my late teens to the best dude and after we got divorced, I never changed my name back. It’s harder and more expensive to do than getting married, it turns out. And besides, my married name (Rose) is a lot easier to spell than my maiden name (Sawyers), which makes it much easier to make reservations or call customer service. Also, I’m lazy. There have been books to read and movies to watch, walks to take and lunch dates to be had. Do I revert back to my maiden name and hyphenate? How confusing will that be for people who only know me by Sarah Rose? Do I hyphenate my married last name? Do I just change my name to my partner’s last name?

Part of the problem is this: when I got married, I was eighteen or nineteen without any real scope of how the decisions I made could affect me well into the future. Like a lot of abuse victims and impoverished folks (and impoverished abuse victims), I had a really limited world view. I had vague dreams of becoming a bestselling author or a beloved screen actress, but no real inkling how to make those things happen for myself. So I took the best options that I had and tried to make those into a better, happier, healthier life. My ex-husband and I eloped and spent our honeymoon in a Red Roof Inn somewhere near Roanoke.

And while I’m happy to be getting fake gay married in Pennsylvania and real gay married in New York, I feel some activist guilt about it. I think gay marriage is important. I get it. It’s definitely a cause worth fighting for. But I think that on the hierarchy of needs within the GLBTQQI community, there are other things we should be focusing more of our energy on. Like inclusion for the initials that come after G and L. Or violence against transgender folks and people of color (and most especially trans women of color). Or the homelessness and bullying of queer youth. Or a million other things less photogenic than well groomed white men in tuxedos.

(I don’t want to imply that marriage isn’t important. I would like for my partner and I not to take on an extra five grand in taxes by adding me to her insurance. And while I was having a bunch of terrifying tests run last week, I yan about how we’re related. There are approximately one zillion benefits to being legally wed.)

So, there are the names and the guilt. And there are the million little things that keep popping up. Like favors and seating and a card box and centerpieces and hair and makeup and wedding cake and a million other things that I didn’t realize went into a wedding. Did you know that registries aren’t all fun and wishful thinking? You have to register at TWO places with twice as many gifts as guests in a variety of price points. Ryan has been keeping a wedding blog of our adventures. It’s among the cutest things she’s ever done. We were also lucky enough to have my absurdly talented friend Ramsey draw our thank you cards.

And these are all labors of love. They’re all pretty silly things to complain about. But the fact is: I feel like we’ve been juggling a lot these days. I was just in a fairly serious car accident, our lease is up in September, and at the end of this year, my absurdly brilliant partner and I have to figure out what we’re going to do about grad school (me) and post-grad (her).

In the middle of all of this upheaval is this party. This glorious wedding where our favorite people get dressed up and come watch us commit to one another until death do us part (wording I’ve always found a bit morbid). I want to stand in front of all of these people I love so much, promise my favorite person in the entire world that I will always put the toilet paper back on the roll and rub her feet at the end of the day. And then I want to watch all of these beautiful weirdos from various aspects of my life fall in friend love with each other the same way I’ve spent the last three to thirty years doing.

You know what? Now that I’m thinking about all of the good parts, the work doesn’t seem like such a big deal. It’s totally worth it.