In her essay "The Lesbian Bride's Handbook," Ariel Levy recounts her anxieties about planning her wedding and her feelings about marriage, given the fact that "it didn't describe a legal option"(Pg. 198) for her or her partner Amy. Levy comments on the politics of gay marriage through the personal. Levy humorously observes that the only time all your loved ones are in one place apart from your wedding is your funeral. Throughout the essay she has mixed emotions about the wedding due in large part to the lack of acceptance by society. Her anxiety about this shows through when she writes, "everyone I knew and loved would be joining me for this hell of my own making, this festival of gayness and commitment." (Pg. 198) Levy puts a lot of pressure on herself for everything to be perfect as she plans her party about love; her partner reacts in a different way, "While I obsessed about how lame it was to seek public acceptance, to crave ritual, and grew queasy at the mention of marriage, Amy was excited." (Pg. 200)
When she stumbles upon the perfect dress, she remarks about how important it is that one's wedding dress be memorable, yet she is able to stop obsessing when she finds what she's looking for; "A dress that would flash before your eyes on your deathbed and in your dreams. I could no longer thing about being cool or being mortified or being heteronormative. I could no longer think." (Pg. 201) Finding the perfect dress for her not only assuages fears and put another piece of the planning puzzle together, it was something she thought Amy's mother would approve of. The approval of Amy's mother is at the very heart of this essay because although it would be nice, she didn't need approval from society. Levy admits caring what other people think just as Amy's mother does. "It was my secret wish that she would look at it and see our lives sparkle instead of shame. It was my secret wish that if my party about love was as flawless as the gowns in that store, it would subsume the humiliation of its own existence...subsume the horror of my homosexuality." (Page 202) Amy's mother begrudgingly comes to tolerate but not quite accept her daughter's homosexuality while Ariel's parents seem more accepting of her sexuality than of the need for anyone to have the wedding. Levy closes the essay by saying, "when conservatives discuss the perils of gay marriage, they fail to mention its most pernicious consequence: Gay marriage, like all marriage is extremely fattening." (Pg. 203) She makes this comic remark about marriages in general, heterosexual, or not, pointing out that marriage consists of the same challenges regardless of the gender pairing.
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