Same-Sex Marriage: A Time for New Traditions?

After the wonderful news recently about New Zealand and France legalising same-sex marriage it has been a wonderful time. In fact, only hours after the legislation passed in New Zealand, I received a touching message from a relative in Wellington offering to help arrange and host a wedding there if the UK 'doesn't hurry up' any time soon.

In this new age where more and more countries are beginning to recognise love and re-evaluate marital legislation is now the time to further consider what marriage means to us? This seems as good a time as any to create new traditions for this formal expression of love.

Sure, we're all aware of the basic components of a wedding in our respective culture be it a certain kind of clothing, agreements on who pays for such an event, how the service plays out, what words are spoken. These are traditions that have been built up for some time now within heterosexual marriages but should we be considering new traditions for same-sex marriage? One possible alteration I've considered seems rather nice. Previously, when a woman married a man, in some cultures she would take his last name to represent the union. In a couple with two men or two women who takes on the name of their partner? This seems a little problematic in the sense that many LGBTQ persons in a same-sex relationship are asked that all too common and misguided question: 'So which one of you is the guy/girl?'
It should be obvious that, being a same-sex relationship, this question is offensive as it assumes heteronormativity and that a relationship must be a binding of something masculine and something feminine. Perhaps a new tradition could be that couples collectively choose a new name for themselves, a name chosen together to follow them through their married life together based on a shared decision. In fact this seems a nice idea for marriage regardless of gender and could be an interesting change to the traditional name taking.

The dawn of a new age of marriage is upon us. I look forward to seeing the evolution of wedding ceremonies and the development of love and relationships and the way society perceives them.
Be kind to each-other.