Modern Brides & Modern Grooms: A Guide to Planning Straight, Gay, and Other Nontraditional Twenty-First-Century Weddings

NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE BOOK AWARD FINALIST--Marriage and LGBT Non-Fiction

RAINBOW BOOK AWARD FINALIST/ RUNNER UP--LGBT Debut

How to make any wedding liberating, brave, and meaningful.

This post-DOMA book is for any couple--same or opposite sex--seeking a personalized wedding that dignifies the relationship and the individual self. No "new normal" here--this guide emboldens you to harness your unique, brazen, queer truth; to be creative; and to plan your wedding your way.

Every fiancé faces the question: How do I become something new without losing myself? Using his own story--from how he and his husband connected via MTV's The Real World to the real world of their marriage--author Mark O'Connell reflects on conflicts that arrive during wedding transitions, as well as various other transitions throughout your lives.

As a psychotherapist, O'Connell offers ideas to bridge relational gaps with your partner, family, and friends. As a professional actor, he also offers insight into the ways your wedding is a theatrical production: how this can help you to conceptualize the event, consolidate your efforts, and increase creative collaboration as a couple. This will serve you not only on the day, but also for the rest of your time together.

Whether we're straight, gay, or other, weddings inspire us to carve out more fun, freedom, recognition, life-space, love-space, and connubial space than we've ever had before.

Mark O'Connell, LCSW is a NYC-based psychotherapist in private practice.  He writes the Psychology Today column Quite Queerly, and has made numerous contributions to the Huffington Post, Truthdig.com, and Out magazine. His scholarly writing has been published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the Journal of Lesbian and Gay Mental Health.  His book, Modern Brides & Modern Grooms is a National Indie Excellence Book Award for Marriage and LGBT Non-Fiction.  His website is: markoconnelltherapist.com