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To most people, the concept of marriage involves a couple who live together, do things together and share the bills, kids, car etc. If you ask children to draw a picture to go with the word marriage, you will invariably get a groom and a bride in a flowing white dress. Even with the advent of same-sex marriages, often the traditional costumes and roles are observed. But not all marriages start or continue in the traditional way, and mine is one such marriage.

I married my mother-in-law-to-be.

Of course there is no law that states every bride must get married in white; but in several US states, there are laws that say not every bride has to have her groom present at the ceremony (and not every groom has to have their bride present either). These are known as proxy marriages, and are legally binding in states that recognise them, just as a conventional marriage is. The absent partner must nominate a proxy or stand-in to take their place at the ceremony for whatever reason (it is not unusual for those in the armed forces to marry this way, or for those who are incarcerated). In our case, the proxy was my now Husband's mother. She stood where he would have stood, gave the required responses of 'I do' where he would have spoken them, and could have kissed the bride if not for a request from my husband not to do so! We also did not exchange rings at that point, but we could have.

I did not wear white. I wore jeans and a sweater. I did not have a bouquet of flowers; I had a little teddy bear given to me by friends in Florida. We had bubbles instead of confetti, and went for a Chinese buffet lunch afterwards. I love the fact that my wedding is totally at odds with most people's concept of what a wedding is, except that it would have been nice to have a traditional wedding night, but that wasn't possible.

There is also the option in a few US states to have a Common law Marriage notarised as a legal agreement. This requires the couple to legally declare that they have lived publicly as husband and wife for a period of time prior to the declaration. There is no ceremony at all with this option, and is more commonly used by those who are incarcerated.

So the ceremony itself is done and dusted; what about the rest of the marriage? For many, it means settling in to a home together (unless they have been cohabiting already), working out who pays which bill, who gets to use the bathroom first in the morning and who likes their toast burnt to a crisp. It's about sharing communication

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