Hi Ellen, congratulations on your upcoming nuptuals. I hope Portia realizes what a special person you are! I recommend Las Vegas, the chapel in Bellagio - it's gorgeous. We got married in Vegas 25 years ago and went out this spring to celebrate. Vegas is nice because you can go there again and again to vacation and renew your nuptuals any time. The buffets are also great.

I think John McCain owed you a better answer to your question about why Fundamentalist Christians are not in favor of same-sex marriage, and I'd like to recommend a few scriptures to you so you can understand our Abrahamic Faith (Judaism, Christianity, Islam); Judaism actually has 613 laws (requirements and forbidden things) and Christianity/Islam expands on these things.

JUDAISM:
*Genesis 1:28
*Genesis 18:21
*Leviticus chapters 18-22

CHRISTIANITY
*Romans 1:26-27
*Matthew 6:14-15
*Luke 23:34
*John 14:15
John 15:10
Romans 3:23

ISLAM
Sura 4:21
Sura 26: 165-167

We can not change our religion, we must follow it. This does not mean we expect you to follow our faith if you are not in it. But if you ask us if something is right or wrong, we are also required to answer you with truth, (one of the 10 commandments - "thou shalt not lie..."); Jesus Christ forgives everyone even though they can not follow the Laws of Moses, he acquits any person who desires acquital from eternal judgment for not being able to follow Mosaic law, and all you need to do is be his friend. No body can live a completely sinless life, we are all equally guilty anyway, and the Apostle Paul teaches that all sins are equivelent anyway. So live the best life you can and be happy! I wish you would feature on your show the different types of homosexuality there is: as I see it, there are 4 different types: those who are genetically, those who are hormonally, those who are psychologically pre-dispositioned for this emotion, and then those who just do it to be rebellious or experiment or be popular and attract attention (pretenders). Those of us who are straight really don't even have the basic facts on this whole situation. We need facts to understand things better.

I personally think you have brought a group of people to the forefront who need the support of the church not its condemnation. I hope that you interface with the Southern Baptist Convention or the American Baptist Churches and ask them for some support for people who have genetic,hormonal and psychological predisposition to this lifestyle so that the church will move forward and help others, which is their PRIMARY DUTY towarde the world: I Timothy 1:15.

Thank you and I hope that I gave you an answer in love and sincerity, which you deserve. I want you to be happy and think you are just alot of fun! Thanks for being so silly, we really need you on a gloomy day! I wish you could take me and my friends for lunch - that would be so great! I would read you your Tarot Cards, which I am very good at doing! Email me back any time!

Cynthia

I'm living proof! I was engaged for a year before the wedding, so we had plenty of time to pay for wedding expenses along the way, the dress, bridesmaid dresses, tux rentals, flowers, invitations, rentals that included chairs, gazebo, dance floor, ect... my mother paid for the food and drinks at the recption, but other than that, we did the rest. I had a fairy-tale wedding complete with horse-drawn carriage, mini-orchistra,ect... 13 years later, I'm divorced and my ex sold my dress in a yard sale! Young people should listen, the bigger the wedding, the more it becomes something for everyone else and not the two getting married. If I had it over again, the money would have went into the bank or investments, perhaps a private saving account in case I needed it later in life, like now! Because I'm broke and have nothing to show for it!
Aimee in Hagerstown

Hi Ellen
my daughter will be getting married in Vegas on March 31st. We have around 25 people attending from Pennsylvania. She has a traditonal white gown - but the guys are wearing tuxedo shirts & jeans - the girls have tops made by the bride - in red & black satin. They will also be in jeans.
The bride is dying all the jeans black today. She and the bridesmaids made their bouquet/purses - they are really cute!! My daughter is very crafty & talented. She wanted Elvis - and that's what she's getting!

We all plan to have a great time in Vegas - even my parents will be attending. My mother is into her second round of chemo (diagnosed with cancer Nov 2006). So this trip is very special for them. My parents celebrated 51 years of marriage on March 2nd.

The piece of advise my husband and I got while planning our wedding....

"It is about the marriage not the wedding."

We had a party with family (where we grew up) then went into the mountains of Idaho (close to where we were living and where we got engaged) an got married.

I've been to few weddings and know how much the couples paid, which in my opinion did not reflect the quality of the event. The wedding industry takes advantage and charges way too much for everything. I am getting married this July and had to negotiate with my fiancé to have a simpler wedding. I believe it's about what the wedding represents; which is a marriage, a lasting and loving relationship, not the wedding ceremony. We are having a barefoot beach wedding and a big BBQ instead of a reception. I prefer to spend our money on the honeymoon! I also agree with one of the previous posts, that it's not the event it's the people....I also happen to think good food helps =)

Dear Ellen, Our wedding was a historic moment not only for my husband Jonathan and I but also for our family, and our dearest friends. We got engaged in 8/1995 and we were moved quickly to CA. Everyone asked when is the date? So, we let them decide. They picked April 13, 1996. After the date was set we found out Jonathan had Bladder cancer, the doctors told us he would not survive the cancer because it had consumed the entire bladder. Fortunately, the T.J. Martel foundation helped us and found Dr. Skinner who insisted we keep our wedding date. Jonathan was scheduled to be the number 500 of this risky procedure. We agreed and my soon to be husband as sick as he was and the help of our friends we put a wedding together. We were married on That day by Mojo Nixon as our preacher on the corner of Hollywood and Vine Street on Judy Garlands star (Story there) and had a small party at Jack Sugars Shack. Guess what? Jonathan is still HERE! Thanks to everyone's support and hard work, It is OUR day forever! Sincerely, Jeanette and Jonathan P.S. We paid around $2,500.00 for almost everything!

I had a shotgun wedding last year. Really, my redneck dad had a double barrel gun the whole time - instead of a toast he handed my husband the shells and said "Thanks for not making me use these."

We found out I was pregnant, panicked for a week (we'd only known eachother a few months), and then decided to just do it. We planned our wedding in one week: my mom made the dress (used Mazola in her sewing machine because she lives in a trailer in the desert and didn't want to run to town), my friends let us use their beautiful backyard and home, I got a judge I know to do the honors (he picked the date), we used Evite for invitations, found a cake maker in our small town who did it up right, and bought hors d'ouvres at Costco. A friend who's ex husband owned a liquor store brought all the beer, wine and champagne. The ceremony was at night near a pool and we used candles instead of flowers (floating ones in the pool - it was pretty cool). Our ceremony was the shortest in the judge's history (less than four minutes!). When I walked out we used a boombox and played UB40's version of "Can't help falling in love (starts off with "Wise men say only fools rush in") when we left the altar we played REM's "It's the end of the world as we know it". We asked everyone for Home Depot gift cards (my house was a fixer-upper) and now have new windows and stuff as a result.

A year later we have a perfect little girl and can't imagine our lives without eachother. All told I think we spent less than $1,000, (including wedding bands - I asked for wood floors in lieu of a diamond ring), entertained about 50 people, had one hell of a cocktail party, and everyone seems to have a picture with my dad with a shotgun as a souvenir.

It's not the event, it's the people. I say invite the right mix and you can't go wrong.

Hi Ellen and All Ellen Fans,

I saw the following post on another board and was very touched. So I thought I would copy the post and add it to as many boards as I could.

My thoughts are that maybe if all of us fans get behind this - maybe, just maybe, Ellen and Crew can help make this happen for Kyle. I am sure that it will be easy enough to verify all that is said in the post.

I don't know Kyle or the family, I am just touched by the story and would really like to see this happen for him. So how about it fans....can you all help me to reach Ellen about this young man? Here is a cool fact about Kyle, he is the fourth great nephew of Wild Bill Hickok. I found this out when I read one of the newspaper articles.

I am doing it myself just because it puts a smile on my face to think that maybe as a group we can give Kyle a Birthday he'll never forget. I hope you'll all read the post and help me reach out to Ellen on Kyle's behalf. Thanks in advance for reading the post and any comments you post to Ellen!

Here is the post: I am going to change it a bit to make it easier to read, but I will not change any of the words.

Ellen, PLEASE HELP!! there's this un-remarkable Kid named Klye Hickok who has pretty much spent a greater part of his life in the hosptial, Kyle is 11 going on 50, 4'11" he weighs about 70lbs, he has a BIG, round,sparkly,eyes, And an Awesome Smile that lights up the whole room,He is quit the prankster.

When Kyle was born on Mar.25th ,1996 he was 5 weeks early, An had troubles right off ,the docs tried for awile to figure him out, he had tons of tests.he first went to Childrens in Seattle when he was 8 months old they thought he had leukemia ,but he didn't, more tests and a couple years later his family found out he had a clotting disease called factor5 liden, and it had clotted off his portal vein ,so it was slowly making his liver fail,

when he was 5, he had a surgery for a twisted bowel,then when he was seven he had a 11hr operation to take out his spleen and make him a spleenal-renal shunt, it lasted only a couple years.then he had a 16 hr op..to take out his gallbladder and make a meso-caval shunt,

He has a heart murmur and his kidneys and lungs have trouble because of his liver failure, Kyle has had pneumonia more times then anyone can count and lots and lots of transfusions and tons and tons of meds..He went on the liver transplant list on Jan 29th 2007 and have been waiting since.all his life has been doc's and hospitals he don't know any different really. You would think that with all those problems he would have had his share of mountains to climb,but as fate would have it that wasn't to be.

On Dec.22nd he woke up with horrible headache and super sensitive to light and sound and started vomiting, His Mother, who I must say has been a rock through all of this. Took him to the doc and they thought he had meningitis so wanted to do a spinal tap but couldn't because of the blood thinners so they did a CT scan and found a burst brain aneurism

so they flew Kyle right away to Harborveiw in Seattle where they found that not only did the little guy have 1 but 7 aneurisms so into surgery. 3 in 4 days to do a thing called coiling, while fixing 3 of them he had two little strokes on the right side of his brain but they were very little, but all of the contrast they were using caused him to go into full renal failure and congestive heartfailure, but true to his tough, superhero, nature and all of the prayers, He is still fighting.

they moved Kyle to childrens on Jan2nd so he could start dialysis to help his kidneys and get off the extra 20 pounds of fluid this little body was holding onto,He has a long way to go to get better.

Kyle has been such a strong, fighter and it seems just when he finishs with one surgery an recovering from that something else comes along and not so much knockes him down but is thrown on his plate to deal with,

The reason Im writting Ellen is that Kyle will be turning 12 on March 25.He is such a caring and kind kid when Make A Wish Foundation wanted to give him a wish One of his original wish's was to have dinner with Emeril Legasse and Rod Stewart.

But since Kyle is the most giving, sharing kid, what he ended up asking for was a vacation that his whole family could ALL enjoy!, But that Vacation never happened due to being in the hosp.

So with ending this Im just asking if you could Please put Kyle in touch with Emeril, Rod or even someone like the Cyrus family, as he is way into Hannah Montana as well it would be amazing! Even if it was a phone call or email or letter... Just something spectacular and uplifting for this amazing Kid on his b-day. Thank you so much Ellen. Andrea Wood, Kalispell Montana

Posted by Andrea Wood | March 13, 2008 11:36 PM

Thanks for reading, I hope you all will post to Ellen and see if we can make this happen for Kyle!

Kelley Wilson

Here are the website addresses for Kyle if you would like more information about him.

CaringBridge:

www.caringbridge.org/visit/kjnh

For Newspaper stories:

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2007/03/12/news/news01.txt

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2008/01/20/news/news02.txt

Couples, spend too much money on weddings. I eloped, spent money on needed stuff. We got divorced. See my point? My son spent mucho dollars on his wedding, they ended up in divorce. Everyone I know, just about, has been divorced at least once. I have no problem with fancy get togethers and parties to celebrate anything anyone chooses, but love struck girls get talked into high priced weddings, to keep the memories forever, which usually get burned to ashes in an open fire, later own in life. Take a cruise, it is a non stop party, and less money and you don't have to burn ALL the photos, just the ones with your spouse.