When Joel Derfn­er’s boyfriend pro­posed to him, there was nowhere in Amer­i­ca the two could legal­ly mar­ry. That changed, how­ev­er, and soon they were on what they expect­ed to be a rol­lick­ing jour­ney to mar­ried bliss. What they did­n’t real­ize was that along the way they would con­front not just the dilem­mas every cou­ple faces along the way to the altar — what kind of ketubah would they get? what col­or would the chup­pah be? did they have to invite Great-Aunt Sylvia? — but also ques­tions about rela­tion­ships, the def­i­n­i­tion of mar­riage, and, ulti­mate­ly, what makes a fam­i­ly. Add to the mix a real­i­ty show whose direc­tor forces them to keep nota­riz­ing wed­ding-license appli­ca­tions until she gets a shot she likes, a fam­i­ly mar­riage his­to­ry that includes adul­ter­ers, arms smug­glers, and poi­son­ers, and dis­cus­sions of Tal­mud, Sopho­cles, civ­il rights, gram­mar, and home­made Oui­ja boards, cou­pled with Derfn­er’s gift for get­ting in his own way, and you have a sto­ry not just of gay mar­riage and the Amer­i­can fam­i­ly but of what it means to be human.