Sam and Jay always planned to be married on Halloween – because every Halloween since they first met nine years ago on a dating site, they have played host to a fancy-dress party and people now expect it of them. Jay’s grandparents also got married on Halloween, so they wanted to follow the tradition.
Unfortunately COVID scuppered their plans for a big fancy dress ball where the theme would have been ‘anything goes’ (including both grooms in custom-designed wedding dresses!) but they were still able channel the Halloween vibes with autumnal tones, pumpkin centrepieces and hessian and lavender mixed in too – they even had burnt orange facemasks for the bridal party, so no detail was left unconsidered.
Richard and Melvin went all out for their July 2018 wedding. They hired beautiful Elmore Court, a grade II listed mansion in Gloucestershire, as their venue. Then, 10 days later, they had a second party at a private members club in London (where they had their first date) for 250 people who couldn’t attend the main event!
“We had a summer wedding built around a garden party with an informal vibe and a strong musical presence”, the grooms told us. “We had opera singers in the service and a jazz band with friends (and one groom) singing during the afternoon garden party.”
Although they grew up thousands of miles apart – Melvin from the Bahamas, Richard from the UK – both their grandfathers were farmers and both sets of families had strong links to farming and the countryside. Although they now live in London, they both love gardens and the countryside so wanted to bring this into their day. Richard’s dad even grew some of the flowers which were used in the arrangements and the self-designed stationery had wildflowers on as a nod to the theme.
After years of fighting for equality, and although gay marriage (rather than civil partnerships) is still not legal in Switzerland, Jasmin and Lorena’s didn’t want to wait one second longer to be wife and wife. They planned a celebration that was both down to earth and timeless, but celebrated who they are and their love.
“Both our dads led us down the aisle, Lorena first. We had two singers who were close friends and a guitarist played the song Everything by Michael Bublé. One of our friends led the ceremony, which was truly emotional. They then asked for the audience’s support and to fight for the freedom to marry. Everyone stood up and clapped their hands to show their support to us and other queer couples.”
Linsey and Allison met on Tinder, and were crazy about each other from the moment they met! When it came to planning their September wedding, they were inspired by the barn and outdoor space at Garden Gate at Haley Farm in Maine, New England. “Our vision was captivating design and lush florals,” the couple told us, “to go alongside the beauty of the property. Our love for jewel tones was also an inspiration! We loved having so much outdoor space in the lawns and the back deck. We wanted an outdoor seating area the moment we saw the back deck.”
COVID restrictions at the time meant their guest list had to be small, of just 25 people. Bounty O’ Blooms provided lush florals for the day, and Nothing Bakes Like A Parrott a gorgeous pink ombre cake. One Stop Events provided rentals, but the rest of the day was planned themselves. “It is hard to plan a wedding during a pandemic! Although we had to plan a wedding with a small guest list it still feels like it turned out perfectly with our family and closest friends.”
It’s 2020 and so planning an LGBTQ wedding shouldn’t be any different to planning a straight one. While there have been HUGE, incredible strides made all over the world in the last few years, parts of the wedding industry are still (STILL!) outdated and hetro-normative as fuck. Hayley of Found her Flow has recently set up a FREE online course for wedding suppliers to help educate and improve the lack of inclusivity and diversity she’s personally experienced. Today she’s sharing some practical tips and advice on how you can best navigate your wedding planning when you are an LGBTQ couple, too. Hayley, we love you! Over to you…
Yay! You’re engaged! No doubt you’ve already started pinning inspo to your Pinterest board, started discussing who would make a great ‘I Do’ crew and thinking about venues. You may have both already faced some ‘opinions’ from family and friends on what they feel you should do for your wedding day. As an LGBTQ couple planning your wedding, you may notice as you go along that things are a little different for you both. Now, of course, it definitely shouldn’t be like this, but in a day and age when we still need Pride and LGBTQ awareness, things may be challenging sometimes. The great news is that you can definitely overcome any challenges with some prior contingency planning!
My wife and I got married last year and even though I’ve worked in the wedding industry for 13 years, I was still a little taken back, to put it mildly, at some of the challenges we faced… And I’m not even talking about the reaction to the relaxed ‘dress code’ we had either! We found ourselves regularly educating our family, guests and wedding suppliers on what we wanted and how to be fully inclusive. This took us back as you can imagine – who would have thought that in 2019, the wedding industry could still be so LGBTQ exclusive?
One of our bridesmaids bought us a pile of wedding magazines when we got engaged (not Rock n Roll Bride I must add!) As we sat down to go through them, I noticed a similar theme; none of them had any LGBTQ content whatsoever. How could I relate and plan my wedding using these magazines that were outdated in their view of modern day weddings? Blogs were a saving grace for us and showed us ‘real world’ weddings that were full of originality, inclusivity and diversity, rather than the well staged photo shoots featuring the same ‘Mr and Mrs’ narrative.
Ahh Lily and Claribell’s wedding brings us so much joy!! They were married at My Moon Restaurant in Brooklyn and although they had just $5000 to spend their day was beautiful and so right for them! The theme was a combination of keeping things simple and intimate but with rustic and romantic touches. They wanted to celebrate their day with their closest loved ones and avoid anything to formal or fancy.
“Our inspiration was for it to be romantic and simple”, they explained. “We loved that our venue provide everything for us and we didn’t have to go crazy hiring multiple people to put our vision together, My Moon had everything we wanted from decor to ceremony space.”
