Planning an LGBTQ+ Wedding In Southern California
Wondering how to plan a gay wedding? Don't worry; I will give you the answer! It's actually not that much different than planning a non-gay wedding.
You may be recently engaged and wondering how to start. You perhaps even found this blog post on Google, which is a GREAT start. Yes, there are some things that LGBTQ+ couples have to navigate during the wedding planning process that straight couples do not. For example, straight couples don't have to "come out" to each of their vendors during the inquiry process. I know first-hand how stressful that can be. There's a chance you could run into a situation where a vendor says, "they don't do gay weddings," and that's scary! So how do you go around that?
Below are my top 5 things to consider when planning your gay wedding.
NUMBER 1 - START WITH ONE VENDOR
Start by finding one LGBTQ+ affirming wedding professional, like myself, to help guide you and share with you which vendors are LGBTQ+ affirming in your area. Once you find one or two vendors, you can ask for a list of other past wedding pros they have worked with on LGBTQ+ weddings. This eliminates all the extra work to find all of your vendors on your own. Once you have that one or two vendors, you'll quickly be able to find the others.
NUMBER 2 - HASHTAGS ARE YOUR FRIEND
How do you find that first LGBTQ+ affirming vendor? I recommend starting on Instagram. In the search, type a hashtag then where you plan to have your wedding followed by a vendor category (example, #ocweddingplanner). Once you execute the search, you will find a bunch of content tagged with that hashtag. Start scrolling through that content and take note of people you gravitate towards. Set up some intro calls, and there you have it!
NUMBER 3 - LET’S TALK BUDGET
Talk about the budget early! This is going to help you so much because once you know how much you are willing to spend, you will be able to know right away which vendors you can work with and which ones you can't. Just like there are different price points for cars, there are different price points for wedding vendors. Even though you might want to drive a Mercedes, you might only be able to afford a Toyota (which there's nothing wrong with Toyota). But there's nothing worse than having your heart set out on a certain car only to get to the dealership to find out there's no way you can afford it. Suddenly you leave the dealership without your dream car and are disappointed. Weddings can be like that too. So sit down with your fiancé and talk about money, as uncomfortable as it may be. My pro tip is to open a bottle or wine, turn on some Leslie Odom Jr., and get into a zen space before you jump into it. If you're going to have to have this conversation (which you will), you may as well set the mood and enjoy it.
NUMBER 4 - PICK YOUR DATE
Pick a date (or two). This is going to be the first question vendors ask. They will want to see if they are even available on your date. So how do you even begin to pick a date? I'll tell you what I did to my husband when we started planning. We were at a winery and walking the grounds imagining what our wedding would look like there. I asked him, "what season do you imagine us getting married in? … Is it cold outside? … are there leaves and grapes on the vines?" After he described the temperature and what the vines looked like, I narrowed down what months would paint that picture. We looked at our calendars to see what events we already had on our iPhones. I asked questions like, "Do we want to have it on your Grandmother's birthday? Do we want to have it on September 11th? Questions like these eliminated possible dates right away. All of a sudden, we narrowed down a few weekends. Then the questions turned into "Do we want to get married at the beginning of the month when it's still a little chilly out or at the end of the month when it starts to warm up?" And the next thing we knew, we had a weekend. We used that as our first choice and kept our second to last date as a backup.
NUMBER 5 - PINTEREST BOARD FTW
Get your Pinterest board made! Whether you have a general idea of what you want or have your wedding planned to the last detail, this will help your vendors figure out how to start designing for your wedding. Just remember… we want your wedding to feel and look like you! You don't want a copy/paste wedding from Pinterest. You should only want to use Pinterest as an inspiration point and design your wedding that will leave your guests saying, "this wedding was SO them!"
