Finding Your People
On June 30th the Supreme court ruled in favor of discrimination again the LGBTQ+ community. The ruling comes after a website designer wanted to expand her business to create wedding websites but only wanted to work on weddings that are unity between “one man and one woman”. The Court ruled that, because the conduct involved her expression, it was protected speech and the nondiscrimination law could not be applied to her.
The queer community is not new to discrimination and especially not in the wedding industry. With gay marriage only being legalized in 2015 we have been kicking down the doors to the wedding industry and letting ourselves in. Very quickly vendors, planners, and venues showed their discomfort with our presence. So how do we navigate finding our people?
When it comes to researching vendors to serve the LGBTQ+ community I look for a few specific things:
Is there queer representation in their portfolio?
If there is queer representation, is it only posted during pride month?
Is there gender inclusive language on their website?
Without even having a conversation with the vendor I already know how comfortable I will be with adding them to my vendor list based off of what I find to answer those 3 questions. It says a lot about your support and ally-ship if there is no representation at all and I am not looking to bring them their first “experimental” couple.
As queers we are not asking for royal treatment but we are asking for decency, respect, and recognition. Truly the bare minimum.
What can SYP Events do to guide you? To start, we spend the time doing the research so you don’t have to. Our vendors through SYP Events are the best of the best. Along the way we will ensure all pronouns are respected and that gender inclusive language is included in every step. We appreciate traditions but we do not plan with them in mind. We will help you decide which ones are for you or how we can adapt them to fit more modern times. We can make our own traditions now so let’s get creative!
