With the addition of Hawaii and Alaska, the number of Americans living in states with marriage equality has doubled since the start of the year. That’s awesome, but it also means that we’re probably going to be getting a whole lot of wedding invitations for the next couples years, so it might be time to invest in a comfortable cummerbund.
We’ve never really had to deal with real, legal marriage before, so a lot of LGBTs grew up under the assumption that they’d never have to plan a wedding. As a result, our community’s ceremonies can be all over the map: some are super-traditional, others completely wacky.
We popped by the Los Angeles Lesbian and Gay Wedding Expo, sponsored and produced by Frontiers media, this weekend to find out what couples are doing to celebrate the big day. Check out our photo gallery below, featuring a few of our favorite vendors and their observations about wedding trends. (Not pictured: the liposuction booth, which featured, we kid you not, a cheese plate.)
Below: one of the many engaged couples we bumped into at the show. A completely average, representative pair of gay men. Nothing particularly unusual about them.
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The ladies of Monterey Hill and Luminarias point out that every couple is unique, but Mondays and Tuesdays are increasingly popular as wedding days.
Celio and Edgar arrange flowers and plan decor. “Gay couples are more fantasy, more formal,” Celio has observed.
Paola Frano and Sandra Favero do event planning and design with Say I Do. They tend toward the smaller and more intimate. “We want to make it about love,” Paola says.
Stephan Fomenko of Friar Tux says gay couples are evenly split between traditional and new. “Sometimes they go really out there,” he says, like wearing a silver coat with a pink tie.
The folks at Bed Bath and Beyond have found that lesbian couples can be more traditional, while male couples might tend to opt for charitable registries. The main areas of focus for gift registries: dining, kitchen and bath.
Natalie Reynoso and Jessica Pursell host special events with Premiere Events and Lot 613. They like to customize ceremonies with little touches like having couples design their own cocktails with cute, meaningful names.
Jeff Brown (not pictured) runs Brownhot Events. “There’s an appreciation and discriminating taste” to gay clients, he says. “They get the finer details.”
lynx
“one of the many engaged couples we bumped into at the show. A completely average, representative pair of gay men. Nothing particularly unusual about them.”
While they may not be ‘A list’ celebrities that is Lance Bass and fiancé Michael Turchin.
NateB79
Is Lance Bass “A List?” I mean maybe at a wedding convention, but not much else right?
Dixie Rect
Was Lance serving pizza at The Food Court? What a picture – – I’ll say it again, he’s looking more and more special needs each day………
Dwight
“With the addition of Hawaii and Alaska . . .”
Huh? Alaska?
STX414
Alaska?! wtf?!