Gay Weddings are Good for Business

A few weeks ago, the Huffington Post invited me to be a new blogger on their site, which now has a weddings section.  I eagerly jumped at the opportunity and my first post appeared today!  I wrote about "what's the difference between a straight and a gay wedding?" because I'm literally asked that question all the time.  

Check out my thoughts on their site (and please leave a comment at the bottom of the post).

This Sunday I'm flying down to West Palm Beach, Florida, to speak at Engage! The Breakers.  My session, called "The Emerging Gay and Lesbian Wedding Market" will be co-facilitated with Kate Parker.  

A year ago, Kate and I collaborated to ensure that her new venture, www.MyKateParkerWedding.com was completely gender-neutral and non-heterosexist. We'll be talking about that process as well as the differences between straight and gay weddings.

I attended Engage! Cayman earlier this year and blogged about my experience.  I met such fantastic people and really enjoyed hearing stories from vendors around the country about their experiences (or lack thereof) with same-sex weddings.  This time, I get to take things to the next level and do some real education - and I can't wait!  I hope to see you there.

Please contact me if you'd like me to lead a workshop on same-sex weddings in your area.

I wanted to tell you that my wife, Jen Coveney-Smith is pregnant.  She's due in October.  It's a blessing and we're very excited to bring a baby into our already pretty awesome lives.

I thought it would be good to take this opportunity to answer any questions you may have about how same-sex couples start families.  I've had a bunch of clients with kids and many more planning to start families.  If you are working with same-sex couples on their gay wedding plans, you may be very curious about where the kids will come from - but be sure to satisfy your curiosity by asking your questions delicately and using open ended sentences. 

Here's our story:
Last fall we went to an open house on lesbian reproduction at a local health center.  We learned about our options for pregnancy and decided that Jen was going to carry the baby and the sperm would come from an anonymous donor from a sperm bank.  Jen's 34 and will be 35 in August.  We looked through the donor databases at a few different places, noting things like eye and hair color, height, weight, education, favorite tv show, favorite childhood memories and so on.  There's even one bank that tells you the donor's celebrity lookalike - very cool.  

We chose a donor who we both crushed on.  We don't know his celebrity lookalike but his profile sounded perfect to us.  And after the age of 18, the kid could even get to the contact the donor.  Not all donors consent to that but we thought that was a cool option if our kid someday felt so inclined.  

Our first insemination was on January 2 and the procedure took about 10 seconds in the doctor's office.  It's really quick and painless (according to Jen).  We were in New Orleans for The Special Event Show when Jen took a home pregnancy test, which proved to be negative.  We tried again on January 31.  On February 13, Jen had a positive pregnancy test!  She got pregnant on the second try which is pretty unbelievable for any couple, straight or gay.

We've since seen the baby's heartbeat a few times and it's really pretty cool what's going on inside her body.  We've both been kind of freaked out - Jen's freaked out by all the craziness that her body's doing; and planner that I am, I'm obsessed with space-saving strategies to fit a baby into our small 2BR condo!

But life is good.  That's just our story.   I've worked with both male and female couples on their own journey towards parenthood and by now, I'm pretty familiar with just about every available option to us so if you have any questions about either our situation or what other couples may choose, please leave it in the comments and I'm happy to answer.

A few weeks ago I was in a clothing designer's studio taking a bride to be fitted for a custom pants suit.  Things were going really well and we made a follow up appointment.

Later that week, that bride's fiancee called me asking to cancel the second appointment with the clothing designer.  Why?

Because the bride's 87 year old mother said to her, "You better not be dressed like a man on your wedding day."

So instead of wearing a custom suit that she was really digging on, the next week we had her trying on wedding dresses.  And she looked and felt like a fish out of water.  I took her to places where the wedding dresses were simpler (like J Crew) but we didn't have any luck finding her something she'd be comfortable in - and that's because she'd be more comfortable in a suit.

This situation hasn't resolved itself yet.  How would you handle this situation?  As you work with lesbian brides, you might find yourself in a very similar situation.

Cambridge, Massachusetts was the first city in the United States to issue legal marriage licenses to same-sex couples.  They began doing so at 12:01am on Monday, May 17, 2004.

I was so pleased yesterday to see the Washington Post's article about how wedding industry vendors are preparing to reach the gay and lesbian wedding market.  I was interviewed by the Post last week for this story.  You can read the article here.

I wanted to introduce this site since I'll be doing most of my blogging over here now.  I've been planning gay weddings for 5 1/2 years, since they were first legalized in Massachusetts six years ago.  Back then lots of people thought I was crazy and advised that having such a specific niche would limit my market.