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This question comes in from Chris Evans: I'm helping a promoter work on their show registration and we have come down to the issue of what to call the participants. Can you please comment for all in the American Wedding Professionals group on this? Obviously, bride and groom don't always apply when filling in a pre-registration form. But person #1 and person #2 seems impersonal and possibly offensive to a traditional bride and groom. What's your suggestion on how to handle this so as to not offend?   More

I love getting questions from readers. Jody in Ft Lauderdale sent me the following question this week: I want to throw a surprise bridal shower for my co-worker Paul who is getting married in April is there a politically correct name for throwing a bridal shower for a groom?...it's a gay wedding.... Please let me know!   More

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Many times, team members find themselves in situations they would never expect and were never trained for. I've spoken to managers who have been approached by guests expressing frustration at LGBTQ clientele in a hotel. For example, I trained a sales manager who struggled with how to respond to a guest complaining about a drag queen convention at a hotel. I've personally experienced guests at same-sex weddings come up to my team to vent and discuss their conflicted feelings about being present. Is your team prepared to respond to such bias?   More

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I know a lot of wedding professionals want to be certified by the Gay Wedding Institute, but might not have the ability to participate in one of our live courses (which is a full day course) or in our monthly webinar series which is generally offered at 1 PM Eastern once a week for three weeks.   More

One of the questions I get most often from wedding professionals is "how do I attract same-sex couples to my business?" It seems like a pretty simple question but the solution is not as easy as you would think.

Same-sex couples are actively looking for wedding professionals that show their support of marriage equality and LGBT weddings. One of the ways that you as a wedding professional can show your support of marriage equality is by including images on your website of same-sex couples at their wedding. If you've never worked on a same-sex wedding before you might not have these images. The Gay Wedding Institute is always here to help.

Check out our stock photo collection and buy a ready to use, instant download images. These images will send a signal to a couple who is perusing your website that you do support marriage equality and would love to work on them with their LGBT wedding. LGBT couples want to feel included. We want to see images of people like us as we're looking for wedding professionals.

After you get over the hurdle and book that first same-sex couple, chances are you'll have their images to use on your website and in your marketing materials - but until then our stock photography collection is a great place to start building your client base of same-sex couples.

Images of a same-sex couple getting married are available to you with prices as low as $33 per high-resolution image.  More