Gay Weddings are Good for Business

Today I participated in the Wedding Market Chat on Twitter and had some great questions!  You can follow along and check out the transcript here.  I shared some gay wedding data, some information on laws and policies and marketing tips. 

Thanks to Julie Albaugh from Wedding Market News for inviting me to participate!

This past Tuesday I led the Gay Wedding Institute full day workshop in Denver, which was then followed by the launch party for Colorado Gay Weddings and A Vote and a Vow.  

It was so wonderful to be in such a great group of enthusiastic supporters of marriage equality.  Mark Paquette from Events Unwrapped organized the training and Kristy Rowe and Jessica Bergthold from A Vote and a Vow planned a fantastic, well attended party which featured great food and tastings from the area's finest distilleries!

Here are the 21 graduates of the course on Tuesday very enthusiastically participated and will be fantastic advocates for their LGBT clients.  The graduates are planners, officiants, photographers, florists, DJs, venues and even a linen company!  

I'm at the airport heading home from an all day training I facilitated today in Toronto for my wedding industry peers.  These 20 professionals came from all over the Ontario area to learn more about the LGBT wedding market so they can better serve their clients.  I gave them A TON of information and in-course activities and I'm so proud of their enthusiasm!  

A special shout out to Holly Carney for recruiting and organizing the participants!  And to Angel St. Pierre from the Ontario Science Center for hosting us!  

Please congratulate these new Gay Wedding Institute Certified professionals!

• Elizabeth Scheniman
• Danielle Rea
• Kathleen Pearsall
• Danielle Deebank
• Jacquie Swadi
• Joanna Efpatridis
• Karim Shivji
• Alanna Pizzoferrato
• Diane Almeida
• Jennifer Prince
• Sandy Stirling
• Christina Spring
• Cassiopeia Burrell
• Sherry VanHornne
• Natalie Faria
• Antonella Cerminara
• Samantha Lavigne
• Holly Carney (again!)
• Denise Georgiou-Newell
• Angel St. Pierre

The next Gay Wedding Institute webinar series is underway but I wanted to give a shout-out to the most recent crop of wedding professionals who completed the GWI webinar course. They worked really hard and did a great job. Special shout out to the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square/Cambridge, MA and also the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park who have had the majority of their catering staff participate. Congratulations to the following graduates:

• Wendy Kidd, New York
• Gina Brown, Massachusetts
• Sarah Chatingny, Massachusetts
• Jennifer Halpin, Massachusetts
• Carolyn Croisier, Massachusetts
• Malia Stevens, New York
• Michele Rose, Illinois
• Laura Dlugatch, New York
• Regina Cialone Aliamo, New York
• Rena LeMessurier-Joubert, Alberta, Canada
• Christian Heydt, Massachusetts
• Ivan Jonathan Tavera, Quintana Roo, Mexico
• Jocelyn McCarthy, New York
• Jackie Ross, Florida

They worked hard, took all the webinars, did all the homework correctly and I'm thrilled to have this group as great advocates for LGBT couples!

I'm speaking with a fantastic group of my peers on March 30 at the Epic Summit in Northern New Jersey.  I'll be speaking on the topic of the emerging LGBT wedding market.

Other expert speakers include Katy Carrier, Sonny Ganguly and Alan Berg, among others.

I can offer an exclusive rate of 50% off admission to the first two people who comment on this post by March 5.  Leave a comment and if you're one of the first two, I'll email you the discount code!

I'm speaking at various places in the U.S., Canada and Mexico about gay weddings each of the next seven months.  Two of the dates are full day certification courses, so if you are in Toronto or Denver, you can take advantage of a full day course and receive the Gay Wedding Institute certification.  

To check out the full speaking calendar, click here.

To register for the March 24 Gay Wedding Institute course in Toronto, click here.

To register for the April 3 course in Denver, click here.

And to have me do a shorter presentation or full day course in your area, send me an email!

I hope to meet more of you soon at one of these sessions.

Last week when I spoke at Engage!, I started by saying, "Did you know that it's harder to get a gay divorce than a gay marriage?"

Did you?

I have former clients who live in California and married here in Massachusetts last year.  They contacted me recently asking about divorcing.  I'm definitely not in the business of divorce, but what I told them is that, in order to divorce, one of them would need to move to Massachusetts and establish residency here.  After residency was established, they could then file for divorce in Massachusetts.

So if they live in California, why can't they divorce in California?  Straight couples don't need to move to divorce.

California doesn't recognize their legal Massachusetts marriage as a marriage.  As far as that state is concerned, that couple are merely domestic partners.  And California has the right to make that call - the federal government says so.

There have been gay divorce court cases in both Texas and Pennsylvania where couples have sought to divorce without establishing residency in the state where they were married.  In all instances of legal battles for gay divorce, the couple has been denied that right.  Why?

Because if a state says it's OK to have a gay divorce, then they are, in a backwards way, saying it's OK to have a gay marriage! And they are simply not ready to say that.

Gay marriage is messy political and legal business - but gay weddings are fabulous!  It's worth it and one of these days, this stuff won't matter anymore.  I can't wait.

Yesterday I was interviewed on the National Public Radio Station, WNYC, on the show "Soundcheck" to talk about music at gay weddings.  Last week they had a show about music at weddings and a listener wrote to complain that same-sex weddings were left out of the discussion.  They called me up and I filled them in about music at gay weddings.

You can listen to the entire clip here.

The bottom line is that there is a difference in what many same-sex couples request, as compared to opposite-sex couples.  The first example that comes to mind is that many same-sex couples request pop music during their ceremony processional and recessional, as opposed to the traditional classical pieces.  I give some examples during the show.

Enjoy!

This week I led a workshop on civil unoins for a group of enthusiastic, committed wedding professionals at the workshop of photographer Rick Aguilar in Chicago. Enjoy these great photos shot by Rick and his team.

The individuals below worked very hard to complete the GWI certificate course which wrapped up last week.  They spent 3+ hours on webinars, did homework on their own time and now all have the resources to help LGBT couples with their wedding plans.  These individuals are literally from around the world - from as far away as Hawaii and Canada, from Maryland, DC, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Massachusetts and beyond.  It gives me great pleasure to introduce the first round of GWI certificate course grads.

Wayne Alldridge
Katie Bianchi
Julie Buckley
Holly Carney
Cassie Conching
Christy Daly
Nancy Salatto Deighan
Julia Grasch
Patricia Hall
Cara Lanza
Tracey Manailescu
 Michele Stallings Mills
Andrea Nacci
Colleen Reid
Ira Task
Jen Wooster-McBride
Jen VanMassenhoven

Thank you all for your outstanding participation!  I know you will be fantastic advocates for your same-sex clients!