Gay Weddings are Good for Business

Washington State became the seventh U.S. state (plus D.C.) to legalize gay marriage on Monday when Governor Gregoire signed the marriage equality bill into law.  This is very exciting and you should definitely get your business ready. Opponents of marriage equality still may try to stop it from going into effect on June 7 - so the matter is not yet settled - but this is a huge step forward.  Go forth and prosper!

It's pretty standard for legal gay weddings to have this very strong energy of triumph to them, a spirit of "FINALLY!  We can get legally married!"  As a result, many couples seek to bring a little bit of politics into their ceremony, and sometimes even their reception.

Two of the most popular readings at gay marriage ceremonies come from court rulings - the Goodridge ruling and the Walker ruling - check them out!  

I've even had clients bring politics into their reception - naming tables after famous LGBT people in history, hosting the reception somewhere that has given a lot to marriage equality efforts - and I even had a couple name their signature cocktail the Revolution - in honor of the marriage equality revolution.  

I hope these ideas help you help your clients put a little more edginess into their wedding!

Question:  How can vendors expect the wedding market to change and be prepared for it as more states legalize gay marriage? What is the wedding market like in areas where gay marriage isn't legal? Should vendors be marketing to gay couples even if they live in areas where gay marriage isn't legal or there isn't a high population of gay people? 

Answer:  First of all, vendors should be aware that it's going to change and that they need to be prepared and get ready now! They don't want to be behind when the tide turns in their state. It's much better to be pre-emptive than to have to play catchup!  Our certification course is a great primer to prepare your business for gay weddings. 

Same-sex couples who live in states where same-sex marriage is not legal frequently travel to states where it is (like Massachusetts and New York) and have a legal ceremony, then have a big party back home. Those big parties can sometimes have big budgets and be very much like a wedding, so there is absolutely no harm in marketing now.

Do you  have any burning questions for me?  Ask them here and I'll answer in an upcoming post!

In 21 of our 50 states, it's illegal to deny a same-sex couple services on the basis of their sexual orientation.  This is because the state's anti-discrimination law includes sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

This means that in 29 U.S. states, you can legally discriminate against LGBT people.  In states such as Florida and Virginia, couples can legally be denied services.  

A lesbian couple in Vermont (above) just filed a lawsuit against an inn in Vermont, a place they had hoped to have their wedding.  The couple claims that the inn said in an email that the owners are not comfortable hosting the wedding.  In Vermont, this is against the law.

And, just this week in New Jersey, a lesbian bride was denied a dress at a bridal shop.

What are the laws in your state?  You can find out here.  If couples are not protected, you may hear some horror stories from the couples that call you for help. Remember, if you are working with same-sex couples, it's important to not only be their vendor but also their advocate.

(Photo credit:  Toby Talbot, AP)

So, there's good news and there's bad news...civil unions were just signed into law in Rhode Island, effective July 1, 2011.  How can this possibly be bad?  I mean, think of all those Newport gay weddings (and civil unions)!

Well, the only way the bill passed was if it included the right for religious institutions to not recognize a civil union.  This basically legalizes discrimination by religious institutions.  The law of course gives a church the right to say, "We won't perform a gay wedding here" (which is totally fine if they so choose).  But it also allows religious institutions to deny other services to same-sex couples, such as adoptions, social services, funerals and so forth.  Some religious exceptions are fine (religious exceptions were needed in order for gay marriage to pass in New York) - but these ones seem particularly extreme.

As a wedding professional, if you are serving couples in Rhode Island, keep an extra eye out for potential discrimination from religious institutions for your clients!

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.

I was planning to wait til the fall to launch new dates for the Gay Wedding Institute Certificate course, but in light of my phone and email blowing up with calls from New York wedding vendors looking to enter the gay wedding market, I thought it best to set up some dates for July, before the gay marriage law goes into effect in New York.

So, announcing new dates:  July 12, July 14 and July 19, at 3pm EST.  And of course, non New Yorkers are welcome also!

Registration is open and you can register here!

Same-sex marriage was just legalized in New York state by a narrow margin.  This makes New York the largest state in the U.S. with legal gay marriage (and the sixth state, plus D.C.).  There are approximately 42,600 same-sex couples in the state (though 20% are already legally married).

When gay marriage goes into effect in about a month, gay weddings are expected to boost the NY economy by $210 million in the next three years.  This is amazing news for the wedding industry!

Is your wedding business ready?

• Well, to start, make sure you don't accidentally turn off prospective couples by being heterosexist.  Take down references to "bride and groom" from your website and marketing materials and substitute "couples" or "brides and grooms", for example.
• Make sure your contracts don't say "bride and groom".
• Think about the difference between a straight and gay wedding!
• Understand the federal laws about gay marriage and how your clients can be affected
• Understand what to call a gay wedding

I read this yesterday on a blog: "my hometown Chicago, Illinois was approved for same sex marriages." 

The thing I want to clear up is that Illinois (and Hawaii and Delaware and New Jersey) actually wasn't approved for same-sex marriages.  Not at all. They approved civil unions.

Civil unions are great.  They are progress towards equal rights and protections for same-sex couples.  They have been around since 2000 when Vermont first created the institution of civil unions.  The thing about civil unions, though, is that they are a state law, meaning no access to the 1000+ federal benefits (ie. social security) that come with marriage.  They are essentially the same thing as statewide domestic partnership coverage, which is what states like California and Washington offer.  But they are a made-up term because politicians are afraid of using the term marriage, which many Americans are sensitive about and perceive as a religious institution.

In the UK and Ireland, there is a civil partnership law which offers all the rights of marriage.  Civil partnership is different from civil unions in one critical way:  it's a federal law with federal rights.  That means that it's not a county by county decision over there.  Civil partnership is still a made up term because politicians are afraid of using the term marriage - but the rights are federally issued.

Same-sex couples appreciate civil unions.  But they also know that they are a cop-out, made-up term and many hold out for the real deal:  marriage.  So will your business see a spike if you promote your services for couples seeking a civil union?  Absolutely.  Will the spike be as great as it would be if your state legalized marriage?  Absolutely not.

Civil Unions were approved in Delaware last week, set to go into effect January 2, 2012.

Delaware joins Illinois, New Jersey, and as of January 2, 2012, Hawaii, as the U.S. states which offer statewide civil unions for same-sex couples.

Defining a civil union, from our Gay Wedding Glossary:

A legal union of a same-sex couple, sanctioned by a civil authority. New Jersey, Illinois and Hawaii (active on January 1, 2012) are the U.S. state with civil unions. They were legal in Vermont and Connecticut at a time, before both states approved legal gay marriage.

Civil unions are not equal to marriage, though they provide some (but not all) rights of marriage. Civil unions are not sanctioned by the federal government and couples with civil unions receive no federal benefits. Many same-sex couples, while they see civil unions as progress, still "hold out" for legal marriage before planning a wedding because they don't see much meaning in a separate and unequal institution.