Every year, as June approaches, we see rainbow flags flying across social media as the world shows support for the LGBTQIA+ community and celebrates Pride Month. While these acts of kindness mean a lot to LGBT people in your life and show them that you support them, there's a lot more to being a true ally. Simply put, someone who genuinely cares about the gay community and fights for their rights, would go beyond just posting on social media. The LGBTQIA+ Community has fought a long battle for their right to live a dignified life. Therefore, every year in June, the world celebrates Pride month in honour of community members who have been through various obstacles in life and have come a long way. It also showcases how far gay rights have come, and what all is yet to achieve.
✨Same-Sex Marriage and the Wedding Industry✨
With time evolving, there have been significant changes in same-sex marriages. Same-sex couples are receiving more assistance than ever before in paying for their weddings. Five years ago, a large majority of same-sex couples said they paid for all or most of their wedding themselves, but that figure has drastically decreased lately. This shift indicates that more parents (and extended family) are attending and supporting their children's same-sex marriage, resulting in an increase in overall wedding spend as more vendors are hired, more guests are invited, and LGBTQ couples have shifted away from practical and often hastily planned legal elopements to a more traditional engagement and wedding planning process.
🏳️🌈 If you are a wedding planner, make your website Gender-Neutral
When it comes to choosing wedding services, gay couples frequently fear rejection. They'll ignore you if your website and marketing don't appear to be "gay friendly." Make sure the language on your website, in your emails, and in your marketing is gender-neutral. They prefer to see "partners" rather than "bride and groom."
🏳️🌈 Increase in the Guestlist
More gay and lesbian couples are coming out, choosing to marry, and feeling comfortable celebrating with a larger circle of family, friends, and coworkers, which has resulted in an increase in the number of guests at gay weddings and lesbian weddings. It's also a function of being allowed to legally marry in one's native state and having the opportunity to arrange ahead of time. For the majority of same-sex couples, having both a ceremony and a reception is a relatively new event that represents a big shift with evident planning and budgeting consequences and has had a direct impact on the expansion of the average guestlist, which gives the wedding industry to outshine itself by planning a wedding that blows everyone’s mind.
🏳️🌈 More Supporters of the Marriage
The supporting cast has expanded in size as same-sex marriage has risen in size. Very few people stood up as witnesses for same-sex couples five years ago. The average wedding party size for same-sex couples has now increased drastically and more people are willingly attending the wedding and having the time of their lives. The Wedding planner should effectively look into all these details and plan the events accordingly. Moreover, more guests and larger wedding parties are just a few more indicators that same-sex couples are adhering to traditional wedding planning rules rather than the highly individualised, smaller-scale ceremonies of the past, giving way to the wedding industry.
🏳️🌈 Normalization of LGBTQIA+ Content
Every couple, whether same-sex or any other ordinary couple out there, wants to flaunt themselves on social media. Some restrict themselves owing to what society will say and the others don’t pay heed to society at all. The importance of representation cannot be overstated. This is something we've seen time and time again. It's impossible to normalise LGBTQIA+ weddings without seeing them well-represented on social media. Actively developing and promoting queer content across channels available to you is one way to do your part as an ally in the wedding business. The only way to win the uphill battle for equality that we are now fighting is to raise awareness of Gay Weddings/Lesbian Weddings all year.
🏳️🌈 Empathize- If you are planning a same-sex wedding
Many members of our country's LGBTQIA+ population have been marginalised and discriminated against for most of their lives, and marrying is tough in many ways for those who come from homophobic households. If you're planning an LGBTQ wedding, get to know the concerns. Understand their perspective and lend a sympathetic ear and a helping hand whenever you can; it will mean more than any physical token of your support.
Pride Month is a lovely celebration of being true to one's self-identity and a moment to recognize that love, after all, is just love — in whatever form. Every June, LGBTQ people take advantage of their visibility and platforms to be a little more outgoing, loud, and true to themselves. To be unapologetic about who they are. Support not only your gay friends and family throughout the year, but also everyone else. Your friendship makes the world a better place for us all.
