Planning Your Gay Wedding | Smart Gay Life

I do: Your Gay Wedding

Love wins! But the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality is old news already, so stop celebrating and get serious. Wedding planning is no joke.

Let’s just get this out of the way. Sure, sure, it’s not a gay wedding or a same-sex wedding, it’s just a wedding and it’ll lead to a happy marriage, not a happy gay, same-sex marriage. Still, at Smart Gay Life, we’re here to help the LBGTQ / LGBT community, so we’re sticking with gay wedding. Gay weddings for all!

Gay Wedding Planning

Just because you can legally get married doesn’t mean you have to do it the way anyone else has done it. So, start your planning process with your partner. This is about you two. Don’t buy into the old story that a wedding is for anyone else. It should be a reflection of your lives and your love.
Your #GayWedding should be a reflection of your lives and your love. Click To Tweet
So, if you love a lot of people and you want them there, then plan a big wedding. If you’re private people, go with something small. Maybe you’re a little bit country and a little bit rock-and-roll. Whatever you do, ABC, my friends: Always Be Communicating. Tell each other what your dream weddings are. If they’re close, move forward. If not, let the negotiations begin.

Smart Tip: Start your planning by expressing your sincere desire to have the kind of wedding your partner wants. If you watch out for your partner’s needs and your partner watches out for your needs, you’ll both be well taken care of.

Gay Wedding Time Table

If you’re part of a big LGBTQ / LGBT community, you don’t all want to race to the altar at the same time. Trust me when I tell you, no one wants to be going to a wedding every weekend for the next year. So, feel out your friend group and see who’s already booking the best caterer in town. Then look at the type of wedding you want. This detail will roughly determine your timeline for planning. A small, simple gathering can come together in a few days and a big, fat Greek wedding needs at least a year to plan (your Yiayia will need to book her ticket from Santorini).

Smart Tip: Whether you decide on a destination, a local venue, a church, or your backyard, give yourself a time to enjoy being engaged, to enjoy the planning, to enjoy the sweet pleasure of it all.

Gay Wedding Budgets

Whether you’re paying for your wedding yourselves or getting money from family, set a budget and stick to it. Everyone says they want a marriage and not a wedding, but, you’re not here for marriage advice. You want a wedding. And weddings cost money. In fact, weddings can cost a lot of money. Couples in the US usually spend between$10K and $34K on their wedding. With that in mind, come up with a number you can live with and work within that budget.

Smart Tip: Don’t just think venue, food, entertainment, clothes, and flowers, but remember the other costs (and little ones add up) like marriage license, wedding party gifts, rehearsal dinner, gift bags, and tipping … tipping everyone (!).

Gay Wedding Guest Lists

Who do you want there when you say “I do?” Maybe you have a sky-high budget and you can invite all of your family members, all of your friends, your work colleagues, your neighbors, your parents’ friends, and members of the Supreme Court (maybe just 5 of them). The rest of us have to fit our guest lists to our budgets. So, if you decided on elegant and a low budget, you’re going to have an intimate affair. If you went with casual and a medium budget, you can probably invite everyone you want. If you’re going traditional with a high budget, you might have a work friend or two, but those people who lived next door to you growing up will just have to see your pictures online.

Smart Tip: Come up with a way to soften the blow to people who aren’t going to be invited. “We’re getting married. It’s going to be a small affair, just immediate family.” Or “Wow, it’s really expensive. I’m sorry we couldn’t invite everyone from the office / the family / the neighborhood / the Supreme Court.”

Gay Wedding Special Considerations

The underbelly of the Supreme Court ruling is that 4 of those votes represent a portion of the population. And some of those people might be in your family or your partner’s family. So, what do you do about those people? The easy solution is to forget about them and move on. But when has life been easy? If you don’t invite anti-gay Aunty Gail, your mom, who has always been awesome, will be crushed. So, think through the possible outcomes.
Don’t invite anyone who isn’t happy for you. #GayMarriage Click To Tweet
You invite Gail and she declines. Win-win. You invite Gail, she comes, and she’s awful. Lose-lose. You invite Gail, she comes, and she finally gets it. Win-win-win. So, you have to ask yourself, how likely is it that Gail will come and behave badly? If it’s a high likelihood, don’t invite her or anyone else who isn’t happy for you.

Smart Tip: If anyone tries to make you feel bad about your wedding day choices, you can exclude them from your guest list. If guilt is guiding your choices, ask a therapist to help your work this out … or just take my advice and save your money for the open bar.

Gay Wedding Vendors

For guidance on LGBTQ-owned and LGBTQ-friendly vendors in your area, please visit our directory. Also, we’re growing our database, so if you have suggestions for our directory, please contact us. And congratulations!