So You're EnGAYged, a LGBT wedding blog

Natalie and I arrived at the illegal wedding fair and were immediately struck by the gorgeousness of it all. While vendors were dispersed on multiple floors, the first floor really greeted you with a hodge podge of wedding vendors who took enormous pains to showcase their work in stunning ways. I completely got wrapped up in the eye candy of it all. In the middle of this floor was a table designed by Poppies and Posies with calligraphy by Paperfinger. Inspired by oysters, they created a palette of grays, creams, and then bright orangey/pink flowers. I was blown away by Sierra and Juliet when I got to talking with them. And this is the key- with every vendor I wanted to enjoy the visual hotness of their booth, but more importantly, I wanted to engage them with questions about the LGBT community, equality, and why they were there at the Illegal Wedding Fair in the first place.

With every vendor I asked things like how many LGBT weddings they had been hired for, if their contracts and promotional material were gender neutral, and why they decided to participate in a wedding fair specifically for LGBT couples. Depending on the vendor, I went more into depth with their particular issues that pop up in their area of weddings. There were definite stars at this wedding fair, who had amazing and interesting responses to my questions and were obviously well informed and excited to engage in conversation about these topics. After talking to Paperfinger about wording of invitations for gay couples, I felt like doing a little dance because I was thinking the whole time “Wow, she really knows what she’s talking about. I love her work. This is just awesome.” I honestly wanted every little piece of paper and all the stamps at her booth. When I was looking at Rony Tennenbaum‘s ring designs, my heart went aflutter. Recycled gold and conflict free diamonds? And it was an LGBT owned and operated company? Booyah.

There was a bridal shop and a suit shop that I just got so excited about. Lovely bridal shop carries wedding dresses from designers you typically can only purchase online. And I know tons of couples fall in love with wedding attire on Etsy only to hate the fact they can’t see it on their body so they go from shop to shop trying to find something but really love that dress they found on etsy. And Any Old Iron was the suit shop. OMG. For reals. I was trying not to get drool on the tweed jackets and custom made suits for both men and women. The designer actually lives in the UK and comes over for fittings at different times of the year. I will be emailing them to see if we could do an interview about the process of buying a custom suit.

There was plenty of food to eat from Stuart & Welch, a catering company that doesn’t just do weddings and takes a local, organic approach to catering. The food looked just amazing (I couldn’t eat it as it was bread and I have celiac disease) and they were very friendly. The whole booth felt very much like an intimate picnic with food taken up a notch. Atelier Isabey had me at laser cut invitations. They had a wide variety of invites, from custom enclosures with letterpress to a standard line of invitations. But besides their invitations, both designers were just out and out nice. They were excited to answer my questions and made me feel really good after talking with them. And our very own Pro-Gay vendor, The Enchanted Cupboard, was there displaying her cake toppers. I tried not to laugh when I saw the cats and dogs you could include for your cake topper because I couldn’t help but think of how crowded our cake top would have been had we included our pets. They were so fun.

I really got to meet a lot of vendors who really were trying to actively engage in the LGBT community and were invested in promoting marriage equality and equality period. But I’m not going to lie; I was disappointed with a number of vendors who obviously were there because it was just another wedding fair for them. They really had no idea what I was talking about and didn’t really understand why saying “I’m doing this wedding fair because…well…gay people are just another market *blank look*” would piss me off. It’s like they never thought about WHY this kind of event is important or the reasons behind it. I wish I could have skipped those kind of vendors because there are way too many of them out there in the world at large. I didn’t want them at a gay wedding fair. I really hope that events like these in the future reach out to vendors before even accepting them to ensure they are well informed and understand the whole point of participating in events like these.

But aside from a few bad apples, it felt really really good to be at a wedding fair geared towards gay couples. I never once got asked if Natalie, my wife, was my sister or bridesmaid which seemed to happen constantly when we were planning our wedding. I saw all kinds of happy couples, holding hands, looking excited by it all. And I think that was the main attraction for me to this wedding fair. The excited energy coming from both the vendors and couples was just impossible to ignore. And of course, there are a lot more pictures of the Illegal Wedding Fair on our Facebook page. So go on over, enjoy the photos, and like us of course ;)

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