How do you know if a wedding vendor is LGBTQ friendly? This Kentucky directory can help

Maggie Menderski, Louisville Courier Journal
·5 min read
This photo by Sarah Katherine Davis was taken at Mellwood Art Center. Both businesses are members of Inclusive Kentucky Weddings. “We have ALWAYS been an LGBTQ-friendly community at Mellwood, now in our 12th year of business. We have had many commitment ceremonies in the past and now weddings between LGBTQ+ couples,” Mellwood Art Center says in its member statement.

Planning a wedding is difficult enough without worrying about whether a company will even welcome your business.

That’s a daunting reality for LGBTQ couples.

Eight years have passed since the United States Supreme Court ruled it is a fundamental right for same-sex couples to marry and receive all the rights and responsibilities of heterosexual married couples. The wedding industry, however, has taken its time catching up to the law. Not all wedding venues, photographers, florists and caterers welcome LGBTQ weddings. Even well-meaning business owners may lack a base knowledge of how to create an inclusive experience that puts queer couples at ease during one of the biggest days of their lives.

That’s where Inclusive Kentucky Weddings comes in.

The online directory launched in 2014 as a way to vet and identify fair, LGBTQ friendly wedding-related businesses in the commonwealth. The directory’s organizers say they would like their website to become irrelevant and see a universal acceptance in the wedding industry and beyond. Until that happens, though, this small passion project wants to be a resource for Kentucky’s engaged LGBTQ couples.

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In honor of wedding season and Pride Month, The Courier Journal sat down with wedding photographer Sarah Katherine Davis, who runs the directory, to learn more about Inclusive Kentucky Weddings’ mission and how it aims to reduce stress for engaged couples in the LGBTQ community.

This interview has been edited for clarity and context.

Courier Journal: What was the origin of the directory, and how has it evolved over time?

Davis: In 2014 marriage equality wasn't legal, but the goal of the directory was to promote marriage equality and set Kentucky up for when that law did eventually pass. At the time there were a lot of vendors who hadn't had a lot or any interactions with queer couples. So this was about making sure those vendors had the right tools to welcome queer couples and celebrate them. That way when queer couples did come to them for weddings, the couples weren’t having to explain a lot of things about their relationships.

Courier Journal: What are some of the most common questions and concerns couples in the LGBTQ community have when they are planning a wedding?

Davis: The thing I’ve heard the most anecdotally is how hard it is planning a wedding when you don't know if the vendor is going to be accepting or not. It's hard to face rejection over and over and over again. When you're messaging places that don't clearly have an anti-discrimination statement on their website or a portfolio that reflects a diverse group of people, it can feel really scary to reach out to them. Couples will fall in love with a photographer’s work, and then when they reach out they may learn the photographer may not photograph LGBTQ couples. There’s anxiety when you’re constantly having to make sure everyone involved with the day is accepting.

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Courier Journal: What are some things that vendors should know and consider when hosting queer weddings?

Davis: The couples don’t want weird microaggressions throughout the day. There is so much gender tied into wedding traditions, and sometimes wedding vendors get into a flow where they do their job a certain way. Maybe the vendor will misspeak or they don’t fully consider the context of something. Maybe a couple will go to a venue and it will have a “bridal suite,” which is giant and beautiful, and then they have a room for the groom that’s in a weird basement. And it's just like, who in an LGTBQ couple gets the pretty space and who gets the sad basement? Lots of little things like that are just baked into wedding culture, and they’re awkward.

This photo is by Mickie Winters Photography, which is a member of Inclusive Kentucky Weddings. “All lovers are welcome and celebrated here. Being apart of the LGBTQIA community myself it’s important for me to come from a place of nurturing. Nurturing a moment, a vision. Nurturing a love displayed before me and giving it back to my couples & clients visually, as honestly and beautifully as possible with care. I focus on the real that is present even in the most posed of situations. Having inclusivity shouldn’t be a trend but a given. Inclusive Kentucky Weddings provides a honed in space for couples that face discrimination based of sexual orientation, gender, age, body size, belief or ability to come and exhale. That’s where I want to be and that’s what I offer. A real space to be authentic & accepted where you can breathe and feel at ease and taken care of. I will take care of you,” the company said.

Courier Journal: How do you vet your vendors and grow the directory?

Davis: Inclusive Kentucky Weddings has an open call for any vendors that want to be a part of it. We have a vendor pledge that they agree to when they sign up:

“Our vendors go beyond being simply LGBTQ+ friendly. They are inclusive advocates for couples of all races, gender identities, cultures, religions, bodies, abilities, and sexualities. We work to make the wedding industry more welcoming, affirming, and equitable through continued education, personal activism, and by building a strong community of professionals who hold each other accountable and build each other up.”

Our vendors strive to keep educating themselves and to be good allies, both in the wedding industry and outside of it. It’s all well and good if you’re willing to take someone’s money, but you should also be willing to advocate for people’s rights. We encourage that with our vendors, and we try to give them tools to successfully do that.

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Courier Journal: Are there any categories in the directory that you’d like to see grow?

Davis: We’d love to see more hair and makeup artists and caterers. We could always use more desserts. We have a couple DJs. There's definitely room for more vendors in almost all of the categories because there are so many people getting married. A lot of people are using the directory, and sometimes we only have two vendors listed in a category ― so the chance of them being booked for a date is fairly high.

Courier Journal: We are eight years past the United States Supreme Court ruling that made same-sex marriage legal, so why do you think a directory like this is still necessary? What needs to change in our culture to reach the point where a website like this is irrelevant?

Davis: That’s a really big question. The current political climate has a lot to do with it. The Republican Party has decided to weaponize transness. I feel like this directory is more important than it was even five years ago. I feel like five years ago, people felt like it was not appropriate on a professional level to be discriminatory or rude to folks in the LGBTQ community. True, there might have been a misstep, but people weren't being intentionally harmful. Something has really switched over, and it’s a small group, but it’s a loud group that is being pretty awful. A lot needs to change, a whole lot. As a wedding photographer there is a lot that I wanted to see different, and I can’t change the political climate of the country, but I can at least make it so that LGTBQ couples in Kentucky can have a good wedding experience.

To learn more about this directory visit inclusivekentuckyweddings.com.

Courier Journal features writer Maggie Menderski can be reached at mmenderski@courier-journal.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: These Kentucky wedding vendors welcome LGBTQ couples