Wedding bells are ringing — you and your partner are ready to get married. It’s exciting to be finally planning the lesbian wedding of your dreams, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its challenges. Wedding planning is a complex and sometimes triggering process for everyone, and planning a lesbian wedding has some unique hurdles that straight people don’t have to think about. Where should you even start? Here’s what I recommend keeping in mind when planning your lesbian wedding.

Get on the same page (about everything)

Communication is always key, but planning a wedding is one of the truest tests of you and your partner’s ability to collaborate and talk through issues. In many ways, being able to successfully plan a wedding with your relationship intact is a test of whether you’re ready to get married. Weddings are essentially big, complicated parties, often over multiple locations, that hundreds of people travel across the country to attend — this would be complicated enough even without the emotional triggers related to commitment and family looming in the background.

While some stressors are inevitable, what will be enormously helpful is getting to a place of agreement on the major issues. The details might change, but if you know the main things that are most important to you, it’s easier to stay in alignment. 

Some important places to be in agreement:

• Priorities: what’s the most important element that has to be perfect? Is it that you want perfect photos taken in exactly the style you imagine to remember this day forever? Or are you most invested in the first dance, and making sure the music and moment are flawless?
• Budget: what’s your goal and what’s your absolute limit? Money is always hard to talk about, but clarifying what you think you can conservatively set aside for the wedding is imperative. If anyone’s family is helping to pay for the wedding, it’s important to talk about that and what it entails. Does that family member get more of a say in what the wedding looks like? Does that mean the wealthier family gets to bring more attendees? These are tough conversations, but it’s crucial to have them.
• Size: who absolutely needs to come? Your budget may say that you can only comfortably host 60, while your large, tight-knight extended family may suggest a guest list of 150. And what about your venue — can it fit everyone? Deciding on a clear scope of your guest list is a key decision to make early in the wedding process, and will help clarify every other decision you make as planning progresses.

Consider whether you want to hire a planner or coordinator

Many people plan their own weddings or rely on friends and end up having great weddings — they may also find themselves very stressed out by the end of the process. While all-inclusive wedding planning can be prohibitively expensive, it may be worth hiring someone to do at least some planning and take some of the logistics off your plate. After all, time is money — and an experienced wedding planner may be able to save you some money through their connections and relationship with other vendors. 

Even if you don’t have a wedding planner, depending on what you’re planning for a wedding day, it may be worth it to hire a day-of coordinator to manage things onsite the day of your ceremony/reception. It’s a priceless experience to be able to focus fully on the most important day of your life and be entirely present in the moment, trusting that someone else is managing the flowers, caterer, photographer, flower girl, and letting the bar know to discreetly cut your uncle off after three drinks.

Feel free to be traditional (or not)

Even a decade into federally legalized same-sex marriage in the US, it’s normal for us to feel like our weddings carry different connotations or expectations than those of straight people. We may feel nervous about whether our weddings are “queer enough,” worrying that we’re capitulating to heterosexual tradition if we wear a white wedding dress or exchange default vows. Alternatively, we may struggle with the inverse: feeling like we need to go the extra mile to feel that our union is legitimate in the eyes of friends, family and the state. That’s before even getting into figuring out what wedding attire feels appropriate to our gender expression, or financing a wedding when we may have a lower level of family support than our straight counterparts.

While the vision for your wedding is ultimately very personal, my advice would be to try to let go of thoughts about what your wedding “should” be as much as possible. You’ll never be able to control how others will perceive you or your relationship, and feeling an obligation for your wedding to function as a political statement is a lot of pressure to put on yourself. What brings you the most joy when you imagine it? What makes you feel the most trepidatious? I would use those as your compass and let your wedding be deeply personal and pleasurable for you, whether that means wearing a frothy bedazzled white wedding dress or a set of overalls and Docs with your hair dyed blue.

Make a plan for managing family & friends

The rich tapestries of personalities and dynamics that come to any major event like a wedding is always one of the most complicated elements to manage. What if your uncle drinks too much? What if your friends from college don’t get along with your childhood best friend?

When planning a lesbian wedding, there are also other layers of concern. Are your straight family members going to be able to behave appropriately and respectfully at a lesbian wedding, without making rude remarks or asking invasive questions? Will your queer or trans wedding guests face microaggressions from the straight cis guests?

These are valid concerns and something worth planning for. When making your guest list, talk honestly about anyone you’re inviting that may be cause for concern. If your right-wing cousin feels like a risky guest, it’s worth discussing with your partner whether to leave them off the guest list. If your great-aunt absolutely has to be invited because she’s paying for a significant portion of the wedding but you’re worried about her saying something inappropriate to your gender nonconforming spouse, it’s worth it to have a direct, constructive conversation with her before the wedding.

You can also use spaces like your wedding website or any mass emails to manage expectations for guests. One tip is to include any notes about pronouns or bathroom usage in your website or event planning communications: setting expectations for what bathrooms will be available, how to treat someone you may think is in the “wrong” bathroom, and/or how to refer to people you don’t know at the wedding.

Expect the unexpected

There are so many moving parts when it comes to a wedding — your venue could cancel on you three months before, your maid of honor could get Covid the week of the wedding, you could break your arm during your bachelorette rock climbing weekend, your caterer’s generator could get stolen off the street in the middle of your ceremony (this really happened!). 

Unfortunately, there’s truly no amount of planning or foresight that can guarantee your special day (and the months leading up to it) goes off without a hitch. Many things are out of our control, despite our best efforts. What you can do is plan for the worst by:

• Making backup plans — like an alternate indoor venue option if it rains for your outdoor ceremony 
• Hiring a planner or coordinator who can run point on making any last-minute executive decisions so you can focus on your wedding
• Staying connected to your priorities; if you know that what matters most to you is your aging parents being able to see you marry your spouse, then it’s easier to let go of the fact that the flowers didn’t turn out the way you hoped.

Recommended Books:

Equally Wed: The Ultimate Guide to Planning Your LGBTQ+ Wedding

Modern Brides & Modern Grooms: A Guide to Planning Straight, Gay, and Other Nontraditional Twenty-First-Century Weddings

A Practical Wedding Planner: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating the Wedding You Want with the Budget You’ve Got (Without Losing Your Mind in the Process

 

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