Question to ask your officiant

I'm in BC and one of my good friends has just become an official officiant so we will request her. She is LGBTQ just like us which is how we met originally.

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I'm really sorry to hear that, do you want to put your friend in touch with me? Maybe I can help track down where her communications got to. Usually we advise members to contact support@weddingwire.ca, with the subject “Nondiscrimination Policy”, so my colleagues can investigate.

And thank you for pushing me to clarify my answers yesterday, I'm really glad I had the opportunity to explain and clear up any misunderstandings. I felt terribly that I might have given you the wrong impression about how fiercely WeddingWire (and I) champion and defend LGBTQ members and couples.

View quoted message Excellent! Glad to hear it. Looking forward to some action being taken after my friend emailed Wedding Wire multiple times about an officiant on here who told her at a wedding show that they don't do same sex weddings and then also stopped responding on this site when she asked about it.

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You're right about the link, oops! I've fixed that now.

WeddingWire doesn't have a special display to denote that a vendor does not discriminate because we have a non-discrimination policy that prohibits vendors who refuse services to same sex couples from listing themselves on our site. Any vendor you find listed on WeddingWire should not be discriminating in any way against any protected class of people. All vendors (and members!) agree to these terms when they sign up, and if we find out someone is not living up to these values or this policy we investigate and take appropriate measures to rectify this.

And we certainly didn't create GayWeddings (in fact we didn't create it at all!) because we can't be bothered to manage the homophobes on our main site (which, again, there shouldn't be any anyway!). We are all the same blended company and work together to create great content for all our members. LGBTQ couples are underserved in the wedding market, and so to make their search for a vendor as easy as possible, and to help provide advice for some of the special circumstances that are unique to LGBTQ weddings, we amalgamate some particularly relevant info into one easy-to-browse area - but that absolutely does not mean LGBTQ couples can only use GayWeddings, or that non-LGBTQ couples can't use GayWeddings! I hope you will think of GayWeddings not as a consolation prize, but as just a different way to search and plan, and not as a tool for segregation but instead as just another tool in your planning arsenal that's there for anyone who may want it.

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I'm sorry if that is the impression my reply gave, that wasn't my intention and doesn't reflect WeddingWire's values. I merely said that WeddingWire appreciates that it can be difficult to find LGBTQ vendors and so we have several resources to help make that process easier when you're searching with us. WeddingWire has a non-discrimination policy and prohibits discrimination against couples for any protected status, including refusing to provide services to LGBT couples. If you want to read the policy it is number 35 in our Terms of Use.

View quoted message ...your link to the "guide" links back to this post.
I just noticed that you're a mod. Can you explain why you acknowledge that it is much easier for us to proceed with booking an officiant if you already know their stance, but Wedding Wire doesn't require vendors to declare whether or not they discriminate? This makes it very difficult for us.

I don't see why we should have to be segregated to another site to plan our weddings. That's incredibly homophobic and offensive.

View quoted message Shockingly, as a gay person, I am pretty aware that some religions aren't okay with gay people. I grew up hearing from them that I was a monster who didn't deserve equal rights.
If Wedding Wire wants to provide a business platform to homophobes, that's their prerogative. But it's insulting and offensive to be like "Look! We made a separate site for you because we can't be bothered to manage the homophobes on our main one, or even require them to identify themselves."

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It is sad that businesses (and people) are not always accepting of differences, whether its homosexuality, race or culture. However, I don't know if a site can reasonably refuse to work with these businesses. Keep in mind (and not that I'm saying I agree with it) there are some religions that are not accepting of same-sex marriages. It would not make sense to exclude those types of vendors based on their beliefs or the beliefs of the couples who they do marry.

That being said, I did choose an officiant who was accepting of same-sex. It wasn't a direct question I had, but it was important to me our officiant was open and shared the same sort of values I did.

I spoke with about 4 different vendors, all of which I know perform same sex marriages, but again, I was looking for officiants who would not include anything around faith in the ceremony so that could be why.

View quoted message I'm so glad that you found it easy to find an officiant! That has not been my experience.

View quoted message It's so sad that Wedding Wire is willing to provide a business platform to homophobes though, if you're saying that you allow discriminatory officiants to advertise on this site.
It would be so helpful, at least, for there to be a mandatory question that would show up on vendors' profiles about whether they discriminate against same sex couples or not. This would save us a lot of time and hassle.

We didn't ask our officiant about that, didn't even think about this actually. I don't think our officiant has an issue with same-sex as I recall her telling us a story about the same-sex ceremony she did but I do know that from her 2017 weddings she did not do a same-sex. I feel like most opposite-sex couples don't even think to ask that so it's interesting that you brought this up. I'm very interested in seeing other opposite-sex couples responds to this.

This is certainly an important issue that many LGBT couples encounter! We created a guide to help address these challenges for couples who are starting their search for the perfect officiant. Our sister site, GayWeddings, has a special search tool for LGBTQ-friendly wedding officiants - here's a search I did for you in Ontario, but feel free to do your own search of course. You can also look through WeddingWire Canada's vendor search and see what vendors list themselves as experienced in leading LGBT weddings, or who have pictures of the same sex weddings they have led. If you already know you're talking to an LGBT or ally officiant you can skip past the initial questions about their stance and get right down to planning your ideal ceremony.

We had an Officiant who did our wedding. Most are open and service our kind without a problem. You can have the same wording and vows, just when they announce at the end you can puck that part. They can say Partners olin Life, Husband & Husband, Wife & Wife, etc.