14 Stories

Massachusetts was the first state in the U.S. to legalize gay marriage so it’s only natural that Boston remains a top gay wedding tourist destination. And for good reason…it’s a small but cosmopolitan city with great dining and shopping and some beautiful venues (including some on the ocean or harbor) for your gay wedding.  Our business was founded in Boston, we still work there regularly and it has a very special place in our heart.

Where to Stay:  Our favorite hotels are Kimpton properties and the one in Boston with the best location, right on Boston Common, is Nine Zero.  We also love XV Beacon on Beacon Hill and the Seaport Hotel down on the waterfront.

What to Do:  Leave your car behind in Boston and don't rent one either.  It's a great city for walking with beautiful brownstones like the ones above.  Walk through the oldest public botanical garden in the country, the beautiful Boston Public Garden, en route to shopping on Newbury Street.   If you want to avoid the tourists, walk down Tremont Street in the South End and take your pick of great restaurants and shops frequented by locals (and lots of gays!)  Also, enjoy the waterfront!  Take a tour of the Boston Harbor Islands, or spend a few hours out there on Spectacle or Georges Island.  

How to Get Married:  It’s tricky in Massachusetts since there is a three day waiting period.  For example, if you apply for a marriage license at City Hall on a Tuesday, you can’t pick it up and get married until Friday.  You can get a waiver of the three day wait by going to court.  Marriage license fees vary by city or town.  There are no blood tests or witnesses required.  The marriage license is valid for 60 days.  14 Stories provides  a service to get this waiting period waived quickly and easily.

Our Picks for LGBT Photographers:  Kelly from Closed Circle Photo and Kristin Korpos are great, fun to work with and do a beautiful job.  Kelly took the photo above.

Our Picks for an LGBT Florist:  Daniel and Jeb from New Leaf Flores in Jamaica Plain are awesome!

Our Picks for an LGBT Officiant:  Denise Simmons is an openly gay Justice of the Peace who also was the first out African-American lesbian Mayor of a U.S. city.  She sits on the City Council of Cambridge, MA.

With some major exceptions, Boston wedding vendors are very welcoming of same-sex couples so you should have a great experience no matter who you choose. Don't forget about us at 14 Stories if you get stuck and need us to take great care of you!

Engaged couples looking to work with New England's finest venues and vendors should check out The Boston Bridal Lounge, located at 125 Newbury Street in Boston.  The space is very chic - full of flowers, featuring beautiful tablescapes and tons of wedding planning resources.  14 Stories is a member of the BBL so we will be meeting clients in the space and helping them find their own wedding inspiration.

Those of us in the wedding industry who are members have a portfolio binder so couples can check out the local talent.  14 Stories is very excited and proud to be a member.

Stay tuned because in May, we'll be offering two workshops in the space - a training for wedding vendors on LGBT weddings and also a wedding planning workshop for engaged LGBT couples.

Tim and Mark live in California and when they decided to get married, same-sex marriage was not legal in their home state.  It was important to these grooms to bring their guests and their story to a place where their relationship was equal so they chose to marry in Massachusetts and hired 14 Stories to make it happen.  After a full day of visiting Boston's most unique wedding venues with us, they settled on the Boston Public Library as the perfect place to tell their story.

With the library in mind, together we developed a design theme that revolved around stories and books.  You'll see some of those details in the images below - even the table names were named after book genres (romance, mystery, etc).  We also worked with an illustration of a wolf and a fox, adorably drawn to represent each groom.  You'll see lots of that artwork in the details below, even in the wedding favors (the journals).

The wedding brought together the grooms' nearest and dearest who gathered here in Boston to pay tribute to two amazing gentlemen.  Enjoy the beautiful photos by Kat Hempel.  

This past weekend, a small ensemble from the Boston Gay Men's Chorus sang a few songs at my clients' same-sex wedding ceremony and reception.  What a joyous sound!  My clients even danced their first dance to "A Love that Will Never Grow Old" from the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack.  You can listen to that sound clip here...

I see a lot of first dances and this one had me in tears!

This is the second time this year that a Gay Men's Chorus has performed at a clients' wedding.  The Miami Gay Men's Chorus sang "Heaven" as the processional and "For the Longest Time" as the recessional in July.  It's just such a fun way to bring energy into the room - a Chorus serenading YOU!


(non-professional photo by me)

Are you planning to have a Gay Men's Chorus sing at your wedding?

Meet Candice and Cherri who came to Boston from Maryland earlier this year for a mini luxury elopement in Boston.  The ceremony was held in Boston Common.  I love these photos!!



Photos by Kristin Korpos

We are so pleased that the extraordinary editor of Eco-Beautiful Weddings Magazine, Katie Martin, chose one of our clients' weddings to be featured in the Summer issue.  

Taylor and Lauren were married last September and their wedding photos are on pages 88-91 of the magazine - check it out!

Most gay weddings are smaller than straight weddings.  The average wedding size of 14 Stories clients is somewhere around 75 guests - but many gay weddings fall below 50 guests.

For small gay weddings, a bed and breakfast or an inn can be a great place for a wedding.  We've worked in the Taylor House in Jamaica Plain several times and have a wedding booked at the Kemble Inn in Lenox later this year.  Like many inns, these have nice sized dining room and foyer spaces and provide options for a beautiful ceremony backdrop and magnificent outdoor gardens.

Some things you should consider when having a gay wedding at a B&B or inn:

• the best style reception is a cocktail reception or food stations
• you'll have to buy out all of the guest rooms - so be prepared to host some guests overnight
• you'll have to bring in lots of rentals - typically tables, chairs, china, flatware, stemware, etc
• you'll need to bring in your own caterer and bartender

Still, having your gay wedding at B&B or inn can be a very affordable and elegant option.


Taylor House


Kemble Inn

Would you consider an Inn or B&B for your wedding venue?

I had a call from someone yesterday looking for help with her wedding at the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain.  Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood in Boston and the Arboretum is a beautiful park with lots of scenic places to marry.

Unfortunately, in the Arnold Arboretum and other Boston and Cambridge-area parks, you can't have a ceremony in the park with any structures.  This means:  no tent, no tables, no chairs...well, maybe one or two chairs.  But you get the idea - your guests have to stand and you'll have to have a rain plan and be able to communicate it to your guests very effectively at the last minute.  

I personally love these types of wedding ceremonies which have a more casual, informal, organic feel - but keep in mind the needs of your guest list if this is what you have in mind.  85 year old grandmas often have a hard time standing for an outdoor wedding ceremony.

I've done extensive research and nearly all of the City of Boston's parks have no covering.  This means that, as much as the idea of a casual wedding in the Boston Public Garden sounds divine, you may get wet.

My advice:  if you are having a wedding with more than 20 guests, don't plan for the ceremony in a public park in the Boston area.  There are some really nice venues which have their own outdoor ceremony space where you can have chairs and where you can retreat in the event of rain.  But if you decide on a park, you'll need a permit.  The fee for Boston parks for Boston residents is $50 and $100 for non residents.

Are you planning to get married in a park?

"Thank God for Massachusetts for letting us come here to get married!"

That's what one of my grooms said on Saturday during his toast to his friends and family.  These guys were from LA, and given the recent court ruling upholding Proposition 8, I think they must have been psychic to plan a wedding in Boston. 

We had a lot of fun together.  I was first called on a Saturday about two months ago, and at the time they didn't even realize that I specialized in gay weddings.  They already had a room block for their guests at the fabulous Intercontinental Hotel (many of my clients stay there), but needed help with everything else. 

The first time we met was when they were in Boston on a three hour flight layover to apply for their marriage license.  I met them at Cambridge City Hall, and helped them apply, then zipped them over to visit Old South and First Church in the Back Bay, then zipped them down to check out Radius Restaurant, my suggestion for their reception space.  We dashed in and out of these places before I dropped them at the airport terminal and returned their rental car.  A madcap three hours, but they loved the carefully selected options and did settle on Old South and Radius.

At this wedding, Jen did the flowers - all white and ivory at the ceremony - very classic, and ivory mixed with red and burgundy at the reception.  She did a really spectacular job and her altar arrangements were particularly stunning and really fit the space well. 

Saturday was great!  The weather was perfect and things went very well.  Their 35 guests were transported via trolley from the hotel to the church and then from the church to Radius.  The grooms arrived via limo and stayed behind at the church for formals.  They were pleasantly surprised by the support from strangers on the streets of Boston (we really are a friendly city, despite rumors to the contrary). 

Radius, as always, was flawless.  The guests enjoyed a four course food and wine pairing, plus wedding cake. There was a live jazz with an amazing female vocalist, a caricature artist, and a lesbian tango performance!  One of my favorite parts was when the grooms made their Grand Entrance to the jazz band performing "I'm Coming Out" which they learned for my grooms.  Thanks, Harry!  I also loved Patrice's rendition of the Beyonce version of "Ave Maria" - amazing!

All in all a very classy wedding, and the grooms and their guests were thrilled.  They have such an amazing support system and themselves are tremendous guys I was fortunate to work with.  Together 25 years, they met on a street corner in Dallas as young students and it was love at first sight.  Such stories of love are what makes my career a blessing. 

Photos to come as soon as I have them!

Last night was my Weddings Redefined workshop for engaged same-sex couples, generously hosted by Umbria Restaurant.  Thank you to all who came and to our generous hosts - it was a lot of fun and I truly appreciate your participation.  Umbria is a great spot with a number of very flexible and visually interesting function spaces and I hope that some of you book your wedding, rehearsal dinner or party there.  Anyway, I love doing this workshop because I meet couples at all stages of planning, from those getting married this in a few months to those who haven't even set a date and are in the midst of venue research.

There are always so many great questions and while I have a lot of information to share, my favorite part is how interactive the workshop gets.  Not only do the guests mingle with each other and with us, but the workshop itself has Q&A throughout and allows for an informative and conversational dialogue around the room. 

Last night we talked about... invitations, etiquette, venue selection, dos and don'ts of toasts, my beef with Ipod receptions, qualities of a great DJ, linens, personalizing your wedding, gay wedding traditions, elements of wedding design and a lot more.  I gave away most of my secrets, including some great venue ideas, some of my favorite vendors and design inspirations.  I talked about our wedding, and my intern Jessica, who I'll introduce to you soon, talked about hers.

I've had a lot of interest in this seminar and many people couldn't make it last night but rest assured that once wedding season is behind us, I'll host another seminar in the fall and another in the winter. 

Congratulations to all the sweet and adorable couples and thank you for coming!