Weddings Redefined

This was a fantastic and successful year for 14 Stories and for marriage equality – thank you for all of your support and belief in what we do!  We absolutely adore our clients and believe more than ever in the power of their stories to change the world.  So without further ado, here are 14 highlights from 2011, in no particular order:

1.  We worked with 34 couples from 21 different states, producing beautiful weddings as small as zero guests to as many as 250.  Congratulations to you all!  We are grateful for your business and thrilled to have you as part of our 14 Stories family.

2.  I traveled around the world to train wedding professionals all about gay weddings.  I spoke to enthusiastic groups in Baltimore, Cancun, Phoenix, Vermont and Chicago!   This is part of our mission to promote marriage equality and reduce homophobia in the wedding industry.

3.  Along with that, this spring we launched the world’s first Gay Wedding Institute certificate course for those in the wedding industry looking to be more inclusive of same-sex couples and sensitive to their wedding planning needs.  This intensive course (with homework!) was launched as a webinar and held 3 times in 2011 with great feedback and participants from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

4.  We launched the country's first app for gay wedding planning.  Our Gay Wedding Confidential app is available for a free download from iTunes and Android (but works better on iTunes!)

5.  Marriage equality came to my home state of New York on June 24 and we were there, on Pride, that weekend to celebrate!  Being a part of Pride the weekend of marriage equality was pretty incredible. 

6.  Civil unions became legal in Illinois, Rhode Island and as of next week, in Delaware and Hawaii.  Same-sex couples in those states can now have statewide protections for their families.

7.  The press we received in 2011 was pretty amazing!  We were featured on the Today show, on BBC, on NY1, NPR (twice) and in countless print publications including this amazing article on the front page of the L.A. Times.

8.  We signed a contract with a prolific and prestigious production company to develop and produce a gay wedding planning reality TV show….let us know if you want to be on TV!

9.  We hired another wedding planner!  Andrew is the first person on our team to plan weddings (besides me) and is fabulous, charming and talented.  You can read more about Andrew on our About Us page.

10.  I was invited to be a blogger for the prestigious Huffington Post and the feedback on my articles has been great.  If you’ve missed them, check them out here!

11.  I went to the Engage! wedding industry summit twice (once in San Diego and the other in the Cayman Islands) and connected with my peers from the wedding industry from around the world. 

12.  We opened our New York office in July and moved our family to New York in September.  New Yorkers have welcomed us with open arms and things are going very well here!

13.  One of our weddings appeared in the nationally distributed Destination Weddings magazine.  Check out Deb and Michelle's story here!

14.  Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed.  How amazing to see this discriminatory law go away and have our LGBT brothers and sisters be able to serve openly (and get married in uniform)!  What a huge moment in our civil rights history.

I hope that the new year brings you and your family great happiness and success - and cheers to the hope of more marriage equality!  

These photos come from one of our mini weddings, in which Mark and Jonathan traveled from Denver with about a dozen friends and family to legally marry in Boston.  It was a small wedding and not full of the typical details you see on many wedding blogs.  But here, beautifully captured by Kristin Korpos, are two guys in love on their wedding day.

Our clients Erica and Hayley got married on Memorial Day weekend and their engagement session and wedding photos were picked up by the Delightfully Engaged blog!  The photos were shot by one of my favorite photographers, Kat Hempel.

Check out the screen shot below and the full shoot over on the blog!

Memorial Day weekend was Hayley and Erica's wedding and I'll share the photos as soon as I have them, but in the meantime, here's a shot of me rocking out with my brides.  The fantastic band Brickpark had the girls singing along to "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey and called me up to join in.  Of course I did, and of course one of my favorite photographers, Kat Hempel, got the money shot.

Did you watch the Royal Wedding today?  I thought it was lovely and, despite the traditional "fairytale" event, I found some great inspirations for your gay wedding.  

I know that most people are talking about Kate and her beautiful dress but I want to talk about her hot sister, Pippa!

My lesbian brides who choose to wear a dress frequently do not wear a traditional wedding gown, but often something simpler, even from bridesmaids' collections.  Pippa, Kate's sister and Maid of Honor, wore a stunning modern, understated (white!) McQueen dress that I believe will find its way into lesbian weddings.  This dress epitomizes the essence of many gay weddings that are fantastic blends of the traditional and the very unexpected.  

For the grooms, I think it would be stunning but I don't expect to see any of my men walking down the aisle in military uniforms anytime soon!  I've had grooms in morning suits only once before, though and they looked so handsome - I'd love to see that again!  For grooms who want a very classic wedding experience, a wedding a grand old estate or mansion, this is a fantastic look.  And, wow, James Middleton is a great looking guy.


I loved how the florist, Shane Connolly, at the request of the bride and the groom, really brought the outside in for the ceremony.  The trees were not only dramatic but also reflective of the couple's personal values.    It's a beautiful aesthetic that's more than just a trend.  It has a modern, yet classic look and of course the color pop in Westminster Abbey finishes it off stunningly.  We will be using loads of greens at a very modern wedding later this year.

Boston Spirit Magazine was kind enough to interview us for some expert advice for their readers, as well as feature four of our 2010 weddings.  Check out the fantastic article below!

Erica and Hayley's engagement shoot was also shot by Kat Hempel, in and around Astoria, Queens.  My brides first met in New York while Erica was living there and Hayley was in D.C. It was a pretty instant connection and Astoria is a great backdrop for this shoot because of all those great early memories as a couple.  My brides are SO in love and it shows!

One of my favorite photographers, Kat Hempel, is shooting the wedding of a few different clients this year.  I always encourage my clients to ask their photographer to shoot an engagement session.  It's informal, fun and gets couples loose in front of the camera.  This week I'll be highlighting a few different engagement shoots by Kat Hempel.  

Here are my handsome grooms, Mark and Jody, who are marrying this upcoming April 30.  The shoot was around their home, the Aquarium and their wedding venue.

Every year we work with about 40-50 couples who are looking to legally marry in Boston, for just a small ceremony.  Those who book the Destiny packages can expect photos like these beautiful ones of Bernadette and Lori.  These ladies traveled to Boston from Maryland for a wonderful wedding experience with some friends and family.  We arranged for their hotel, hair and makeup, limo and more.  

Here are some highlights from their ceremony in the Public Garden.  Aren't those outfits incredible?  I love Lori's custom suit (inspired by Ellen's own wedding suit).  Bernadette's dress is absolutely stunning!  They are such a beautiful couple!






Boston gay wedding photos by Cheryl Levine.

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.