14 Stories

I'm thrilled to introduce Rhen St. Christopher as our new Elopement Coordinator in New York City.  If you're coming to 14 Stories to plan a great mini gay wedding in New York City, Rhen's your guy!

Rhen's a great guy who comes to us from a hair stylist background, though I'm also impressed by his event planning skills, developed when working for some major hair product companies.  Here's Rhen's official bio!

Rhen spent his early days on Cape Cod enjoying the sun, sand and surf. Realizing that the beaches and lazy resort community only offered so much, he headed off to the big city of Los Angeles, pursuing the dream of being the next Vidal Sassoon. Rhen applied his skills as a stylist to women, men, and children of all ages and developed a passion for bringing out the beauty in everyone. Listening to peoples stories of their lives inspired Rhen to travel the world in order to experience first hand some of the many beautiful things he had heard and dreamed about.

After spending many years living in cities like Boston, Miami, Los Angeles, and Providence, Rhen found a home in New York City – where all the cultures he loves merge together. Rhen brings and excitement and a passion to everything he does and loves to spend his free time running in Central Park, exploring the wonders of New York City, or finding “hidden gems” in all 5 boroughs. On the laziest of days, he has an obsession with the Food Network and HGTV.

14 Stories is super committed to giving back to the LGBT community and while we support a variety of charities, the one in which I am most involved with is Family Equality Council.  Family Equality is focused on advocating for LGBT families in the U.S.  There are more than 2 million kids with LGBT parents in our country and that number is just growing.

Not only is 14 Stories a donor but I also personally volunteer as Vice-Chair of their Night at the Pier event in New York City.  This is truly an amazing and inspiring event which last year raised $800,000 for Family Equality.  Consider joining 14 Stories at this year's event on April 29 at Pier Sixty.  If you're interested in attending or sitting at our table, please contact me directly!

We are proud to be partnering with GayDestinationWeddings.com on a FREE wedding giveaway! They are giving away a 5 night stay at the Avila Hotel in Curacao (wedding package included) and we are giving away a 2 piece suit from our Fourteen collection. Check out the details and enter to win this amazing giveaway.

Elopement and Assistant Wedding Coordinator

Company Overview:

14 Stories is a full service event planning and production company specializing in LGBT weddings. The company was established in 2004 in response to Massachusetts’s legalization of same-sex marriage. To date, the company has produced hundreds of gay and lesbian weddings, including conference, galas and fundraisers.  We have offices in Boston and New York City.

Position Overview:

We are looking for a highly organized, self-motivated, dynamic individual to assist with coordinating elopements with 2-20 attendees. This involves ensuring the couple has a flawless and seamless experience getting married and has a wedding cake, flowers, car service, and all of the other elements of a wedding, but on a much smaller scale.  This is an opportunity to work with some of the nicest couples you'll ever meet on a very special day.  This position is based in New York City.

Additionally, this coordinator will be invited to assist on our larger scale events (full production).

Responsibilities:

• Ensure that our elopement clients (most of whom travel in from outside of New York State) feel welcome in our city and provide them with concierge level resources to make their stay enjoyable

• Arrange delivery for or pickup all of the elements of the mini wedding including cake and flowers

• Coordinate the photographer, car service, officiant and couple for the mini wedding

• Manage and attend the mini wedding

• Be available to assist on larger weddings as needed

Qualifications:

• Highly organized, detail-oriented individual;

• Excellent oral and written communication skills;

• A proven ability to react quickly, calmly and resourcefully when problem solving;

• Excellent phone, interpersonal and presentation skills and comfort with working with nontraditional couples, including same-sex couples;

• A proven ability to be self-directed, work independently, exercise judgment, and manage multiple tasks and priorities;

• Experience in event, party or wedding coordination helpful but not necessary;

Terms and Compensation:

This is a part time, contract position paid at a flat rate per job.  Please send cover letter and resume to info@14stories.com. No phone calls, please.

Please note:  In order to be considered, in your cover letter, we require that you explain your experience with or interest in gay and lesbian weddings and events.

I recently realized that I've totally dropped the ball on sharing stories from our move to New York.  We've been here a year and a half now, having moved shortly after the marriage equality law went into effect. Though I'm originally from NY, it had been over 15 years since I lived in the state.

Though moving to New York initially brought a great deal of incredible publicity, what took awhile was clients!  Those first few months I was sweating bullets as an 8 year old company starting again from scratch.  I was hustling, getting to better know New York vendors and venues.  I spent a few nights each week networking.  Jen was unemployed at first.  It took her awhile to find her dream job (which thankfully she now has, at Columbia University SIPA).  Our son Patrick was home with Jen during the day while I was out building a business in a brand new city.  Those were among the most stressful months of our marriage, especially since Jen didn't really like living in NYC.

We developed elopement packages right away, modeled after what was so successful in Boston.  Andrew was hired to coordinate those packages and has been a godsend as I've worked with clients on full wedding planning.

Gradually, some amazing couples started taking chances on our new (old) business and we were off and running.  I am so incredibly grateful for all of our NYC clients who believed in us in our first year in NYC.  You are all amazing people that I am happy to now consider friends.  I am also incredibly grateful to the amazing vendors and venues with whom we partnered  in 2012 - the people that make us look good!  It's hard learning to trust a whole bunch of new people but I'm now super confident in the team we've built.

2012 ended up being a really terrific year for us, though there were also some tough lessons learned.  Just goes with the territory, I suppose, and of course makes me even more committed to great things in 2013.  

Can I just say that I LOVE LIVING IN NY again?!  Jen may disagree a little bit but she does agree that the energy and people here are incredible.  In such a short time, I feel like we've not just built a brand new (old) business but made some high quality friends, and that's even more precious. Thank you!

It's been a truly incredible year for marriage equality (and for our business!)  Here are some things we are grateful for and excited about from 2012, in no particular order:

• For the first time, a sitting US President, Barack Obama, publicly supported same-sex marriage

• Marriage equality was approved by voters in Maryland, Washington and Maine, bringing the total number of states with marriage equality to 9.  

• Voters in Minnesota defeated an anti-gay marriage bill the very same night!

• Several well known celebrities came out!  Thanks to Anderson Cooper, Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Frank Ocean and Lana Wachowski, among others, for bravely coming out and letting LGBT youth know that they are not alone.  

• Congrats to actress Cynthia Nixon, MSBNC Anchor Thomas Roberts and Good Morning America weatherman Sam Champion for marrying their partners in 2012.

• Our business worked with 34 same-sex couples from all over the world on their wedding plans!  The couple who traveled the farthest was from Australia!

• The Gay Wedding Institute had over 250 wedding professionals from all over the world (including our first from Italy, Aruba and Ireland!) complete the Gay Wedding Institute certification course.  Check out the grads here!

• We successfully moved a wedding from one venue to another as a result of Hurricane Sandy...check out that story here.

• I signed a deal for write my second book - coming this spring!

• We launched a clothing line for lesbian, queer and trans weddings.  If you haven't already done so, check out Fourteen!

And that's just the beginning...as always, we have big goals and resolutions for 2013...it will no doubt be another exciting year for 14 Stories and for marriage equality.  Stick with us to see where we go next!

Lots of love,

Bernadette, Jen, Andrew, Janet, Victoria

The week of Hurricane Sandy was one of my most professionally challenging weeks.  We had worked very hard for six months on an extraordinary New York City gay wedding for two amazing men, Jason and Dimitri.  We were in the home stretch, the last week of the wedding, when we all heard that Hurricane Sandy was going to be serious business.

I'm generally a pretty optimistic person so I was confident that the hurricane wouldn't impact our wedding, set to be on the 14th and 21st floor of the Chelsea Arts Tower, in a beautiful space called Glass Houses.  But like many people, I was surprised by the magnitude of Sandy's impact.  Glass Houses was fine, except for some flooding in the basement, but what we learned on Tuesday was that the power was out.  With a wedding on Saturday we didn't know when the power was going to return.  

Jason and Dimitri had many guests from out of town and also plans for a two week honeymoon in Brazil two days after the wedding.  Rescheduling the wedding would have been very difficult so we agreed to explore some alternate venues.  I presented some office space and a few cool raw spaces as backup options.  Unfortunately one of the raw spaces was over the bridge in Long Island City and the other was cost-prohibitive.  The bridge was daunting given the traffic that week and with subways in rough shape, we were looking at one option:  a pretty ugly office space.  

The cost of that was also quite high (about $20,000) so Jason decided to ask whether his law firm's conference floor was available...it was and I orchestrated the move from Glass Houses to a Midtown Manhattan office building.

We were very fortunate that all of the fabulous wedding vendors we'd hire were still available and committed to Jason and Dimitri.  The photographer's parents lost their house and were out of town, so she was personally dealing with that, but still made it to the wedding.  The DJ had no power and no gas in his car but he made it.  The bartenders' bar was literally under water but they made it.  The floral designer's warehouse was without power and inaccessible.  And on and on...I was so impressed by the efforts of this amazing team.

And the wedding itself?  It was great!  We beautified an office space with tons of uplights and pipe and drape.  We added a beautiful white dance floor, great lounge furniture - and you'd never know we were in an office building. 

I was so impressed not only by the vendors but that most of the guests were also able to make it.  We had a few drop-outs because of travel issues or hurricane damage but overall, most guests came.

The Huffington Post also tells this story with an interview with the grooms.

What do you think?

Special thanks to the amazing team:

• Shawn Rabideau Floral
• Lisa Ross Photography
• Sonnier & Castle Catering
• Cake Alchemy
• Cocktails in Motion
• Wendy Kidd Entertainment
• PBG Event Rentals

We were honored to be featured in New York Magazine's wedding issue once again, this time sharing some gay wedding etiquette and data from the Gay Wedding Institute.  A few of our couples were also interviewed!  Check out the story below!

We are consulting on the launch of what will be an incredible new website, www.GayDestinationWeddings.com, created by the world's destination wedding leader, www.DestinationWeddings.com.  DestinationWeddings.com has worked with many same-sex couples over the years but their new dedicated site will have fully Gay Wedding Institute-trained agents assisting LGBT couples on their weddings at very inclusive resorts around the world.

The company is hiring a full time position to facilitate this launch and you can read the job description here.

As you may know, in Massachusetts, there is a 3 day waiting period to pick up a marriage license.  For example, if you apply on a Tuesday, it won't be available til that Friday.  Part of our services in Massachusetts are taking couples to court to petition a judge for a waiver of the 3 day waiting period.

Our team member Janet was with clients this morning and at the courthouse learned that the fee for a waiver of the 3 day marriage license waiting period has increased by $110 due to the new state budget signed by Governor Patrick on Sunday, July 8.  We unfortunately have to pass part of this price increase along to our clients.

As of today, the Destiny Boston package will be priced at $2,300 and the Vows package at $800.

We are very sorry to do this to our many loyal customers.