Same-Sex Wedding Planners: Guidebooks for a Gay Wedding

I used to arrange events for a living. They'd range from huge region-wide annual conferences for Aimhigher, through Holocaust Memorial Day lectures for my local university, and down to small-scale presentations for new projects. Even I'd draw in a sharp breath at the notion of taking on a wedding.

On the surface, it seems so simple.  You book the venues for both ceremony and reception; book the necessary personnel - cleric, register, band, person who agreed to marry you; lay on some food and drink; send out the invitations; get married.

But there's so much more to it than that. Nothing can go wrong. It's the biggest day of your life. The pressure to make it perfect is generally the very thing that condemns it to imperfect from the outset.

More to the point, it's one of the few times in your life when your family, friends, work colleagues and assorted random people will all be in the same place at the same time. With alcohol. Clash of worlds doesn't cover it!

The last thing you need, as you take your vows, is to be worrying that something was forgotten amongst the crowd behind you. It's your great moment in the spotlight, but with a bit of appropriate wedding planning, you will be able to relax into your role. Then all that's really left to do is look into your loved one's eyes with a heartfelt, 'I do.'

The best-selling gay wedding planning book on Amazon is this one by Tess Ayers and Paul Brown. They're constantly tweaking and updating it. The guide is already onto its third edition!

The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings is geared more towards those getting married, rather than anyone asked to officiate at one. In addition to the nuts and bolts - the sheer practicalities - of the day, there are anecdotes based on actual experience to flavor and inform the advice on offer. All combined, it makes for a humorous and helpful guide for same-sex weddings.

While gay wedding planning should be the same as those for heterosexual weddings, we don't yet live in that world. Tess and Paul raise some pertinent questions for the happy couple to consider. Better before than during the nuptials!

David Toussaint is a gay man, who teamed up with fellow author Heather Leo to pen this popular wedding planner for same-sex couples.

If you're looking for a bog-standard, down to Earth guidebook for planning a gay traditional wedding, then this is a great bet. Though it might lack weight for wedding planning professionals.

Gay and Lesbian Weddings: Planning the Perfect Same-Sex Ceremony is a hilarious book to read, but it also carries very practical advice. Furthermore, it delves into much bigger issues, like adoption, which might be triggered by tying the knot.

There are chapters on the changing legal landscape in America, concerning same-sex marriage, but the book was written in 2004, so it's already hugely out of date on that score. 

Bernadette Coveney Smith makes her claim - of being the number one gay wedding planner in the USA - based upon the fact that she's the CEO of 14 Stories. This is a company which was founded to organize the big day for same-sex couples.

She doesn't merely do this in her native Boston, but has arranged the nuptials - or acted as consultant - on gay wedding ceremonies across the USA.

In short, Bernadette does this for a living. You can be certain that the advice given has been tried, tested and delivers the goods. This is real world, hands on experience being shared with you here!

KC David is man who may challenge Bernadette Coveney Smith's claim to be the US's premier same-sex wedding planner. He also has his own company - Gay Weddings - which plans the nuptials of gay couples from its headquarters in Pennsylvania, USA.

His interest in the subject was piqued when he married his long-term partner Doc. The couple also ran a hostelry in Bucks County, which became a regular venue for same-sex wedding celebrations.

Gay Weddings was founded in 1998, and his guidebook to planning homosexual unions was published seven years later.

While the practical advice still remains sound, the chapters on US law have since fallen woefully out of date. Mind you, that's a good thing, isn't it?