Why it's important to represent more than just straight white couples
Don't get me wrong, we love straight white couples! But if there is one type of couple that the wedding industry loves to represent, almost exclusively, it's straight, able-bodied, thin and conventionally attractive white couples.
Here's the problem with that... When you only represent one type of couple, you leave so many other types of couples feeling left out and undervalued. I remember talking with a friend, who is also in the wedding industry, about her experience planning her own wedding and how as an African American woman getting married to a white man, she had a really hard time finding any wedding magazines, blogs, etc. that had any couples that looked like her and her fiancé. I've heard the same thing from countless couples we've worked with, and that fucking sucks.
So, while checking my Instagram insights recently (I know, I live a very exciting life), I was overjoyed to see that out of my top 6 most liked photos ever on Instagram, 4 of them were of LGBTQ+ couples and 2 included people of color. This tells me two things... 1) That I have the right audience on Instagram for the type of work I want us to be doing (yay!) and 2) That people are thirsty for wedding photos and inspiration that aren't just straight, white, able-bodied, thin and conventionally attractive couples. People want to see wedding inspiration and wedding photos that look like them, and surprise, people come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and orientations and gender expressions!
We've had couples hire us because not all of the weddings we blog are of super skinny people. We've had couples choose us because we're so vocal about how much we love LGBTQ+ weddings, and so they felt very valued by us. We've had other couples hire us because we understand some of the unique challenges of a wedding day when one or both people in the couple suffer from a chronic, debilitating illness. We've had couples hire us because we have experience taking beautiful photographs of folks with darker skin tones. Other folks have hired us because of our work with Our Lives magazine or the fact that we're super cool working with non-binary and trans clients or because we're cool with poly or ethically non-monogamous couples. Ultimately, people want to know that a wedding vendor, particularly a photographer, is excited to work with them specifically.
Recently, clients of ours shared a really powerful story with us. This couple has a family friend whose child came out as non-binary. They showed this friend and their child the blog post about Miles + Daniel's non-binary, queer as hell wedding (check out the photos here) and seeing a non-binary person (Miles) so happy and supported, celebrating a wedding, was really powerful for this kid. They said that it helped them see how they could live authentically as themselves, and gave them hope for what an adult life could look like as a non-binary person. I was brought to tears when our clients shared this story with me. Representation matters. It can make such a difference in ways you can't even recognize right away.
As a small business owner, and as a human, it is so important to me that, to the best of our ability, we're representing those who are traditionally underrepresented in the wedding industry. That's why our focus has long been on diverse and offbeat couples. In particular, serving the LGBTQ+ community is important to me as a person who identifies as queer. That's also why we love the Offbeat Bride site so much! They do a great job of representing a wide variety of folks who don't get much love in the more traditional wedding industry. I want our business to be like that, but specific to photography. I want people to come to our website or social media pages, and be able to really see themselves in the images and stories they find here.
I want to give so much gratitude to our amazing clients, and thank all of you for putting your faith in us to tell your story in a way that is authentic to you. (I'm not crying, you're crying).
-- Sam
p.s. If you have any suggestions for us on how we can continue to strive for that goal, please drop us a line!