Gay Wedding Blog

Here at www.RainbowWeddingNetwork.com we have always seen the value in helping universities, students and other information-gathering sources, as they work to quantify the minority experience of the LGBTQ community.  It is important!  Numbers aren't everything, when it comes to living life, but pooling information into statistics that the general public can see and measure, is one form of validating and legitimizing the actualy day-to-day experiences of LGBTQ citizens.
THANK YOU for considering taking time to participate in the following survey!

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A University of Arkansas graduate student is conducting a study to obtain information on Same-Sex Marriage and Heterosexual weddings cost comparisons. Your contribution is very important to the success of this study. Participation is voluntary. Complete responses will help with this research and will assist the hospitality industry better serve you in the future. It will take about 5-10 minutes of your time. However, if you need to take a break during the survey, you may return to the place you left off using the same computer. If at any time you wish to end participation, you may.

The survey is not designed to sell you anything, or solicit money from you in any way. You will not be contacted at a later date for any sales or solicitations. Participation is anonymous. All responses will be kept confidential and will be used only for statistical analysis by the research personnel. No personal data will be asked and information obtained will be recorded in such a manner that you cannot be identified.

If you have any questions or if you would like to know the results of the study, please contact Lydia Perritt at 479-575-2500 or email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Dr. Kelly Way at 479-575-4985 or email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

For questions about your rights as a subject, contact the University of Arkansas Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701, 479-575-2208.

By accessing the survey, you consent to participate. Please follow the arrow below to access the survey:

https://qtrial2014az1.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8wR5LOMvbgoegUB

Thank you!

Lydia Perritt

HESC Graduate Assistant

University of Arkansas

CASTING CALL!

Are you an engaged or soon to be engaged couple whose family disapproves of your relationship? 

Have family members made it clear that they will not attend your upcoming wedding? 

Have you found the love of your life, and desperately want the support of your entire family?

Introducing a new docu-series that follows star-crossed lovers who have family that disapproves of their relationship because of sexual orientation, race, religion, class, or culture.

Many families still struggle with finding family balance and acceptance. We’d like to take this journey with you on your way to the aisle in a groundbreaking new doc-series in hopes to give open-mindedness and empathy a platform. Our dream is to bring the couples together with their loved ones and initiate a dialogue of openness. 

For couples who are willing to share their story for this program, there is generous compensation in return for allowing us to join on your journey. We want to have the couple be able to start their married life off with the support of their family, as well a nest egg to start their new life together.

To be considered for the show, please submit a brief bio, contact info, and recent photos of yourself and your significant other to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or you may apply directly through our online form at: https://kineticcasting.wufoo.com/forms/star-crossed-application with attn: Shannon.

CHECK OUT Modern Brides & Modern Grooms by NYC based psychotherapist Mark O'Connell.  The book mixes genres--LGBT, wedding guide, relationship therapeutic, memoir--but it is mostly a post-DOMA book about how we are all more alike than we are different. Mark speaks as a married gay man, and also includes perspectives from many other relationships as well.  Insightful, fun, lighthearted!

How to make any wedding liberating, brave, and sexy.

This post-DOMA book is for any couple—same or opposite sex—seeking a personalized wedding that dignifies the relationship and the individual self. No “new normal” here—this guide emboldens you to harness your unique, brazen, queer truth; to be creative; and to plan your wedding your way.

Every fiancé faces the question: How do I become something new without losing myself? Using his own story—from how he and his husband connected via MTV’s The Real World to the real world of their marriage—author Mark O’Connell reflects on conflicts that arrive during wedding transitions, as well as various other transitions throughout your lives.

As a psychotherapist, O’Connell offers ideas to bridge relational gaps with your partner, family, and friends. As a professional actor, he also offers insight into the ways your wedding is a theatrical production: how this can help you to conceptualize the event, consolidate your efforts, and increase creative collaboration as a couple. This will serve you not only on the day, but also for the rest of your time together.

Whether we’re straight, gay, or other, weddings inspire us to carve out more fun, freedom, recognition, life-space, love-space, and connubial space than we’ve ever had before.

Find it on Amazon!  Great gift for yourself, your fiancee, or your newly engaged friends!

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Brides-Grooms-Nontraditional-Twenty-First-Century/dp/1629145831

A quick MUST-read from Australia!  Go Mom!

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2014/12/mom-corrects-birth-announcement-in-support-of-transgender-son/

Is this the one?! 

READ ON!  http://www.jdjournal.com/2014/11/20/one-case-may-determine-the-fate-of-gay-marriage-in-america/?hvid=4ZjYWY/feed/

Article by: Noelle Price

Photo credit: MSNBC

MTV contacted us here at RainbowWeddingNetwork, to ask for our help with a casting call.  They are working on a new project about a family that has a parent who is transgender or transitioning. The producers are hoping to depict an honest, unique and respectful experience by showing the love and laughter of one family.

If you're interested, check out the links below!

http://remotecontrol.mtv.com/casting-call-for-parents/

http://remotecontrol.mtv.com/casting-calls/casting-call-for-kids/

Our good friend DJ Shelly, with Michelle Lee Entertainment, is spotlighted in this rockin' article from PGN!  Check it out for great tips on choosing your own wedding deejay... and for info about discounts offered in the Philly area for fabulous services from Shelly!

http://www.epgn.com/columns/before-the-bells/7994-bringing-music-out-of-the-background

PGN writer Jen Colletta met DJ Shelly at our recent LGBT Wedding Expo in Bucks County... And soon enough, our tour of 'Same Love, Same Rights'® LGBT Wedding Expos will be returning to the area (March 15, 2015) and you may have the chance to meet Shelly and her crew in person!

For more info on the Expo, visit www.SameLoveSameRights.com - see you on the dance floor!

(Boise, ID, October 22, 2014)—A 74-year-old Navy veteran who challenged Idaho’s marriage equality ban so she could be buried with her late wife in Idaho’s state-run veterans cemetery will have her wishes respected after Idaho state officials agreed to allow the couple to be interred together.

Today, Madelynn "Lee" Taylor went to the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery to make arrangements to have both her ashes and those of her late wife, Jean Mixner, interred together at the cemetery. Idaho officials agreed to Taylor’s request following the National Center for Lesbian Rights’ (NCLR) recent victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which found that Idaho’s ban on marriage equality violated the U.S. Constitution. The court ordered marriages to begin on October 15, 2014, and directed the state to recognize the marriages of couples who married in other states.

Taylor served in the Navy from 1958 to 1964. In late 2013, Idaho officials denied Taylor’s request to be buried in the Idaho State Veterans Cemetery together with her late wife, citing Idaho’s laws prohibiting marriage by same-sex couples. NCLR and Boise attorneys Deborah A. Ferguson and Craig Durham of Ferguson Durham PLLC filed a lawsuit on Taylor’s behalf, challenging the exclusion as a violation of the due process and equal protection guarantees of the U.S. Constitution.

“Words can’t describe how incredibly grateful I am for all the work that went into making our wishes possible,” said Taylor. “Idaho is where some of our best memories together are and it’s where I want to spend eternity with Jean.”

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