Via Fast Company:
For Bernadette Smith, the business of planning weddings isn’t just about helping the happy couple deal with the stressful process of selecting a venue or cake.
It’s about advocacy.
Eleven years ago, when Smith was working for a nonprofit, marriage equality arrived in Massachusetts—the first U.S. state to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Smith witnessed the surge of support for LGBT couples to legally marry and the steady flow of same-sex couples tying the knot. A Boston Globe survey found that half of the couples who applied for licenses on the first day had been partners for a decade or more. Two-thirds were women and 30 were raising children. In the first week, 2,468 same-sex couples applied for licenses, including at least 164 from 27 other states and the District of Columbia.
“Someone’s got to plan these weddings,” Smith tells Fast Company. “It might as well be me.”
