St. Patrick's Day weekend rooftop wedding in Atlanta, Georgia

Kelly and Meghan got married over St. Patrick’s Day weekend on a rooftop at the Peachtree Club in Atlanta, Georgia, surrounded by friends and family. They got engaged a year beforehand on St. Patrick’s Day 2019 when Meghan proposed to Kelly using a St. Patrick’s decorated fortune cookie. You can watch their wedding video here.

What advice would you give to engaged LGBTQ+ couples?

Just remember one thing: Your wedding, your rules! Do what you want. Know the fact that your wedding is different, but only that it’s different in the way that you’ll put your own touches into it. We chose not to have the first dance, not to have a bouquet toss and we put an emphasis on the St. Patrick’s Day theme since Meghan’s family is Irish and that happened to be our favorite holiday.

Also, don’t count out vendors who don’t look to have worked with/for LGBTQ+ couples in the last. Just because you don’t see any photos advertising such, or just because paperwork or questionnaires say “bride and groom” doesn’t mean they’re not willing to work with you. Lastly, surround yourself with friends and family that have always supported your relationship from day one.

Advice for vendors and venues working with LGBTQ+ couples?

Review and amend contract language, if needed, to be inclusive and flexible to all kinds of couples. There were a few times we ran into only “bride” and “groom” titles, so we each took turns being grooms! Not a huge deal, though. We felt we had the best of the best vendors, so we never encountered any awkwardness.

What challenges did you face as an LGBTQ+ couple planning your wedding?

We were lucky enough to not experience many challenges at all, aside from the typical challenges everyone has when trying to plan a wedding. We were also lucky enough to be getting married in Atlanta, a very gay-friendly city, so we faced virtually no challenges. Everyone was extremely supportive during the entire planning process. To give you an example of a “challenge” (we’d barely call it that), we had one awkward moment at the hotel when a bellman saw our wedding attire and asked if we were having a “dual wedding.” We just laughed and told him we were getting married to each other, and he was quick to congratulate us.

Did you encounter any pleasant surprises as an LGBTQ+ couple planning your wedding?

We found it refreshing and very flattering that so many of our guests and vendors expressed how excited they were for our wedding. Even more so, they’re all still talking about how much fun they had, weeks after the wedding.