Your Guide to Lesbian Weddings in Melbourne

I have been an authorised gay marriage celebrant since 2015. In the period since marriage equality became law in Australia in December 2017, it’s been my honour to marry more than 80 lesbian couples. Many of them have had their own particular needs as to what that wanted in a marriage ceremony, ranging from a ‘bells and whistles’ type of wedding to a ‘short and sweet’ or legals-only marriage ceremony, consisting of the bare essentials.

This blog explores some of the ways these lesbian couples have made their wedding their own – whether it’s been driven by budget or by a need to be private and intimate or whether romance was the key factor in what they wanted. Drawing from my experience of over 200 LGBTIQA+ weddings, I have compiled the best of ideas and tips to help you make your lesbian wedding unique, romantic and inexpensive.

The process – what’s involved?

Essentially, the process of getting married in Australia is the same, no matter the couple. You can read a shortened version of that process here.

Or, if you’d like more details, you can read them here.

If you’re a foreign lesbian couple travelling to Melbourne to get married, I encourage you to download my free e-book that takes you on a wedding planning journey: Download here.

At any time, if you’d like to schedule a free, no obligation appointment with me – via Zoom or face-to-face – please do so here – Book an appointment with Bronte.

Questions to ask

One of the red flags I’d be looking out for, when approaching wedding suppliers, is how much they talk about

• themselves
• what they offer
• what they can do for you

without asking very much at all about what you’re after in a wedding.

Or:

• they make inappropriate assumptions about you, your relationship or what they expect you want in a wedding
• they ask questions that are none of their business!
• they tell you that they’re comfortable being involved in lesbian weddings as they treat everyone the same
• their website focuses on straight couples and has few or no images of lesbian couples
• their paperwork and forms still refer to ‘bride and groom’ in the same sentence
• they refer to the fact that they are an ally and have lots of lesbian friends.

These are clear signals that their queer literacy needs to be improved and that they are probably not as lesbian-friendly as they make out.

If that’s the case, whether for a wedding venue, celebrant, photographer, cake maker, or so on, I’d be making an exit and begin looking for a lesbian-friendly wedding supplier who really listens and is keen to understand what you’re after that will suit your needs.

While you’re meeting with any wedding supplier, you should feel completely ok about asking:

Q. How much experience do you have working with lesbian couples? How many lesbian weddings have you done?
This question can help gauge the supplier’s familiarity and comfort with lesbian couples, ensuring they’re sensitive to your needs. It can also signal how other lesbian couples have viewed them – are they popular or not?

Q. Tell us about the most exciting lesbian wedding that you were involved with. What made it stand out?
Their response to this will enable you to gauge whether their lesbian weddings – and the service they offer – is templated or if it actually changes from one wedding to another.

Q. Tell us how you ensure you’re inclusive of all gender identities and sexual orientations?
It’s important that the supplier’s services, language, and approach are inclusive and affirming of both partners.

Q. What’s your policy on using non-gendered language?
This is about working out whether they’re open to using non-gendered language (eg partner, spouse) in their wedding work, forms, paperwork etc.

Q. What steps do you take to ensure a lesbian-friendly atmosphere at the wedding?
Ask about how they ensure inclusivity for all guests, such as training staff, respecting pronouns, not judging, not assuming, and addressing guests appropriately.

Q. Have you ever faced challenges working with lesbian couples, and how did you address them?
Understanding how they handle potential challenges or misunderstandings can give you peace of mind that they’ll be supportive throughout the process of being a supplier for your wedding.

Q. Do you offer recommendations for other lesbian-friendly vendors?
A supplier who is committed to inclusivity may also have a network of other lesbian-friendly or lesbian-owned vendors, from photographers to florists, which can streamline your planning.

Unique Venues

In Australia, you can get married anywhere at any time on any day of the year.

Some of my favourite venues for LGBTIQA+ weddings can be found here: Recommended Wedding Venues in Melbourne 

In addition, some of my lesbian couples have chosen venues such as:

• A lesbian club or bar.
• A quirky bar such as QT’s Hotel or Siglo.
• Their favourite restaurant – they sat in a discreet area, ordered some food and beverages and, while their food was being prepared, I married them in front of their two witnesses. We also had time to complete the necessary paperwork just in time for the food to arrive and for them to share their first meal as a married couple.
• A farm not far from Melbourne, owned by friends of the couple. They used hay bales for people to sit on, and horse troughs to keep bottles of alcohol on ice.
• On a beach at a time and on a day when the beach wasn’t crowded. And then, after the ceremony, towards sunset, they had a grazing table for their small number of guests, just in front of a row of very picturesque, iconic bathing boxes.
• The Grotto, a private, verdant setting a short distance off the Melbourne CBD, complete with lots of vegetation, a waterfall and a bridge on which the women could stand to say their vows.

Romantic Lesbian Weddings

Some lesbian couples seek nothing more than a no-fuss marriage ceremony that gets the legal paperwork sorted. But even that type of short, intimate wedding can still include some nice champagne being popped after the ceremony and signing of the legal paperwork, where they can toast each other for the first time within moments of being married. That’s romantic! 

Other examples: 

Make your own attire, if you have the skills.

Make a small ring cushion out of the fabric of the rainbow or lesbian flag you flew or held at demonstrations you attended, urging for marriage equality.

Hire a helicopter to take you from Essendon Airport to a winery in the Yarra Valley, where you land, watched by your small group of guests, who then join you in your marriage ceremony, followed by lunch. Then get back on the helicopter for the return flight to Essendon. Check it out here.

If you’ve decided to have a reasonably large wedding and you have several friends who love to sing, surprise your guests by organising these friends to sing (unannounced) and a capella version of one of your favourite love songs. This could be how your marriage ceremony begins, for example.

If you’re a lesbian couple who values privacy greatly or for whom it’s unsafe for others to know you’re married, then consider exchanging watches or bracelets or other jewellery, rather than wedding rings. That way, you both know the significance of the alternative piece that you’ve swapped – and no one else will be able to guess.

Inexpensive Lesbian Weddings

Not everyone has a large budget to spend on their wedding. Here are some tips on how to have a lesbian wedding that’s inexpensive: 

Increasingly, LGBTIQA+ couples are looking for a Short and Sweet Marriage Ceremony – you can check what’s included, here. In fact, 69% of my lesbian  couples have selected this type of marriage ceremony. It’s a way of saving money whilst, at the same time, getting as legally married as a couple who spends many thousands of dollars on a wedding.

Do it yourself. Apart from the ceremony, decide how you really want to celebrate your marriage.

• • How many guests will you have – 2? 5? 10?
    
  • Where will you get married? In your lounge room? In a hotel room? In your garden? In a friend’s backyard? The decision is yours.
    
  • What sort of food will you have? Can guests bring a plate? Do you want them to help you set up a grazing table by bringing some food? Do you want them to contribute to some takeaway food?
    
  • Do you really need a wedding venue? Wedding cake? Photographer? Videographer? New wedding attire? Limousine to get to the ceremony? 

Whatever your budget, there are ways of having a lesbian wedding that’s relatively inexpensive and, at the same time, memorable and meaningful. 

Things to avoid in your lesbian wedding

Many lesbians who get married for the first time tell me they have no idea where to begin, in planning their wedding as they’ve never done this before. That’s why I try to get them to tell me what they think might be some things they want in their wedding, as well as some things they don’t want in their wedding. 

Here are some things to avoid, if possible, in planning your lesbian wedding: 

1. Try to avoid – or at least question – the trappings associated with traditional straight weddings. Each of them generally adds to the cost of a wedding. What sorts of things can you cut out altogether? What can you trim down? What can you do differently? Here are some alternative wedding LGBTIQA+ rituals and traditions to the usual straight ones.

2. Whilst well-intentioned friends and family members may offer advice, and some can be very pushy in doing so, remember it’s your wedding, not theirs. Accept the advice in a gracious and respectful manner, but then have a private discussion with each other and decide whether or not that’s your thing. You don’t have to report to the provider of the advice on whether you decided to take their advice or not. Again, it’s your wedding.

3. Avoid engaging wedding suppliers who have no respect for lesbians or the broader LGBTIQA+ community or who have never worked at a lesbian wedding.

4. Don’t invite people to your wedding who don’t respect you or embrace you. It’s arguably the happiest and best day of your life. You don’t want it potentially ruined by anyone who, deep down, resents being there. That may include people who have been friends or family members but just don’t ‘get’ you and your relationship. 

Conclusion

Remember that your wedding can be as complex or as simple, as expensive or as cheap as you decide. Make some rules about how much time each day or each week you’ll spend organising your wedding. It can become a full-time job, if you allow it. If that’s what you want, then go full steam ahead. Otherwise, set some boundaries to ensure you enjoy not only your wedding day but also the process of planning it. And, most importantly, remember why you’re doing this!