Details - Bridal Magazine - Issue 1 - June 2021 Digital

The CTL Collective also includes educators Lauren Burrows (she/her) and Taylor Berzins (she/her) to facilitate
workshops to cover “these and intersecting topics such as discrimination that Black folks experience in this
same industry, class/socio-economic barriers to accessing these spaces, marriage equality and what that has
looked like historically for disabled folks, Indigenous folks, etc. These issues are inherently connected and
cannot be talked about separately. Changing the Lens is a call to prioritize equality, diversity, inclusion and antioppression
in a luxury industry that continues to uphold oppressive systems. We believe that this work has to
be done collectively, as a community, and it is great to see so much interest.”
They have had quite the success in their first 3 events and have “exciting plans to continue cultivating space for
this work in the local “Ontario” wedding industry” Amber says. “As we go along, more vendors with knowledge
& lived experiences want to share their perspectives and so Changing the Lens continues to grow which is very
exciting”.
We dug into some deep questions with Amber and Theresa about the wedding industry and the LGBTQ+
community. We asked what they saw as challenges that the 2SLGBTQ+ couples face while planning
their wedding.
Amber says: There is the obvious challenge of being rejected by vendors who refuse to work with them. A
harm so common and so deep that a lot of couples will ask vendors if they are inclusive before inquiring about
their service or product. [Unfortunately], it is assumed that they are not inclusive until proven otherwise and
this is a repeated reminder of the fact that this world still does not fully embrace who they are or their love.
It puts a dark cloud over the planning process which we know can be incredibly stressful even outside of
these additional layers. On top of that, even vendors who say they welcome 2SLGBTQ+ couples, aren’t always
conscious of other ways they are excluding these folks over and over. Like saying bride & groom in their
marketing, using outdated terminology like “bridal suite” rather than wedding suite, having heterosexual folks’
model as a queer couple, not asking pronouns and assuming gender. Even using terms like “same sex couples”
is not always inclusive of the various gender identities and experiences of couples in this community. The list is
unending because this is a complex, deeply rooted bias that is not as simple as stating you accept us. The biggest
challenge is that a lot of wedding vendors don’t actually do the work.
Theresa says: Most vendors only focus on 2SLGBTQ+ couples when it is trending. Time and time again we
see vendors posting about inclusive practices only when a bigger vendor has been thrown under the bus for
their malpractices. This is usually when we see a heightened interest in vendors wanting to show that they are
inclusive and that is also when we see these vendors then reaching out to queer vendors for collaborations. This
is their way of also trying to show that they are inclusive but really, they are using queer identified vendors to
further their clout and mislead 2SLGBTQ+ couples through images of inclusivity.
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