WeddingWire World 2015: Serving the Modern Couple Panel Participation Recap

Image: WeddingWire

A few months ago I received an email from Kathryn Hamm of Gay Weddings & Capturing Love Guide fame asking me to be a part of a panel at the upcoming Wedding Wire World conference. I was honored and super pumped to be given the opportunity to not only get to speak as a panelist at an event as HUGE as WeddingWire World, but also that Kathryn found my thoughts an opinions on the topic, worthy of being on the panel. She explained that the topic was related to “Serving the Modern Couple” – how vendors could better position their business and language to ALL couples in the wedding industry and really muse upon what the “modern couple” really even means.

You can read Kathryn’s full recap of the panel on the Wedding Wire Pro blog, but my favorite excerpt was this one:

“As a result, I’ve wanted to inspire more dialogue and introspection beyond the question of how wedding professionals are serving same-sex couples. And, because of the education needed for the emerging LGBTQ wedding market, I believe our industry and its professionals have an opportunity to re-examine everything we are doing and update the habits that no longer serve us, let alone the modern couples who need our services and support.” – Kathryn Hamm

If you stopped by the panel – thank you for attending, if you didn’t, I actually have the recording of the panel embedded below. With the diverse panel Kathryn assembled, I feel like we could have talked for HOURS on the topic! Though I was SUPER nervous at the onset, the 30 minutes flew by!

I hope those of you that attended or listen to the panel below consider the importance of this topic and discussion. How can we, as wedding vendors, continue to examine what we are doing with our business and how we are putting our businesses into the world – a world that is GREATLY changing and diversifying. If you haven’t noticed, the wedding industry is vastly changing too; not just in terms of the sex of those getting married, but the values and ideals that couples are choosing to incorporate into their wedding day. Traditions are changing (for better or worse) and I’ve been excited to watch the DC wedding scene change since I started this blog in 2011.

I’d love to discuss the topic further (perhaps in a future blog post) or really just with any vendor that might need more help/guidance in how to accomplish this for their business. I am all ears on how we can continue to push the wedding industry into the future! Hope you enjoy the panel, Happy Tuesday!

A recording of the full conversation Kathryn Hamm moderated with Ross Oscar Knight, international photographer and photoculturalist from Atlanta, GA; Bree Ryback, founder of Capitol Romance, LLC and editor of its popular Washington DC-based planning blog; Bethel Nathan, owner of the San Diego-based Ceremonies by Bethel; and Kyle Mihalcoe, Regional Manager of Customer Success at WeddingWire.