For My Clients That Don't Look Like Me

Per my previous post, I decided to delay the launch of Now What Weddings on the morning of Monday, June 1. Later that day my husband Phil got an email from his favorite band, Phish, that their Tuesday evening, quarantine staple "Dinner and a Movie" would be canceled in solidarity with #blackouttuesday, an initiative started by the music industry to give #blacklivesmatter the stage under the hashtag #theshowmustbepaused. Before bed that night the movement had grown far beyond the music industry and by Tuesday morning my entire Instagram feed was filled with black boxes. Many professional accounts that I follow also indicated that they were going to be "muted" from June 1st through 7th in order to #elevatemelaninvoices. Bloggers, influencers, and businesses across the board dedicated their focus to education and reflection on racism and diversity, or lack thereof in America. The wedding industry was no exception.

On Thursday June 4, engage! a wildly popular, luxury wedding conference, hosted a webinar entitled "A Conversation about Race Relations in the Wedding & Event Industry" featuring 15 panelists, the majority of whom were black industry professionals, many of whom I was unfamiliar with and excited to learn more about. There was a great deal of information and even more emotion that was shared during the discussion that lasted nearly two hours. Amidst that wealth of information, two things stuck out in my mind more so than anything and continued to weigh on me once the call had ended. The first was an experience shared, I believe by Kawania Wooten of Howerton + Wooten Events, (I'm kicking myself for not taking notes but I'm almost positive that this experience was hers), she spoke about checking into the hotel for her first engage! conference. In line behind a number of white women, when he got to the desk, the hotel staff accused her of lying about being a part of the group, why? likely because she was black, and the vast majority of attendees at this luxury wedding event are not.

Experiences like Kawania's tend to stick with me, perhaps because they remind me that I grew up in a bubble, and not the bubble of white privilege that one might think. My experience with color and race as a child was the opposite of most. I grew up in Teaneck, NJ, proudly the first public school system in the United States of America to voluntarily integrate, and a town that has prided itself on diversity and inclusion ever since. The population of the town today is just over 40,000, about 45% White, 25% Black and 18% Hispanic or Latino; the town is also about 40% Jewish, the majority of whom are orthodox and attend yeshiva, so growing up my public school classmates were predominately Black, and the community was incredibly diverse, as a White Catholic girl, the minority was in fact, me. While the history of racism was something that was spoken about often and taught with fervor throughout my education, in my mind, it was just that, history. As a result, it has always been difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that racism is still a widespread epidemic, and even more of a challenge to identify racial biases within myself, because I grew up in Teaneck, how could I be racist?

At some point during the call, someone (again, why I didn't take notes I just don't know) began to talk about the tendency to hire vendors that look like you, of having clients that look like you. At that point, I began to think about the vendors I work with most often, my go-to wedding planners, owners of entertainment companies, invitationers, photographers etc. most look like me, planners especially. That gave me pause, my intention with Now What Weddings is to serve all Brides and Grooms, regardless of color, creed, sexual orientation, or socio-economic level, and in order to properly serve a diverse community of clients, I have to have a diverse community of vendors because I want every person of color that works with me to feel comfortable in knowing that I have a diverse pool of talent to pick from, but also because EVERY Bride or Groom should have access to the best of the best in the business when they work with me, and that is most definitely not defined by looking like me. So while I may have a solid crew of ethnically diverse band leaders, I know that one of, if not the best bridal ateliers in New York City is owned by the most incredible black man, and the self-proclaimed, third tallest Asian in the world as one of my favorite photographers, that is not enough. Now what I need to do is to be one hundred percent certain that as I grow this platform, the diversity of the faces you see on it grow with it, and I am undoubtedly dedicated to learning more about many of the new to me faces in the world of wedding planning in the weeks and months to come.

Click the image below for an article by Brides featuring "100+ Black-Owned Wedding Businesses to Support Now and Always"