Our Stories

The Mission

14 Stories's mission is to ensure that all LGBT couples have the most positive, supportive experience while planning their wedding. Our commitment is to produce gorgeous, meaningful and fabulous legal weddings with a holistic approach that guarantees that couples also receive resources to build and protect their family. 14 Stories promotes marriage equality and reduces homophobia in the wedding industry through our educational seminars for wedding professionals.

What's the 14?

14 is a powerful number in civil rights history. It was the number of individual plaintiffs in the case that first legalized gay marriage in Massachusetts. 14 is the U.S. Constitutional Amendment that was used to dismantle segregation and end the ban on interracial marriage.  We believe that these individual stories - and your stories - are the stories that change the world. Our work is to translate these stories and symbols into once-in-a-lifetime, one-of-a-kind weddings.

The Short Story

14 Stories was the country's first firm to specialize in planning legal LGBT weddings and we've planned more of them than anyone else in the country.  We are innovative and distinctive, having been in business since 2004 when we opened our doors as same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts. Now we plan weddings for LGBT and other progressive-minded couples everywhere they are legal with offices in Boston and New York. We are proud to be an NGLCC-certified LGBT owned enterprise and we LOVE what we do!

The Long Story

14 Stories was the country's first firm to specialize in producing legal LGBT weddings and we've produced more of them than anyone else in the country.  It's been about eight years and I still believe that our weddings change the world.

When same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts in November 2003, I worked in event planning for a nonprofit in downtown Boston and took long lunches to attend the pro-gay marriage rallies and protests at the State House.  Through the stories and energy of the couples seeking to legally marry, I had the idea to open my own firm specializing in producing LGBT weddings.

My former business partner and I launched (what was then called) It's About Time in early 2004. We called hundreds of vendors, screened them, visited venues, and were ready to go when the first marriages took place on May 17, 2004.  

It's been eight years since then and we changed the name of the company to 14 Stories in November 2009 and expanded to New York in 2011.  Although my first idea was to help LGBT couples comfortably navigate a historically straight wedding industry, we now work with all progressive-minded couples and clients looking for meticulously produced and designed events that are different from the norm.  We are proud to be an NGLCC-certified LGBT owned enterprise and we LOVE what we do! 

Our Community

Giving back to our community is one of our core values, and we make a donation to charity on each full service client's first anniversary.  We also regularly donate wedding planning hours to silent auctions and time to other fundraising events.  Some of the organizations we've supported include: HRC, Lambda Legal, The Point Foundation, GLAD, Mass Equality, Fenway Community Health Center, Marriage Equality USA, the Family Equality Council and SpeakOut. 

Why Do Our Weddings Change the World?

I have stood in the back of hundreds of same-sex marriage ceremonies and watched as the mostly straight guests welled up in tears of joy, elation, triumph and pride for the couple who is legally marrying.  I know those guests go back home and tell their co-workers, neighbors and friends, "I went to the best wedding last weekend..." and proceed to tell the story.  

That's how the world changes, through experiences and stories.  The more guests that attend these weddings, the more stories are told and the more opinions change, and when opinions change, public policy changes and when public policy changes, equality comes.  It may come slowly but it's coming.

Our weddings are mostly gay weddings, yes, but they are also equal marriages and equal weddings.  And that's what the guests see - they see equality - and couples who do not take the right to marry for granted.

I believe this so deeply that I regularly speak to wedding professionals around the world about gay weddings.  I train them how to be sensitive to the unique needs of same-sex couples.  I work with them to make their marketing materials inclusive and make same-sex couples feel equal.  

I believe that gay weddings change the world.  We are more than just wedding planners.  We are storytellers and equality-makers.