Celebrating 6 years of serving the GLBT community as the first wedding boutiques of their kind!

Our Mission
TwoBrides.com™, a mother-approved web site for alternative weddings™, offers services and products to a community that has been routinely neglected and discriminated against: the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community. It is our mission to provide innovative, practical, and top-quality products and information networking for same-sex and other alternative weddings.

In carrying out our day-to-day business we strive to treat our customers and employees with dignity and respect and establish our company as a leader in social progress and promotion of equal rights for the gay community.

Our Story
Every mother dreams of the ideal wedding for her daughter, and I am no different. I have always envisioned a wedding where my daughter marries her beloved: someone who loves her and cares for her. Of course, I must admit that I had originally envisioned a man standing at her side, representing those things. But, as you know, life is full of surprises sometimes!

As plans for my daughter's 1999 wedding began to unfold, I observed several things about myself. I saw how easy it would be for me to fall into the trap that a lesbian wedding is not a "real" wedding. But I've never been one not to do what feels right and just; so I took myself to task by setting a standard that my actions as a Mother of A Bride would be the same if I were the Mother of The Bride.

As my daughter and her partner made decisions about the Big Day, I constantly asked myself, "What would I do if she were marrying a man?" This has always been, after all, the only standard I have ever known. In using this practice, I began to develop an unspoken commitment to myself and to my daughter. I decided that I would approach this wedding with the same legitimacy, reverence, and excitement that the institution of heterosexual marriage typically receives. I coined this as "my commitment to normalcy" and weighed my actions against this standard. I was determined that my daughter would have the wedding her father and I had always dreamed she would have.

While shopping for their bridal shower, at which every good Mother of A Bride knows to bring wonderful gifts to help the new couple begin their lives together, I realized that there were few to no products on the market geared toward same-sex weddings. I was lamenting this fact and reporting my frustrations to one of the guests at the bridal shower, and she replied, "Why don't you just start TwoBrides.com?" Without missing a beat, I responded, "I will!" And here I am today having the time of my life doing something I love, working with people that I love, while helping to further a cause in which I passionately believe.

I have come to realize that my "commitment to normalcy" is really "a commitment to equality."

In early 2005, my daughter, Kathryn, joined me in the business, which has been a secret (or, as she might say: a not-so-secret) dream of mine. Then, in the fall of 2005, we joined the blogosphere with Gay Wedding Fodder, featuring wedding news and tips for the GLBT community, and acquired GayWeddings.com, allowing us to increase our range of services.

Together, Kathryn and I are continuing to build our business and teach the world about the importance of marriage equality, while also serving the many GLBT couples who are looking for a safe and tasteful place to shop.

It is a travesty that every state does not grant equality to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered couples in the form of the legal right to marry or the right to form domestic partnerships. I applaud San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome for his his bold stand, Massachusetts for legalizing gay marriage, Vermont and Connecticut for developing a legal legitimization of same-sex partnership through civil unions, and I hope that many other jurisdictions will follow suit. In the meantime, I say, why wait for the politicians? Break out your tuxes and your gowns, your jeans and your fleece, your diamond-studded tiaras and your most smashing ensembles!

Do what you do best: Follow your hearts, make a commitment to love and honor each other no matter what anyone else has to say. As far as I'm concerned, you can call your union "mother-approved" while we celebrate love and wait on those politicians to catch up with us.

Gretchen Hamm, Founder

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