We were lucky to catch up with Jake Taylor recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jake, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

My mission to focus my business on celebrating LGBTQ marriages specifically has it’s origins in a few key moments throughout my life.

In my mid-twenties, I was learning more about myself and started showing up more authentically. It became very clear to me quickly that it was going to be a challenge to continue to honor and express certain parts of myself while working in conventionally professional environments. I wanted to create a space where I could show up every day as my whole self while encouraging others to do the same.

During this same time, I read a book called Equally Wed that was written by a queer couple after they’d struggled finding affirming vendors and inspiration planning their own wedding. I’ve worked in events in many different capacities in my adult life and this really felt like a niche I could fill. Why not be a resource and a haven for folks to come when they want to celebrate their love and connect them with like-minded vendors. There are still businesses that won’t work with us. Venues offer “bride and groom” suites when some weddings have two brides or grooms, or sometimes the marriers don’t identify as either! Even though gay marriage is legal, it is still incredibly challenging for queer people to navigate the process of planning a wedding.

The mission to celebrate queer love comes from a place of my own lived experiences of homophobia and not seeing myself represented as a fat, disabled, gender non-confirming human being. Given the political climate in the US it also bears repeating that “acceptance” is the absolute minimum. LQBTQ and otherwise marginalized people deserve to be celebrated.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a millennial that lives just outside of Seattle with my spouse Max and our cat Herman. I enjoy reading a variety of books but particularly love anything that involves magic and gay kissing. Every year I take a few steps forward in my gardening journey and look forward to growing many more tomatoes next summer!

Growing up, I always loved the festivities of a birthday party or Thanksgiving and Christmas. My career trajectory into event planning started young! After graduating high school I started at a local Culinary school a week later. I realized quickly that as much as I loved cooking my real passion was outside of the kitchen! Life took some twist and turns and I worked for about a decade as the operations manager for a coat check company. In 2017 I knew it was time to make the shift into event planning for myself. I left a toxic work environment and started volunteering in non-profit events to beef up my resume while I started Functions and Gatherings in September of the same year. After spending some time in corporate and non-profit events through 2018-2022 I decided it was time to commit to running my own business in 2023.

I like to refer to the wedding industry as a normative swamp. This is only a little bit of a joke. SO MUCH wedding planning information and inspiration out there doesn’t show marginalized people. Like much of our world, black and brown folks, disabled people, and the LGBTQ+ community aren’t represented well, or at all. Functions and Gatherings exists to help queer people especially navigate the wedding planning process in a way that doesn’t overwhelm with traditional expectations that better suit cis-het couples. I want to make it easy to connect with other queer owned or affirming wedding vendors because that is always top priority in the networking that I do. If we do it right, weddings can be a tool of wealth redistribution by hiring vendors that are owned my marginalized humans.

In order to make the planning process as stress free for marriers, I offer a few different paths for them to take. Wedding Management allows them to steer the planning, with guidance. I always want to share vendor recommendations and answer questions but the couple does the vendor communication and scheduling until just before the wedding when I take over that communication to finalize details and then make sure things are smooth sailing on the day of. For folks that are looking for a higher-touch experience I offer Full Wedding Planning services. This is an option where they let me know what they want and I am sourcing and communicating with vendors on their behalf. I really make sure that all of the details are taken care of based on what kind of wedding they want to have. Design and elopement services will be launching soon!

I’m most proud of the work that I’ve put in to creating styled photoshoots that show people that aren’t often represented in wedding content. We’re bringing fun ideas to the table and showing people that their weddings don’t have to look a certain way to feel like a wedding. It’s been really fulfilling for me in creating the representation, gaining more confidence in my own creative abilities, and building community with other vendors that share similar values.

Its really important for me that anyone getting married knows that their love deserves to be celebrated in a way that feels authentic for them. If something more traditional suits you, let’s do it! If moving outside of the box feels like a better move, we can make it happen. What matters is that you know you have the power to choose what brings you and your partner joy and I want to help folks figure out what that is!

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source of new clients for me is word of mouth. If a wedding is successful – we’re not going to have return clients which puts us in a unique position. I spend a lot of time networking with other like-minded vendors and building community with them for referrals. I always let clients know after their weddings that I’d love a review – AND for them to tell their friends when they’re getting engaged and starting the wedding planning process. Last year I had the pleasure of planning for someone who had officiated a wedding that I coordinated in 2018. This summer, I got to spend two weddings with close friends because they referred me before we’d even worked together. It makes for really fun moments!

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

When I first started this business, I was really still coming in to my own. I had never had headshots done in my life and I knew that it was going to be beneficial to my marketing to have some taken! I decided on two looks – one was a purple dress shirt with a teal floral blazer. The other was a true-red strapless ballgown, with a huge bouquet of gold balloons as my accessory! We took the photos in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood which is historically the queer center of the city. It was decided that I should pose in the rainbow painted crosswalk. It was SO gay. It really made a statement. I was incredibly nervous to put myself out there like that, but I did it anyway! And it got me one of my first clients. I was so excited when they told me that they were drawn to and loved the photo and that’s why they reached out to hire me. It was really validating that I could be successful but putting myself so authentically into my work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.functionsandgatherings.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/functionsandgatherings/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/functionsandgatherings/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-taylor-b01753b4/
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/functionsandgatherings/

Image Credits

Kyler Gallager Photography, Rove Coast Photography, DIWAS Photography, Dress Up Box