When it comes to inclusive marketing and advertising for wedding vendors, ethnicity and sexuality is just the beginning.

Because that gif up there? We make that same face when we see a photographer's portfolio that only has slender, young, straight people.

…And when we see a styled shoot submission with stereotypes like tipis and dreamcatchers.

…And when we see language that excludes polyamorous folks.

…And when we see venues who don't talk about their accessibility options for folks working with disabilities.

Inclusive language is only the beginning when it comes to marketing best practices for wedding vendors

Lots of us in the wedding industry know we need to get better about diversity and inclusion, but it's hard to know where to start. We're all sensitive about making mistakes and looking stupid (or worse).

When we mentioned the issue on Facebook recently, we heard from several vendors saying “Do you have any resources about how to make my business more inclusive?”

And now the answer is HELL YES WE DO.

We've spent over 16 years building a more inclusive culture in the wedding industry. This winter, we worked with diversity & inclusion writer and activist Taylor de la Fuente to publish Offbeat Wed's Guide to Inclusive Marketing for Wedding Vendors… and the experience was so transformative that it lead us to decide we need to change our name. More about that in a minute.

Wedding industry friends, we can do better

We want all our wedding industry colleagues to ROCK their marketing, so we've created Offbeat Wed's Guide to Inclusive Marketing for Wedding Vendors.

The guide shares wedding vendor marketing insights such as:

• Why diversity doesn't mean what you think it means — there's a lot more nuance than just race or sexual orientation
• Why diversity is about more than inclusive language and images
• Why a diversity badge or inclusion statement might hurt your business more than it helps
• How assumptions about your clients can hurt your bottom line
• How to avoid accusations of tokenism with your styled shoots or social media ads
• Tips for making your contracts more inclusive
• How to utilize social proof from existing clients to get even MORE diverse clientele from a range of backgrounds

Our goal is helping you create inclusive marketing campaigns that are good for your business — and good for the creating positive social change we all want to see.

Improving inclusive wedding language is something we're all working on

Producing this guide was such a big deal, that it made our founder Ariel decide to rebrand our entire website!

We've been known since 2006 as Offbeat Bride, but making this guide was what finally made us realize it was time to get BRIDE out of our branding. We've always joked that “bride is an identity, not a set of genitals,” but the reality is that we can't talk about inclusivity when our own name was exclusionary.

Rebranding was an expensive yearlong undertaking that involved lawyers, web developers, graphic designers, and server sysadmins… but when we say we can all do better, THAT INCLUDES US, TOO. Fall of 2022, we relaunched as OFFBEAT WED.

If we can do it, YOU CAN TOO.

For a short time only, the guide is FREE

Although the guide is priced at $39.99, we want everyone to have access to this powerful resource! So for a limited time, you can download the guide FOR FREE.

DOWNLOAD NOW