Business & Tech
Local Vendors Show Support at LGBT Wedding Expo
Several neighborhood businesses will be seen at the LGBT Wedding Expo this Sunday.
Several local businesses will be attending the at Brooklyn Borough Hall this Sunday, and say they wholeheartedly support the LGBT community, as well as the same-sex marriage law that passed last summer in New York.
The Expo, brought to you by the Brooklyn Community Pride Center and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, will be bringing in as many as 75 vendors, offering anything and everything to do with weddings.
Many of these vendors hail from the nearby neighborhood, including The Bell House, Diety, Donna Da Vine, Dry Dock Wine and Spirits, Kimera, Nu Hotel, Michelle New York Brides, and Tres Belle Spa, among others.
Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.
"This is a great opportunity to showcase what we do in front of an LGBT audience." said Michelle Fields, owner of Michelle New York Brides on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill. "Am I excited about the marriage law? Heck yes!"
Fields said that she has been selling wedding gowns to lesbian couples for years, and is happy to see the law finally in place in New York.
Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.
"We've been catering to both traditional and non-traditional weddings," she said. "We were way ahead of the marriage law."
Yvonne Chu, owner of Kimera, a self-titled "non-traditional bridal store" in Boerum Hill, also said that she has been catering to the LGBT community long before the passage of the law in New York.
"I was already in that market," she said, but added that the same-sex marriage law has made a difference.
"My brides are thrilled to be able to get married here in New York," she said. "I expect it to positively impact my business."
Vladimir Garcia, curator of Dry Dock Wine and Spirits in Red Hook, will be hosting a wine tasting at the event, "giving people a chance to see what we have to offer."
Garcia, along with several other local vendors, look forward to attending the Expo as a means of exposure but, more importantly, as a way of showing their support.
"What we are doing is supporting the community of our friends and family and others," he said. "They have fought hard for this."
The wedding expo will be held at Brooklyn Borough Hall on Sunday, January 15 from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
