QUEER IRL PHOTO GALLERY: Queers in Celebration!

Andrea and Sarah / 32 / Marriage / Columbus, Ohio / September 30, 2017

“Andrea and I were married by my younger brother Michael at a queer owned catering company surrounded by loving friends and family. This photo was taken by our amazingly talented LGBTQ photographer Cass at the park within our neighborhood before the ceremony. It was a moment we will never forget and we are forever grateful for all of the love and support we felt that day. Photo taken by Cassandra Zetta.”


Caroline, Chen, Heather, Nic, Valerie, Deanna, Stephanie, Dufrau, Matie, Steph, and Laura / Nic and Valerie’s 30th Birthday ExtravaGAYnza / New York, NY / January 14th, 2017

“Just a few of the awesome folks who came out (no pun intended) from all over the East coast to help Nic and I celebrate our 30th birthdays. Approximately 75% of the people who came to this party ended up getting a really horrible flu (both birthday girls included…I’ve never in my life had a fever so high) despite being from different states, ​and some even having gotten the flu shot. But none of them decided to blame or hold it against us (that we know of) so if that’s not friendship, I don’t know what is. PS Those bow ties Nic and I are wearing were light-up bow ties.”


Megan, Sarah / 23,28 / Wedding / Kansas City, MO / November 4, 2017

“Here my beautiful girlfriend and I are celebrating my college friends get married! We danced the evening away as the only homos out of the 175 people who were also celebrating.”


Noria / 27 / Celebrating Getting a New Job / Lagos / 2017

“Was in my old job for over 4 years and was miserable and depressed, but terrified of moving somewhere new. I finally found the courage to resign and apply to somewhere new; got the job, and decided to get my nose pierced to commemorate the occasion. It seemed like the most personal, solitary and yet profound move I could make at the time. I also got new tattoos but those aren’t showing in the pic.”


Lisa, Karey, Leah, Colleen, and Children / Celebrating Night of 1000 Cakes / Brooklyn, NY / 2017

“Night of 1000 Cakes is a multipurpose annual celebration of kinship and chosen family, occurring around May Day. All the participants’ birthdays–and mutual gratitude for our friendship–are rolled into an evening of cakes, candles, wishes, and love. Lisa and Karey brought their daughter, Margot, and Leah and Colleen had their children, Adrien, Bea, and Oliver.”


Amaris, Faith, and Rory / 30, 25, 3 / We Eloped / Fargo, ND / May 21st, 2017

“With all of the political unrest, we decided to get our marriage on the books while it was still legal. Our officiant was Faith’s coworker (he did the ceremony for a case of beer) and Amaris’ sister and her husband were the witnesses. The guests were our daycare lady and her little girls, Amaris’s sibling and two young nieces.

We went to Olive Garden after a fifteen minute ceremony. Amaris cried during her vows, where at her first wedding (to Rory’s father), she did not.”


Arielle and Misty / 27, 33 / Our Wedding Day / Three Squirrels Winery / May 13, 2017

“It was the most beautiful day of all. Both of our families and friends coming together to celebrate our love and commitment. Even those who may of not supported us from the beginning… It is by far the happiest day of my life! I came out at 31 years old, and my teenage boys walked me down the isle. They’ve never been more proud of me.”


Martha and Brooks / Wedding Reception / December 9, 2016

“We got married 9 months before we planned. So our wedding was thrown together in a little over 2 weeks. With the help of our loving friends we were able to pull this off. Our wedding day consisted of- a minor car accident, a debit card hold, forgetting the rings at home, our officiant almost being snowed in, and remembering we needed to get a cake that morning. It was an eventful day filled with love, and I wouldn’t change one thing about it.”


Aimee and Sophie / 29, 30 / We Got Wed! / Whistler, Canada / July 3, 2017


Nakeeta and Eli / 27, 23 / Marriage / Provincetown, MA / May 20, 2017

“We got engaged in June of 2016 in the wake of Orlando — in tears, saying we never wanted to be without each other. We decided to keep it a secret, knowing our perfect wedding day meant eloping. A couple months before the date, we asked our best friends, Polly and Ryan, to come with us and Ryan agreed to officiate the wedding. That weekend in Provincetown was everything we had hoped for and the way in which Katie Satre captured our celebration was invaluable.

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Laneia

Laneia has written 310 articles for us.

40 Comments

  1. Oh my gosh, thank you all for sharing your joy and smiles! You are all so good-looking! So many of you are married and your weddings are gorgeous!

    Also, couple who met in nun school, please write a book. Or at least an AS post.

    • I have written several fictional pieces that use our origin story. They never quite reach the magic of the real thing. I probably will try to capture our true story someday. :)

  2. This day is too much, in the best way.

    Thanks AS and all the cuties celebrating for all the pure joy!

    • On a second note, I had to stop reading this post at work cause I started tearing up after the 3rd picture. I am a weak gay ?

  3. These photos are giving me such life today! Excellent, excellent job everybody! ? ☀️ ❤️

    Also, *thank you* Autostraddle editors and contributors for posting such powerfully uplifting content today. I was expecting this day to feel heavy af, and in some ways it still is, but I’m filled with more energy, optimism, and love than I could’ve expected.

  4. Dear Lesbian Murder Mystery Totally 80s Prom people, please write a post about how to host this event

    • gonna work so hard as your community editor to make this happen — Lesbian Murder Mystery Totally 80s Prom People, i am gonna be contacting you! we must give the queers what they want!!

  5. Wedding at Crystal Bridges! I worked there from the beginning of construction until early 2014 and would have LOVED to be there for your wedding! I helped lots of cute couples get engaged and do elopement ceremonies on the trails and at the LOVE sculpture but I just know y’all would have been my faves.

    If you ever come down to Shreveport, hit me up and I’ll buy you a beverage of your choice!

  6. my favorite part of this gallery is that there are so many weddings and engagements and group celebrations and i’m just like I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY LOOK AT MY COOL PINK SPARKLY DRESS PAY ATTENTION TO ME!! which, frankly, is very on brand and i have no regrets.

    but for real, this whole gallery makes my heart explode, thank you everyone who contributed and thank you laneia for tirelessly putting these together and thank you queer people for making my whole goddamn world go round <3

    • I keep wanting to have a big blowout birthday with everyone I’ve met but I find it hard to even get ONE PERSON to show up -_-;;

  7. I love everything about this. You are all incredibly pure and wonderful people. Bookmarked for days when I’m feeling blue.

  8. It was such a joy to be a part of Jack and Darcy’s day. They are both loving and caring individuals, and I feel so lucky to have them as friends. If either of them are reading this, love you both!

    Saying that, it was such a joy to look at all these celebratory pictures and read their words. On a day that feels very positive for queer people, this post gave me one more reason to be happy today.

  9. This is adorable and all the weddings (and all y’all!) are beautiful!

    ALSO: Vicky – Madrid??? Because I am also here and am lacking in English-speaking queer lady friends, so, like, send me a message or something so we can maybe be friends? Awesome.

    • @gasp-its-harto HIIIIII! Yes Madrid, I live here! And I am a very-queer, very-lady, and very-English speaking person and we should def be friends! I know a lot of other queer ladies (a few who speak English lol). Let’s meet up ?

      • @vickys1 Awesome! Wanna maybe grab coffee or something this weekend? Cool. I’ve followed you on insta, so we can carry on chatting on there ???

  10. I love this. So many weddings and friends’ weddings! So many Pride celebrations! And engagements! And birthdays! And sparklers! And a unicorn boat! Life is good.

    • Not to mention the graduations and misc friend groups having fun in beautiful places. Love the backpack photo and the Spice Girls.

  11. I read every caption on every single picture, y’all are so sweet and happy and this is wonderful and pure and good

  12. OMG, I’m loving all these celebrations! I am so excited to see so many weddings, and engagements, and I really want in on that murder mystery, it looks like so much fun. Also, shout out to all the Andrea’s in here ❤️

  13. This is so sweet and pure and I love it so much. Thank you for helping us get through this day today.

    • This is amazing!!! I saw Taylor Mac do a lecture/radio broadcast interview at my university on art and activism this past January, around inauguration time (along with Bill T. Jones, a modern dance legend, and Niegel Smith, a playwright). The three interviewees were so incredibly insightful and inspiring, and…I’m just so grateful for queer artists. As a queer dancer/performance art person myself, I’m super excited to know that Autostraddle folks have connections like this! How cool that you are/were in this production!

  14. oh autostraddle! i did not realize how much i needed to see page after page of smiling, in love, happy, celebrating queers on this day; but here i am with tears streaming down my face beaming back at it all. thank you for this. and for everything. literally so worth my A+ membership just for this feeling. thank you.

  15. I LOVE ALL THE HAPPY QUEERS. Also, I gave up wedding photography because I’m so incredibly tired of straight people and they far outnumbered the queer folks I worked with, but damn this makes me want to go find way more queer weddings because they are genuinely the greatest experiences.

    • Queer weddings really are the best. My partner’s a wedding officiant and my favorite weddings to try to invite myself to are the queer ones – especially for older, long term couples who never expected to be able to marry.

  16. This is just lovely, all of you beautiful people. Congratulations to you all on your engagements,weddings,graduations,fun with friends, theatre parties…..everything. You’re all doing you with love and style.

  17. Love that there were a few A-Camp marriages in here! so many lives have been drastically changed because of this website ❤️

  18. These are all such lovely photos <3 <3 also, hey Erin and Sarah who got married in Wandsworth! That's where I grew up, it's so nice to see some happy queer people getting married there :)

  19. You all are lovely. Seeing all of this happy makes me so happy! (And not just because my darling girlfriend and I are featured in it)
    Keep it up, friends. Remember – better days are coming. :)

  20. Maggie, you’re going to have to write back and update on the Cinnamon situation. Now I’m invested in this story…

Comments are closed.