A decade after the 2015 US Supreme Court ruling that legalized marriage between same-sex couples across the country, a majority of same-sex couples in the US are married. Building on Finch’s (2007) concept of “displaying families” and Mamali and Stevens’ (2020) concept of “display work” in weddings, we examine wedding rituals of same-sex couples in the United States. As part of a larger study on marriage equality in the US conducted in 2022–2024, the current study is based on semi-structured interviews with 18 LGBTQ+ individuals married to a partner of the same gender or a nonbinary partner. Data analysis involved memo writing, open coding, and focused coding. Our findings are organized around three themes. First, we focus on engagements and wedding planning. Individuals often talked about engagement as a process that involves mutual discussions about life goals and the future. Those who were planning weddings in locales where marriage equality was recent sometimes found confusion, resistance, or unfriendly responses. Second, we focus on making the wedding gay. While a few followed the “heterosexual model” of a wedding and its accompanying rituals, most challenged these norms and made efforts to make their wedding “gay” through outfits, vows, and activities. Third, we focus on alternative ceremonies in which couples decentered traditional wedding practices by having small ceremonies with friends or getting married at queer community events. We discuss the implications of this “display work” in queer wedding rituals for changing norms around gender, sexuality, and family.
