Lovebus wedding planners drive into a brand-new niche: same-sex marriages

There is no bus in Lovebus. But there certainly is a lot of love.

When Alissa Perine proposed to Amanda Hall in July 2009, their plans were hazy. The District had yet to legalize same-sex marriage, and the closest town where the two women could get married was Stamford, Conn.

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So off they went, with 80 guests, in two chartered vehicles they dubbed “lovebuses.”

Now, Perine and Hall help other same-sex couples plan their weddings. Their start-up, Lovebus Events & Design, has carved out a niche in an industry that has long relied on gender roles: The man wears a tuxedo; the woman walks down the aisle.

“The fact is, there are no real traditions when it comes to gay weddings,” said Crystal Hudson, a Lovebus client who is getting married in September. “Everything is one big question mark, so it really helps to work with people who have experience in the area.”

Perine, who has an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, was working with high school students at the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship when she decided to start Lovebus.

“I’d be helping students with their business plans, and they’d say, ‘Well where’s your business? What have you done?’ ” she said. “So I put all the things I’d learned in business school — proposals, pricing, marketing — to good use.”

There were two things she was sure of: She wanted to help same-sex couples and she wanted her service to be affordable.

Perine settled on a flat rate of $75 an hour. She gauges each couple’s needs and quotes them a final price before she even begins working.

“If I end up working more hours than I’d planned, I eat the cost,” she said. “Once I’ve promised a rate, I stick to it.”

In a city where the average wedding costs almost $30,000, Lovebus is a bit of an anomaly. Many of the weddings Perine plans have fewer than 80 attendees, and she goes out of her way to set realistic budgets with her clients.

“You still have to have a life after your wedding, and that’s what we keep reminding people,” she said.

The best part of their job, Perine and Hall say, is adding whimsical touches to weddings. There have been temporary tattoos, trolley rides and a bonfire with s’mores. Earlier this summer, they organized a parade through downtown Washington that transported the brides from their ceremony to the reception in a pedicab.

But the bulk of their work, Perine and Hall say, is providing emotional support and answering questions like “What should I wear?” and “How will we walk down the aisle?”

When Jacquetta Gillespie and Shaneequa Brooks got married earlier this year, they knew they both wanted to walk down the aisle with their parents. But they didn’t know exactly how that would work.

“In the end, we decided to come in from different sides and both walk down the aisle,” Gillespie said, adding that the couple wanted to challenge “some of the icky sexist history” traditionally associated with giving away the bride.

Other couples choose to walk down the aisle together, or to be escorted separately by friends. Some forgo the aisle altogether. It’s all about mixing and matching, Perine says.

“We tell all of our couples that you have license to make up your own rules,” said Perine. “Really, all you need is each other. However you get up to the altar is up to you.”

Business has increased three-fold in the last year and half, and Perine says she expects an even more substantial spike in 2012. Even so, she says the market for gay and lesbian weddings in the District is relatively small. She recently began taking contract work as an event planner for nonprofit organizations to supplement her income.

“Now I can pay all my bills without raising my rates,” she said. “I could charge more, but then I wouldn’t be able to work with the people I wanted to.”