The moment Holly Schaner saw her now fiancé, she knew it was meant to be.

“It was just an instant connection, and I just knew I didn’t want to be without her,” Schaner said.

The couple, in their early 30s, met on the dating app Bumble and, in true lesbian fashion, it didn’t take long for the two to fall in love.

Schaner proposed to Lauren Brizendine in Paris during a joint photo shoot to celebrate their relationship.

“We were shaking and nervous and I cried and it was beautiful,” Schaner said.

The couple now lives in St. Petersburg in the home they bought together, and wedding planning is already underway. Lauren and Holly want a beautiful outdoor wedding – perhaps in Joshua Tree or Malibu, California.

“We haven’t found a venue yet, so we’re still looking for one, and when we do, everything will fall into place.”

In the meantime, they are looking for local suppliers for a party with friends near their home.

Luckily for them, there’s a queer-friendly wedding expo happening tonight, and they have tickets. It’s the first-ever Love Proudly queer wedding expo at the Station House in St. Pete, and organizers hope to make it an annual party.

“I am so grateful to each and every one of you who came today,” Vianka Cafra said to the small crowd taking a break from talking to wedding vendors.

“A huge thank you to all of our suppliers. It’s been a dream to work with each and every one of you in this and every other capacity in this industry. And I’m really glad we were able to pull this off and create a safe space for our queer community.”

Cafra, the events director at Station House St. Pete, wanted an event that not only caters to the queer community but celebrates it, where the couple can go from one vendor to the next without having to explain each time that they are not sisters or just best friends.

“Sometimes you really feel like you have to come out to a million people, but here you don’t have to come out to anyone,” Cafra said. “Everyone assumes they’re going to celebrate the love that you’re celebrating.”

Cafra pointed out that most wedding expos are geared toward cisgender and heterosexual couples. If you scroll through the bridal show section of the Marry Me Tampa Bay blog, you’ll see page after page of brides and grooms dressed up for their big day.

Yet, according to a 2021 Williams Institute study, nearly 5% of adults in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater area are part of the LGBTQ+ community. That’s tens of thousands of people.

Cafra said she handpicked vendors who are themselves queer — or at least intentionally inclusive. She didn’t want couples here to experience what she went through last year while planning her own wedding with her wife.

“I went through this myself when I was planning my wedding and didn’t know what these vendors really thought about my identity and the person I was marrying,” Cafra said.

On the fifth floor of the brick building that was once a train station and then a fire station, Lauren and Holly make their way through the stalls, sampling cakes, chatting with clergy and flipping through photo portfolios of couples who look like them.

Brittany Trevino, co-owner of Rad Red Creative, has bright red hair and enthusiastically showed a slideshow of wedding photos and videos.

“We have some photos here and some wedding videos playing. We also have headphones so you can listen in,” Trevino said.

Trevino’s website features couples of all kinds, but today’s presentation featured wedding photos of members of the queer community.

“I made sure that everything I showed tonight was LGBT because I didn’t want to say, ‘Oh, we’re taking photos, but I don’t have any couples to present to you.’ Everything you’re going to see is from one of those queer weddings,” Trevino said.

Holly and Lauren make it a point to stop by Tweeds, a local bespoke suit company that has a table displaying samples in different colours and fabrics.

“I’ve never made a bespoke suit before. I’ve always wanted one.”

Grace Cespedes, style consultant at Tweeds, is thrilled to represent the company here.

“It’s really cool when people want to know if we make suits for women or suits for nonbinary people, because we definitely do,” Cespedes said.

Towards the end of the night, the wedding exhibition is crowned by a queer highlight – a drag show.

And as the sun sets over the old fire station, Holly and Lauren reflect on the experience.

“It makes me feel like I’m just a couple getting married, and it’s not like you’re a different kind of couple getting married. You’re just two people in love who want to have a great time and a great journey for the rest of your lives.”

The two blondes take a photo together, hand in hand, in front of the silver tinsel backdrop of the venue. Tomorrow, with renewed vigor, they will continue their search for their venue.