The Texas Legislature officially named Dripping Springs the “ Wedding Capital of Texas” this spring. Chances are good that when Texas lawmakers cast their votes for the designation they probably weren’t contemplating the Supreme Court docket. So how is the big wedding industry in the small city of Dripping Springs adjusting?
Kim Hanks owns Whim Hospitality and the wedding venue Camp Lucy. She’s been serving couples in the area for more than a decade.
On changes at Camp Lucy since the Supreme Court ruling:
“In the last five years managing Camp Lucy we’ve only had one same-sex marriage. This last weekend we had two lesbian couples come and take a tour of our facility and they were very excited… Right after the ruling I had a meeting with my own staff… How do we make it seem seamless because we haven’t had the opportunity to service a lot of same-sex couples.”
On difficulties planning same-sex weddings:
“In the past it was hard to find gay-friendly vendors… I had a personal experience about eight years ago… I had this beautiful couple that had come to me and said, ‘I’m getting married at this venue out in the hill country… do you know any gay friendly vendors that will work with us?’ I said ‘of course, it’s going to be beautiful, you’re a wonderful couple, it’s going to be lovely.’ As I was working on collecting these vendors I ran across a problem with a florist. I was talking about the colors and the couple. She was a little bit quiet and said, ‘Let me just get back to you. I’m not sure if I have the date.’ When I had called earlier she said she had the date so I was a little confused. She wrote me a beautiful email expressing her views and how she didn’t feel comfortable servicing the couple. That was really hard. I was really embarrassed to go back and say ‘you know we’re going to have to go and try this again.'”
On the changes in attitude since the ruling:
“[Dripping Springs] was such a small community when I started out a little over 10 years ago. There’s only a couple of us so when someone wanted a florist you had two to choose from. If you wanted a cake person, we didn’t have any cake people… Now that we have this hospitality industry out in Dripping Springs there’s more to choose from. Yes, you are going to have people that really have firm beliefs and do not want to work with out same-sex couples. But there’s plenty of other people that are happy and they just don’t see an issue there.”
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