Trans Couple to Tie Knot, Hope to Increase Visibility
Rebecca and Myranda Veal met a little more than a year ago at a PFLAG-Genesee County meeting and it was electric. The two quickly hit it off. So much so that in a month the [...]
Expo Cuts Through Cake Politics
BTL LGBTQ Wedding and Anniversary Event Returns to MotorCity Casino. Click here to get tickets. Same-sex marriage may be safe for now, but the LGBTQ community is not safe from business owners who are allowed [...]
The Choices We Make
A message from the Between The Lines publishers Susan Horowitz and Jan Stevenson: In this issue of BTL we mark the 25th anniversary of the paper. With it, we begin a journey looking back to [...]
B. Ella Bridal Shares 2018’s Trends
Trying to figure out what to wear for the wedding? B. Ella Bridal, located at 570 S. Main Street in Plymouth, is in the business to serve up your dream wedding attire, and for all the right reasons. B. Ella is a full service bridal shop that offers not only bridal gowns, but also bridesmaids dresses, mother of the bride/groom gowns, prom dresses, full accessories and alterations services. B. Ella just celebrated its 14th year in business, and owner Brittany Blase had some insight on what’s trending this season.
Florist ‘Absolutely’ Open to Same Sex Marriages
Michael B. Anthony Florist, located Downriver in Wyandotte, is all about the business of flowers – and they have the reviews, awards and passion to prove it. Owner Michael Bak bloomed his business in 2013, and has since won Local 4’s “Vote 4 the Best” Wedding Florist for two consecutive years, Wedding Wire’s Couples’ Choice award in 2017 and 2018, and has also been named The Knot’s Best of Weddings 2018.
Bakery Provides Stress-Free Cake Decision Making
Jefferson Market Bakery located at 609 W. Jefferson in Ann Arbor lets you have your cake and eat it too! Owner Nic Sims and her top cake artist Moriah Elkins, are ready to serve up some delicious sweet treats for your big day.
DJs to the Rescue
In order to help with selecting wedding music - which should be the most fun part of planning, but is often times the most overwhelming - BTL asked a couple experts, Chris Blanchard (aka DJ Loki) and Walter Cooper (aka DJ Romeo), to weigh in.
The Honeymoon or Vacation Recipe
Equal parts of budget and passion plus a well-thought-out plan equals the perfect honeymoon or vacation.
Legal Tips for LGBTQ Couples
The excuse of religious freedom is being used more and more these days in an effort to allow individuals and businesses the right to discriminate against LGBTQ couples.
A Year After Marriage Equality, LGBT Community Poised For More Activism
BY AJ TRAGER "No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once [...]
Getting Hitched In The Hall of Justice
BY AJ TRAGER LANSING - Just before 11 a.m. on June 26, 2015 the U.S. Supreme Court released its decision on Obergefell v. Hodges and extended marriage equality to the entire country. Since that moment [...]
LGBT Couples’ Wedding Spending Soars
Over the past year since marriage equality became the law of the land, LGBT couples are spending a lot more on weddings, and family acceptance of same-sex marriages is up dramatically, according to a recent [...]
Local Company Helps Preserve Wedding For Eternity
BY AJ TRAGER Wedit is running a special discount code for BTL readers, in honor of the one-year anniversary of marriage equality. When purchasing a pay-in-full package, the team at Wedit will deduct $24 from [...]
Tennis Shoes And Keeping It Simple
BY AJ TRAGER Betty Olding and Jenny Schumacher met in 1972 and have been together for 43 years. They were finally married on Sept. 26 by Detroit Reverend Deb Dysert of the Metropolitan Community Church [...]
Lesbian Power Couple Finally Ties The Knot
BY AJ Trager LANSING - A lesbian power couple who have worked hard to improve LGBT equality in the state, Gina Calcagno and Nicolette Siragusa, have finally tied the knot. "We are thrilled that we [...]
Donald Chisholm and Steven Moore marriage
After almost 19 years together, Donald Chisholm and Steven Moore of Pontiac were married on Wednesday, July 1. They would like to enthusiastically thank Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown, who officiated the ceremony, and her [...]
#DecisionDay Tweets
#decisionday Tweets
Meet The Marriage Equality ‘Poster Children’
While not the "famous photo" Paul Mattson and Roland Smith pose at the Oakland County Courthouse March 22, 2014. BTL photo: Andrew Potter It all happened in a rush. On March 21 of last [...]
Couple Quotes
Erin Trame And Carrie Turner, Married In Washtenaw County Carrie Turner and Erin Trame, married in Washtenaw County on March 22, 2014. "My wife and I were one of the lucky couples to get [...]
Financial Workshop
Same-sex marriage may soon become the law of the land, so couples now need to learn about the financial realities of marriage and plan accordingly. Marriage creates new pooled resources and obligations. Questions inevitably arise [...]
Pre-Expo Workshop
Come hear one of the area's most respected legal experts discuss the legal status of same-sex couples in Michigan, and how the current cases working through the courts will impact couples in Michigan and across [...]
Caspar Recap: Married Is Married
BY AJ TRAGER ACLU attorneys and plaintiffs in the Caspar v Snyder case in April 2014. In April 2014, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, on behalf of eight couples that were married [...]
Love Is Love: First Couples To Marry In The Mitten
BY AJ TRAGER AND BTL STAFF Oakland County Clerk notarizes one of the over 140 couples that she married March 22, 2014. BTL file photo: Andrew Potter One year ago, four out of 83 [...]
Risky Business
By Christopher Treacy Kevin Dombrow of Sheraton Detroit Novi. BTL Photo: Andrew Potter It's difficult to believe that anyone can afford to say no. Our economy may be wobbling toward some semblance of stability, [...]
Will U.S. Supreme Court Resolve Marriage Debate?
By Lisa Keen File photo of demonstrators in front of the US Supreme Court in March 2013 as SCOTUS took up two same-sex marriage cases. The eventual victories in June 2013 would lead the way [...]
Arguments For Right To Stay Married Heard In Caspar v Snyder
AJ Trager DETROIT - Federal Judge Mark A. Goldsmith, of the Eastern District of Michigan, heard testimony on Aug. 21 from ACLU of Michigan Cooperating Attorney and University of Michigan Constitutional law professor, Julian Mortenson, [...]
MI Marriage: Schuette Asks For Full Appeals Court Review
The Michigan attorney general filed a petition with the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Friday, asking the court to bypass the usual three-judge panel hearing and go straight to a full appeals court review. [...]
Michigan Leaders React To Feds Recognition Of Marriages
U.S. Attorney Eric Holder Jr. at the 50th Anniversary of the march on Washington and Martin Luther King's Speech, August 24, 2013, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. On March 28 Holder announced that the federal government [...]
Sixth Circuit Continues Stay
Citing the U.S. Supreme Court's issuance of a stay in the federal district court ruling striking Utah's ban on same-sex couples marrying, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel issued an order Tuesday it [...]
MI Marriage DOCUMENTS: The decision, the stay, and more
The Deboer/Rowse Decision The emergency stay Barb Byrum letter to AG Eric Holder Plaintiff's Conclusion Document Proposed Conclusions of Law Response to the Stay Lisa Brown's response to the emergency stay State of Michigan's response [...]
Request To Remove Stay Based On Process And Substance
From left to right, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum, East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett, Emily Dievendorf, executive director of Equality Michigan, Glenna DeJong and Marsha Caspar, Michigan's first same-sex couple to receive their marriage license, [...]
Elected Officials, Advocates Petition Schuette To Drop Marriage Appeal
by RJ Wolcott From left to right, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum, East Lansing Mayor Nathan Triplett, Emily Dievendorf, executive director of Equality Michigan, Glenna DeJong and Marsha Caspar, Michigan's first same-sex couple to receive [...]
100 Pastors Plan Marriage Protest March 3
UPDATE: By 8:30 there was expected to be as many as 200 Baptist ministers outside protesting at the DeBoer trial. Instead, only a handful of protesters against marriage equality came out. There were also about [...]
Marriage Equality Trial Opens: Science v. Fear
Outside the courthouse. DETROIT -The mood was serious as Judge Bernard Friedman, dozens of lawyers and law clerks and stenographers began the trial that will decide two legal issues; whether LGBT people should be [...]