Australian wedding magazine criticised for excluding same-sex weddings

Popular Australian wedding magazine White is copping backlash after after contributors said that the publication refused to feature same-sex couples.

According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald, a photographer this week queried the magazine’s editor about the absence of same-sex marriages from the magazine’s pages.

Lara Hotz messaged the editor after noticing that White didn’t feature any content not focused on straight couples.

The editor replied, “[W]e aren’t sharing Same Sex weddings at this point”.

Others including advertisers, videographers, photographers, contributors and celebrants have taken to social media to say their interactions with White had been along similar lines.

Hotz’s images have appeared on the magazine’s cover in the past, and when she asked the magazine during the postal survey if same-sex couples would be featured in the magazine she didn’t receive a clear answer.

Hotz and her wife are now married, and she told the SMH that she felt discriminated against by White‘s exclusionary and obfuscated policy.

“I imagine the majority of LGBTI persons would be feeling hurt regarding not being represented equally or at all,” she said.

“If I had known they don’t support SSM I wouldn’t have chosen to spend a good portion of my marketing funds with their magazine, on principle,” said Ona Jatzen, an advertiser and photographer, who also said it “doesn’t feel right” that same-sex couples may be subscribing to the magazine without ever being allowed to see couples like them in its pages.

Hotz says she just wants the magazine to be open about its policy so people can decide whether or not to continue to subscribe or engage with the magazine in a professional capacity.

Another advertiser said “the silence has continued” since the postal survey result, which White has never publicly acknowledged, was announced.

“We have always believed in the potential of humanity and the value of community,” the magazine’s website reads, noting that one of the co-founders has worked with the Anglican Church disability welfare organisation, Samaritans.

White‘s website states that they “love beautiful weddings and the way they express a couple’s identity”.