Reena Maheshwari was planning her wedding a few years ago when she found herself at bridal fairs surrounded by blondes.
She struggled to find the vendors she needed to create her Indian and Nigerian wedding. Maheshwari also sought a marketplace to attract customers to her new business aimed at South Asian and multicultural weddings.
"I quickly realized that the wedding industry is very white-centric," Maheshwari said. She sees the issue as one for multicultural couples as well as businesses. "It really leaves anybody in the dust who's a transplant or somebody who doesn't have strong community connections here," she said.
In December, she launched Colorful Weddings, a collective of wedding vendors, with the goal of better connecting Twin Cities small businesses serving diverse cultures with brides and grooms.
As the number of weddings soars this year, part of the broader recovery from the pandemic, Colorful Weddings is also aimed at helping the small businesses network. Maheshwari arranged monthly meetings and professional development opportunities.
And this Sunday, a Colorful Weddings Fair is planned from noon to 5 p.m. at the Essence Event Center in St. Paul.
Lorraine Love, who started her bridal shop, La Noire Bridal, earlier this year in downtown St. Paul, has already made connections through Colorful Weddings.
"Oh my God, to see other people of color in this industry has been eye opening," Love said. "It's created a sense of community for us."
Love, who's done makeup for many Somali weddings, started the bridal shop to be inclusive of all cultures after her sister couldn't find a Liberian-style wedding gown in the Twin Cities. She works with vendors internationally to bring global designs here and also welcomes plus-sized brides and couples who are gender nonconforming.
"The wedding industry is very competitive," Love said. "I'm not here to compete with anybody. I'm here to fill a gap in this industry."
The inclusion challenge facing the wedding industry extends more broadly.
Andrew Roby, an event planner based in Washington, D.C., founded the National Events Council in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder with a mission of getting corporations and the hospitality industry to vow that 20% of their events professionals will be people of color.
The biggest power players in weddings are venues, which maintain lists of vendors, Roby said. "When you look at those lists, those are primarily white vendors," he said.
The St. Paul venue hosting the Colorful Weddings Fair is intentionally flexing its practices to be more inclusive, said Catherine Cuddy, director of the Essence Event Center.
The Essence allows couples to use any caterer that's licensed and insured, so couples aren't limited to chicken and steak dinners, she said.
"We're trying to encourage a diverse group of vendors to be recognized," Cuddy said. "I'm not trying to be negative to the wedding industry, but there's some work that can be done in representation."
When Ozzie Baron and Reshma Pattni of St. Paul planned their 2021 wedding, they struggled as recent transplants to find vendors to create an event fusing their Catholic, Hindu and Jewish traditions.
Then, they met Maheshwari, who they hired for a pre-wedding event combining the Jewish signing of the ketubah (marriage contract) and Indian Mehndi party with henna tattoos for participants. She made key referrals.
"We knew the wedding was going to cost a lot of money and it was important to direct money to people and communities we care about," Baron said.
Maheshwari already is seeing the benefits of the Colorful Weddings connections for her business, Kahani Events & Design.
"There's a community of South Asian vendors who, even though I grew up here in the South Asian community in Minnesota, I had never met them," she said.
