Weddingbee boards

I have a confession:

I avoided Weddingbee like the plague in the beginning. Part of it was that my experience on The Knot poisoned me against wedding boards. Part of if was that I thought the bees' nicknames were a bit too cutesy (I still sort of think that, but I understand that they are needed in order to maintain anonymity, so whatevs). Part of it was that I didn't identify aesthetically with some of the bloggers so I didn't think that I'd get any inspiration out of this place. The biggest part of it, well, I'll get to that in a minute.

I started coming here more and more often, and everyone is really helpful. I haven't seen any bitchiness like I have on The Knot, and I've gotten a lot of good advice here. And while it's true that my aesthetic vision is different from most of the bloggers, I've found a bunch of inspiration from certain bees (esp. Cowboy Boot, Stripes, Scissors, Mouse, and Sprinkle, to name a few). And even the bloggers that have a different vision than I do, well, they're still full of good advice. So I was really, really coming around to this place.

The one thing that stopped me was the eHarmony connection. I hated that Weddingbee was run by a dating service that was founded by an evangelical Christian who said that, since same-sex marriage was illegal in most states and they didn't want to promote something illegal, they weren't going to match same-sex couples. YUCK.

I had a really hard time getting over that.

But today, after doing some more research on eHarmony, I found out that a few months ago, they launched a same-sex dating site! Yes, it was only launched as a response to a lawsuit from the State of New Jersey against discrimination of same-sex couples. But at least it's there.

So while I still have major issues with the main ideologies of eHarmony, I'm glad that they run a same sex dating site, and it makes me feel a lot better about spending so much time here on the Bee.

And now I will step down off of my soapbox.

Did any of you have a problem with eHarmony's values? Were you even aware of them?

I did think about it too actually (and I send out a huge ditto to all the nice things you said about WB), but now I have started to feel differently, especially with the support of Stripes and some of the other girls, I feel better - welcome, and enjoy!

I too had a problem with being here after finding out it was being run by eHarmony. But the Bees are supportive of same-sex marriages. The Hive is supportive of same-sex marriages. Heck, we even have a LGQBT board! So I feel better about it. It takes a whole village to make it work and the opinions of the head of the village don't matter much when everyone else is of differing opinions. 

(And, I have to admit, I did a victory dance when Stripes became a Bee, that's just too awesome for words). 

You can read about WB and eHarmony here, as well as some of the reaction of the current Bees of the time: http://www.weddingbee.com/2008/10/02/weddingbee-and-marriage-equality/

@twalila "Glad to see things are evolving, whatever the motivation!!!" - I agree 100%. What Spaniel said is definitely true, most progress doesn't occur easily, but the fact that it happens is something to appreciate.

And it makes me really happy that Weddingbee in general has been so supportive of LBGTQ marriage, regardless of eHarmony's values.

I didn't know about the affiliation until now and I'm glad - or I would have gone straight for the exit.

I don't have much faith in eHarmony in general (and what lawsuits have forced it to change), but weddingbee has proven to be a very welcoming, supporting environment especially in regards to marriage rights for all.