Designer gears up for gay weddings

Fiancees Sasha and Taryn are the faces of what Sera Lilly believes to be NZ's first same-sex bridal campaign. Photo / Poppymoss Photography

Dressmakers are getting busy for the first gay weddings once legislation allows homosexual couples to tie the knot from August.

Auckland designer Sera Lilly is preparing to launch what she believes will be the country's first same-sex bridal campaign, featuring a couple who three months ago were despairing over whether the new law would pass, against then rising opposition from religious groups.

She is confident she is the first out of the blocks since Parliament voted in the law in April, having completed a photo session with Aucklander Taryn and her fiancee Sasha, but is aware of others who have started looking for models.

Ms Lilly, who is placing a full-page advertisement for her campaign in the next issue of the New Zealand Weddings magazine and will show a collection at that publication's annual fashion show, said last night she expected some people would "see it in a negative way - but I don't see it that way".

"I think it's such a beautiful thing to celebrate as a Kiwi - I'm quite proud that New Zealand's done this," she told the Weekend Herald. "I was brought up a Catholic - I went to a Catholic school - but my own personal belief is that as long as you are happy, that should be all that matters. That's what matters, and it's not hurting anybody."

Although she had yet to finalise her campaign slogan, it was likely to be: "Love doesn't know gender".

"I think people will see from the images that they are definitely a couple," she said of her two prospective bride models.

Although their own wedding arrangements for next Valentine's Day had yet to be finalised, another gay couple had just booked with her design house for a ceremony towards the end of this year.

"One's wearing a dress and the other's wearing pants and a top - we don't do guys' suits but we do women's dress pants, so we can do that."