Post Family Farm, a wedding venue in Ottawa County, Michigan, is turning away gay customers because the owners “don’t support same-sex marriage.”
When Aubrey VandenBosch (above left) and Estefanie Echevarria (above right) contacted Post Family Farm in Hudsonville, the couple say the venue replied “We don’t support same-sex marriage and we think you should find someplace else.”
WoodTV reports:
“Just because we are two girls, we still have the same visions as a straight couple would with the ceremony as everyone else. It’s not too different, it’s just two girls,” Echevarria said.
Echevarria and VandenBosch got engaged Oct. 20.
“There was people cheering and screaming like congratulations and that was the most love I’ve ever felt in one time,” VandenBosch remembered.
VandenBosch said she was ecstatic and began planning the wedding immediately, emailing Post Family Farm.
“That was the first place that I openly said, ‘We are two women and we respect everyone’s beliefs and we want everyone to be comfortable.’ And they send back a reply of basically, ‘We don’t support same-sex marriage and we think you should find someplace else.’ Everything they could to not say no,” VandenBosch said. Oh, it hurt, it stung.”
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In a statement, Post Family Farm said that while it believes marriage to be “a sacred covenant between one man and one woman,” it “will not limit the use of our venue to exclusively traditional marriages.”
However, venue owners also encouraged the couple find a new venue and provide their own wedding coordinator because it provides a “very personal service” and “a role that might be much better filled by someone who has experience with non-traditional weddings.”
Echevarria and VandenBosch have since found a new venue.
