For years, Blair Broughton imagined her wedding as an extravagant affair.
Her own mother had had some 400 guests, a champagne fountain and a pink-on-pink color scheme. And had things been different, Broughton might have designed her own wedding in a similarly elaborate fashion.
But after the November election, things shifted for Broughton and her fiancé, Bethany Theobald.
"With [Donald] Trump getting elected, and the things that were in Project 2025 ... I was like, 'It's a lot harder to undo a marriage than it is to pause marriages.' So I was like, 'We should probably get this done now,'" Broughton said.
Broughton and Theobald tied the knot on Dec. 14 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington-Normal, about a year earlier than planned.
While president-elect Donald Trump did not campaign on explicit promises to roll back the right of same-sex couples to marry, some gay, lesbian, queer and transgender people are worried their rights may yet be threatened under a second administration.
It was Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe v. Wade, the ruling that provided a constitutional right to an abortion, nearly a half-century after it was issued and years after multiple justices had called it a matter of "settled law."
For Broughton, seeing Roe v. Wade reversed was enough.
"I never thought that could be overturned. So when [Justice] Clarence Thomas mentioned that he wanted to [review] more things, like he wanted to be able to do that, it was like, 'We need to take notice and we need to pay attention to this,'" she said, referring to a comment Thomas made in 2022 when he said the court "should reconsider" some of its past rulings — including Obergefell v. Hodges, which determined state bans of same-sex marriage were unconstitutional.
"It's weird to think that a lot of people don't remember what it was like before gay marriage. I remember what that looked like." Theobald said. "I had a stepdaughter [and] I was always afraid that if something happened, that if her mom died, I'm gone. If they [didn't] ever want me to see her again, I can't do anything about that. So, to make something that's difficult for you to un-do it was just kind of a no-brainer."
Theobald and Broughton were not alone in deciding to bump up their wedding date: Many LGBTQ+ people across the country have done the same, according to multiple national reports from The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and flurries of social media posts.
That doesn't mean that everyone has understood their reasoning.
"It's one of those things where we've even had some of what you would call our 'old gays' reaching out and being like, 'Wait a second. Why are you rushing this?'" Theobald said. "Once we express our concerns, they're like, 'Well do you think it'll really happen?' And I'm like, 'I'll be real honest: Anymore, nothing surprises me."
'What can I do to offer something that's helpful?'
The Rev. Rebecca Gant knew some of her congregants — and members of the community at large — felt anxious after the November election.
The leader of the "unapologetically progressive," non-sectarian church in Bloomington wanted to help, but at first wasn't sure how.
After some thought, she decided Unitarian Universalist Church would offer its space and she would officiate a wedding to any gay, lesbian, queer or transgender couple who wanted to get married before January. Dates were set for Dec. 14 and 21.
"We have space. We have my ability to solemnize a marriage and my experience with that. Our music director offered his time to play piano. All of that is without charge for the couples," Gant said in an interview. "And then I just ask them to bring their license, and whoever it is they would like to have witnessed their marriage, and we'll get it done."
Gant issued an invitation via Facebook in late November. Dozens of people offered either their written support or actual services for free, anything ranging from cake-baking to harp-playing to playing the role of a supportive family member.
"People, it seems, are really grateful for a way to channel whatever energy they're having, and feelings they're having about what's happened, in a way that they feel like they can be of help," Gant said. "Even ahead of the of the election, I was thinking, 'What can I do to offer something that's helpful to folks who are feeling that anxiety?'"
Broughton, the church's office manager, brought the idea up to her then-fiancé, Theobald.
It was easy to say that they wanted to commit to each other; it was less easy to decide to do that in a matter of weeks, knowing that some of their dreams for what their wedding looked like would have to be set aside.
"An ongoing theme in the past couple of weeks has been kind of a grieving process. I've done this before ... I was fine with eloping... but [Broughton] has pictured, the majority of her life, what her wedding has looked like," Theobald said.
[We're] trying to throw all that together in a several-week span and coming to terms with ... we're not going to have the ginormous, three-tier cake with all this decor. I wanted sugar art. There has been an ongoing conversation of, 'This isn't going to be what you initially pictured, but the point of it is, we wanted to be married.'"
Still, even in the midst of a sort of grief, there were glimmers of joy.
Broughton found her now-deceased mother's wedding ring when she wasn't even looking for it.
One of the couple's friends offered to take professional photos for free.
Yet another played violin at their ceremony.
"I think we both firmly believe that every once while, there's just like little nuggets that get dropped that kind of show you're you're in the right the right place," Theobald said. "Both of us are just kind of like, 'Wow, I feel really at peace with all this.' Everything just seems to align that this is exactly where we're supposed to be at this exact moment."
And in that joy, Broughton said, is a level of defiance.
"It's an act of defiance that we're still going to have a meaningful day, even though we're doing it in a rushed way. It's still going to be a meaningful, powerful day and it's still a collection of all these people that love us despite the political climate," she said.
And lest anyone believe that Broughton and Theobald have staked themselves against anyone who may think differently than they do, the couple said they were proud to have a diverse group of friends and loved ones whom they invited to their wedding, some of whom may have voted very differently than they would have.
At the end of the day, it's a common respect for each other that unites them all — and sets them apart from some others.
"We have a neighbor who is definitely a Trump supporter and everything, but he [came] to the wedding, and he's excited for us to get married. I think there's just more love in the world than we even realize," Broughton said. "There's just more love than we can ever realize — I think that's my takeaway from everything."
