AHEAD OF ITS SECOND BIRTHDAY, TARA BAKER AND ARLIA HASSELL TELL DIVA HOW THEIR OWN ENGAGEMENT INSPIRED SAME-SEX WEDDING MAGAZINE DANCING WITH HER

Arlia (left) and Tara

WORDS DANIELLE MUSTARDE. PHOTO TANYA VOLTCHANSKAYA PHOTOGRAPHY

”We couldn’t find one magazine that represented our love – and it broke our hearts”

It’s 2016 in Melbourne, Australia – a year before the sprawling nation would legalise same-sex marriage – and newly-engaged couple Tara Baker and Arlia Hassell are on the cusp of having a (soon-to-be-life-changing) lightbulb moment, albeit one sparked by frustration and sadness.

After rushing to the city’s biggest magazine shop to stock up on wedding inspo, the couple instead found themselves left wanting. “Australia didn’t have marriage equality at the time, but we knew LGBTQI+ couples who were getting married anyway, so we thought there would be something out there for us,” explains Tara. “But we left empty-handed. Despite hundreds of titles, we couldn’t find one magazine that represented our love, and it broke our newly-engaged hearts.”

Thankfully for the international lez/bi community, rather than simply cursing the wedding industry’s (seemingly total) lack of diversity and inclusion, the pair took things into their own hands. “We were having a picnic in a local park together, discussing how we were feeling about it all, when I turned to Arlia and said, ‘If we feel this way, there have to be other queer women feeling the same. We need to do something’.” Lo and behold, Dancing With Her was born as an Instagram account one week later.