Last week, we celebrated Loving Day, a day marked by celebrations of mixed families and couples telling their stories on social media.  We saw festivals around the world celebrating the right for people to marry whomever they want, regardless of skin color. That was a great day!

Today, the killings of members of Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina speak to how far we still have to go when it comes to creating a world of equality and justice.

Today definitely doesn’t feel like Loving Day.

We didn’t have a planned blog post, but spontaneity seemed necessary given the circumstances and what we stand for as a company.

While we are a wedding planning app that makes wedding planning easy, social and fun, we’re also a mixed-race married couple who, until 1967 wouldn’t have been allowed to get married. Even more so, we’re a company with a name inspired by marriage equality and justice.

We originally called our app WeddingRSVP, focusing on making it easy for wedding guests to RSVP to your wedding. But we realized that name wasn’t enough to show how far we still have to go when it comes to creating a world of equality and justice, racial equality in particular.

We wanted a name that spoke to why we were really committing to taking on startup life in an environment where most people in this line of business fail. Had we lost our minds? No, in fact we had found what it was that was driving us to put sleepless nights, heart-attack-inducing bank account statements & unhealthy amounts of coffee on the line. We brainstormed the name over coffee, dinner dates and metro rides, wandering the streets with sketchpads and finding images that resonated with us.

We wanted to not just provide a cool wedding app. We wanted to change the face of how weddings are planned and attended. We also wanted to acknowledge and affirm that everyone should be able get married if they so desire – everyone deserves to enjoy their big day regardless of race, class, language or sexual orientation. We wanted to democratize wedding planning. The led us to the name Wedocracy.

While we have to be open for business today (and every day), that doesn’t mean it has to be (or can be) business as usual for us. It’s not for the people of South Carolina who might feel scared, angry and grief stricken right now. We believe it is not only right but crucial to say that hate is not something we stand for or tolerate in our company and in the world we are hoping to help shape.

We believe that for a just and safe world to exist, we all of us must have the right to exist in our skin without feeling threatened, targeted our harassed.

Today we’ll be on our computers working to give you great tools to plan your wedding. And we’ll also be thinking about those who died so tragically in South Carolina. You both matter and you both deserve to feel that you matter.