Leaving a Legacy of Love with Heaven Grace-Acheampong
Image Credit: Heaven Grace-Acheampong
Heaven Grace-Acheampong founded Mrs. & Mrs., an online platform that celebrates and amplifies voices, love stories and journeys of same-sex couples around the world while empowering queer love and relationships.
Acheampong founded the company after she got married to her wife, Ritta, in 2016. During this time period of her life, she was in search of a community on Facebook, and couldn’t find a comfortable fit; she found herself asking, constantly, “Where are all of the other wives with wives?” This sparked the idea for Mrs. & Mrs.
It started as a Facebook group. People began to share their wedding photos; snapshots of one of the happiest moments of their lives. Acheampong didn’t want to keep that kind of representation contained to a private Facebook group. So, she moved to Instagram, where her platform quickly began to take off.
“I remember having 100 followers, then 500, then 1,000,” Heaven Grace said.
Image Credit: Heaven Grace-Acheampong
Soon after moving her budding platform to Instagram, she also began to get messages of appreciation, telling her what a beautiful project Mrs. & Mrs. was. At the time, and even now, there is a lack of representation of queer women, and especially queer women of color, in the media.
“Now there’s much more, but at the time, there were no pages like Mrs. & Mrs. […] especially for folks of color. It didn’t exist,” Acheampong said.
The representation that did exist for queer women of color, she added, was incredibly over-sexualized. She wanted to create a space for everybody, but especially for queer women of color, to be fully themselves and in their joy. Not reduced to a single part of their identity.
“We are not a monolithic group,” Acheampong said.
Because of Mrs. & Mrs.being so intimately involved with showcasing couples, going on retreats and offering couples therapy, she says that she’s been allowed to expand her own views and beliefs, and become well attuned to people’s requests for the kinds of love that they want to see represented on the Mrs. and Mrs. platform.
Image Credit: Heaven Grace-Acheampong
She’s seen people on her retreats who are entering into their first lesbian relationship; trans people request to come on Mrs. & Mrs. retreats, and she has received DMs requesting that older couples, or couples that do not fit the stereotypical “masculine and feminine” archetype, be featured. “If you can’t come to a Mrs. & Mrs. retreat, what retreat would you go to if you can’t feel included here?” Acheampong said.
This kind of kinship building has historically been important to the LGBTQ+ community; she wants to continue the tradition, building bridges of joy and connection for queer people.
“I want to be clear who this is for. I also want to understand everyone. Because we are all family,” Heaven Grace said.
She has felt what it’s like to not be seen and to be ostracized for who you are. Or, who you love.
Acheampong came out as a lesbian when she was 13 years old. She had a crush on a girl once she got into High School, and was teased for it, hearing her classmates talking about her. She did her best to keep it a secret because she feared the scrutiny that she would face from her peers. However, she eventually found comfort within herself.
Image Credit: Heaven Grace-Acheampong
“Throughout my High School years, my teen years, I said, well, if this is what I am and who I am, nobody is going to be comfortable unless I’m comfortable,” she said.
Unfortunately, that feeling, and the process of having to build comfort and community for yourself, is all too familiar for many queer people. Through Mrs. & Mrs., though, Heaven Grace wants to make it just a little bit easier.
She also wants to set an example for her daughter, Mia. Acheampong emphasized that she and her wife work very hard to show their child what healthy love looks like.
Through everyday decisions about communication, she constantly works to learn more about each other and become a stronger family unit, hoping to leave a legacy of love behind for her daughter and those whose lives she has the opportunity to impact through her tireless work.
To learn more about Heaven Grace, and what she does, you can follow her social media accounts @mrsandmrs__, @mrsandmrsretreat, @mrsandmrssummit and @mrsheavengrace on Instagram!
