LLMA App Launches on iOS, Offering Matchmaking for Lavender Marriages and Platonic Life Partnerships
Marty Thomas with wife Brandi and daughter Londyn at their Gilbert, AZ home. The Thomas family went all-in on lavender for the LLMA launch shoot.
Marty & Brandi Thomas in the LLMA HQ office
LLMA App Stop performing. Start building something real.
The first matchmaking platform for lavender marriages and platonic life partnerships, created by a founder who lives one.
GILBERT, AZ, UNITED STATES, March 26, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- After years of living publicly in a lavender marriage and building one of the most engaged communities around the concept on TikTok, Marty Thomas has done what most people said couldn't be done: he built the app.
LLMA, which stands for Life and Love Made Authentic, is now available on the iOS App Store. The platform is a matchmaking app designed specifically for people seeking platonic life partners: gay men and straight women, or any combination of individuals, who want companionship, family structure, and a shared life without romantic or sexual expectations. While other apps have begun to emerge in this space, LLMA stands apart as the first built by someone who is actually living this life.
Thomas, an Oregon native who has called Arizona home for the past decade, works remotely in tech and is also a content creator with 200,000+ TikTok followers and 80 million total views. He launched the LLMA movement publicly in 2025. What started as a TikTok series about his own lavender marriage with his wife Brandi became a global conversation and eventually a fully realized mobile platform.
"People kept sliding into my DMs asking how to find what Brandi and I have," Thomas said. "I realized the community existed everywhere. It just had nowhere to go. So I built it a home."
In Their Own Words: A Conversation with Marty Thomas
We sat down with Marty at his Gilbert home, where the family had just wrapped a full lavender-themed photo shoot to celebrate the App Store launch, to ask the questions his community has been asking for months.
Q: Why did you actually build an app? Wasn't the TikTok content enough?
Content creates awareness. The app creates change. I can post a video that gets millions views and it validates people for 60 seconds. But when someone creates a profile on LLMA and matches with the person they've been looking for their whole life? That's a completely different kind of impact. The content was the spark. The app is the fire.
Q: For people who are just discovering this, what exactly is a lavender marriage?
At its core, it's a partnership built on companionship, loyalty, shared values, and genuine love, without the romantic or sexual component. Historically, the term was used to describe marriages where one or both partners were gay and hiding it. We've reclaimed it. Today it describes any intentional platonic life partnership between consenting adults who choose each other for life. That could be a gay man and a straight woman, two friends who want to raise kids together, or really anyone who says: I want a real partner in life and I don't need romance to define that.
"Some people don't need romance to build a beautiful life. They just need the right person."
Q: How did Brandi feel about building an app around your family's story?
Brandi has been my co-pilot through all of it. She was the one who first said, "You need to stop apologizing for what we have and start showing people what's possible." She showed up to every photo shoot, every interview, every awkward conversation with a smile, and not a performative one. A real one. She genuinely believes in what we're building. So does Londyn, our 14-year-old, who honestly has more emotional intelligence about this than most adults I know.
The Thomas family at home: Marty, daughter Londyn (14), and wife Brandi.
Q: What took so long to get to the App Store?
Honestly? I built most of it myself. I'm not a developer by trade. I'm a tech guy who learned to read code out of necessity. The app is built native iOS in Swift, with a Supabase backend handling everything from authentication to real-time messaging. We integrated subscriptions, built a personality and compatibility system I call "Cards on the Table" with 160 unique cards across 20 decks, went through TestFlight, App Store review, the whole gauntlet. Every delay was a lesson. And now we have something I'm genuinely proud of.
Q: Who is LLMA actually for?
It's for the gay man who wants a real family and knows that doesn't require romance. It's for the straight woman who wants a devoted partner and is exhausted by the expectations that come with dating. It's for the person who has tried every other app and felt completely unseen. It's for anyone who believes that love, real love, doesn't have to look like what society told us it should. If you've ever felt like you were living a life that didn't quite fit, LLMA was built for you.
"I spent 20 years performing a version of myself. LLMA is the app I wish had existed when I was living that lie."
Q: What's your philosophy going into the launch?
Subtraction over addition. I'm not trying to build the biggest app. I'm trying to build the most intentional one. Every feature we add has to serve the mission. Every match we make has to be meaningful. We're not here to generate swipes. We're here to change lives. Stay Bold. Stay Inspired. That's not just a tagline. It's a mandate.
About LLMA
LLMA (Life and Love Made Authentic) is a matchmaking platform designed for lavender marriages and platonic life partnerships, built by someone who is actually living one. Available now on the iOS App Store, LLMA connects individuals seeking genuine companionship, shared family structure, and lifelong partnership outside of romantic or sexual relationships. The platform features personality-based compatibility matching and a unique connection system called "Cards on the Table," with 160 original prompts across 20 decks designed to surface real compatibility. Built natively in Swift on iOS with a Supabase backend, LLMA was engineered from the ground up to be fast, private, and purposeful.
LLMA was founded by Marty Thomas, an Oregon native and Arizona resident of 10 years, who works in tech remotely. The LLMA movement has generated over 80 million views across social platforms.
Martin C Thomas Jr
LLMA VENTURES LLC
+1 323-825-6664
martin@llma.life
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