I know it's ridiculous, but somewhere deep down, I really thought that if we hired a caterer and booked the hall, all other wedding planning and implementation would be carried out by elves. Maybe gay elves who look like Scott Thompson and also pay for everything.
It's not so much that I don't enjoy planning the big gay wedding, 'cause that part is fun! It's the actual doing of things that's holding me back a little. Because I am a lazy, lazy person.
Fortunately, Katr and I included a "day of big gay wedding stuff" on our whirlwind visit to Toronto last week and we managed to pack quite a bit in. We started by meeting our caterer for a tasting and I had to have a private moment with the wild sea bass skewers marinated in saikyo miso. I think the caterer was a little taken aback by our expressions of delight. I guess they must have sounded kinda dirty from the kitchen. We nixed the things that tasted like ass and signed off on the evening's delicious menu. Check!
Then we moved on to flowers, which went less well. So, uh . . . hopefully there will be some flowers and stuff. Hmmm. Semi-check!
We rounded out the day by meeting and immediately booking the photographer the Viscount of Knockers recommended, so I'm looking forward to lots of cleavage shots. I knew she was the right photographer for us not only based on her lovely portfolio, but also because she took it in stride when I told her that every photo of me on the big day had to include me making finger guns. That's the sign of a professional, people.
We were about to leave the area, feeling heady with accomplishment, when we ran into my friend Bejo and her camera on the corner of Queen and Dovercourt. "Hey!" she exclaimed, "Are you here for Cathy's thing?"
"What thing?" I asked.
"She's crawling on her hands and knees from Kensington to the lake in her wedding dress to get divorced today! Come on!"
Who could say no to that? Well, Katr could, because she had a meeting. But I stuck around and chatted with folks as Cathy crawled into view with her entourage.
I don't know Cathy well, but I took a great writing workshop from her once and I'm a big fan of her performance work and her now ex-husband Steve did the sound design on a show I directed years ago. Plus he introduced me to one of my favourite words: "squoze". As in:
Steve: I was sitting in [name of restaurant withheld] and I felt a mouse run up my leg. So I clapped my hand down on my pants and caught in it there. Then I thought "Now what?" If I let go, the mouse would run up to my junk. The thing started biting me and I made instinctive decision.
Me: What did you do?
Steve: Well . . . I squoze.
And so it happened that on the day Katr and I had our hors d'oeuvre tasting and ordered the big gay wedding flowers and hired an ace photographer, I watched Cathy Gordon and Steve Marsh get legally divorced in the basement of the building I'll be getting married in three months from now. It was quite sweet, really (photos of the whole day are here). They signed the papers and kissed before Cathy crawled off to her next stop and after saying goodbye to the folks I knew there, I hopped on the streetcar back to the hotel. I thought about synchronicity and how interesting it was that our wedding planning path crossed Cathy's divorce path that day and how lovely it was that Cathy had friends to hold the train of her wedding dre - OH HOLY FUCK, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO WEAR??
Yes, folks, this is the latest in many gay wedding panics. Now that we've left it so late, will we be able to find someone to make our creampuff wedding clothes? Fortunately, my friend Jeba has just spent the last two days stuffing my inbox with Vancouver creampuff designer ideas and some of them look extremely promising. I'll keep you all posted, but you can rest assured that at least we won't be getting married naked in a traditional Betazoid ceremony.
Yes, yes, it's true. Ich bin ein nerdlinger.