Creampuff Revolution

Elves Don't Appear to be Planning Creampuff's Gay Wedding

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.

Creampuff's Gay Wedding Is On Like Donkey Kong

When Katr was in town a couple of weeks ago, we scoped out a few possible venues for our Gay Wedding Cabaret & Topiary Festival. Because - and I'm not sure if you know this - just because you've picked a DATE and told everybody doesn't mean that the wedding is totally planned.

One venue we looked at was the Steamwhistle Brewery, where they gave us a free six pack, so obviously that scored a lot of points. We also looked at the Great Hall on Queen, where I performed the coveted role of "witness" at my friend Rela's wedding a few years ago. There are many things to recommend the Great Hall, not the least of which being that they let you bring in your own hooch. Also, there's a disco ball. Also, it looks like this from the outside:

and if we can't LIVE in a big Victorian mansion with a turret, we can damn well get married in one! Also, there's a stage. 'Cause we're not kidding about the cabaret.

We liked the Great Hall and our date was available but we needed to know a little more about the preferred caterers (i.e. is their food good, will they give us attitude for not wanting a sit-down dinner, will they get really confused about who's the "groom" at the lesbian wedding just because one of us might wear pants, etc.). Lucky for us, there was an open house at the Great Hall Wednesday night to show off the space and introduce the various caterers and other service providers to event planners and brides and mothers of brides and the occasional groom. Free booze! Free snax! Free wedding magazine! Jealous? Since Katr's back in Vancouver, I brought my man of honour, Padu. Ah, sweet Padu. Best man of honour ever.

While I was waiting for Padu across the street from the Hall, I accidentally made a movie.

We floated up the tulle-draped staircase into the main room to find the open house in full swing. Four caterers, a flower shop, some valet parking people, a DJ and a videographer were there and the centre of the room was dominated by three vastly different table settings. Ice clinked in glasses - beef tenderloin sizzled - cheque books trembled. Padu and I began our rounds. Here are our notes:

Flower Lady - seemed a little shell-shocked. Too many poppies, perhaps? Those crazy flower people. But she did seem to think that we could get all the flowers Katr wants and their shop is right across the street and it's chick-owned, which we like. Their website, however, is impossible to find via search engine. Think they'd give us a break on the flowers in exchange for a little search engine optimization? Yeah. I don't think so either.

Caterer #1 - best food, best drinks, best service, best package, best rep with the best name (Star) and the biggest price tag. Although I must say, I feel that if I'd made my standard "HOW much? Do I get a hand job with that?" joke, she might have said "I can work that hand job into your budget." Because she was THAT GOOD.

Caterer #2 - very good food, very good service, very nice rep, no package but definitely best presentation ideas around the whole cabaret thing. Also, they win points for sending me a charming, non-pushy e-mail the next day.

Caterer #3 - by the third caterer, we'd already had two drinks and we were pretty relaxed. The poor blond girl at the table looked terrified as we came over and it became clear that she was really just someone's assistant and had no idea what to do. Unlike the previous caterers, there was no glad-handing, meaningful eye contact, exchange of personal information AND, more importantly, she didn't offer us a drink, even though there were some very yummy looking skirt drink martinis on the table behind her. She handed us a package and pointed us towards the mini-Yorkshire puddings. We waited for her to try and sell us on the catering. She waited for us to leave. We did.

Caterer #4 - what can I say about Don? He was the only caterer to drop the F-bomb. Plus, he gave us jelly beans. I loved him.

I must say that I was impressed by how gamely Padu and I were greeted by all of caterer folk but you could tell that their initial thoughts went something like: "Does that poor fat girl know she's marrying a gay man?" They all seemed relieved and enthusiastic when we revealed that no! It was a lesbian wedding! HA ha! Feed us more wasabi risotto, monkeys! It kind of felt like that great moment in Elizabeth when the Duke of Anjou fakes Elizabeth out with the flute playing, laughs at his own joke and then whispers how he's excited to stroke her private areas. That guy was all class.

Speaking of class - we're not doing a sit-down dinner, but if we WERE, the table setting would HAVE to look like this:

I really think that all that was missing from this BDSM chic table setting were the teeny tiny ball-gag napkin rings.

On our way out, Padu made sure to grab a free Wedding Bells magazine and thank god he did. 'Cause nothing raises the tone in the ladies shitter like wedding magazines.

So, after consulting with my lady love, I think it's fair to say that we're going with The Great Hall as our gay wedding venue. We had asked the event planner, whose name rhymes with "Bandy", to put our date on hold until after the open house and I e-mailed her yesterday to let her know that our gay wedding at the Great Hall? Is ON like DONKEY KONG. At least, I think it is. It's been 24 hours and she hasn't e-mailed me back to confirm. Hmmm.

And so it begins.

Gay Wedding Bells for Creampuff

Ladies - gentlemen - get your frilly seafoam green outfits primed. Katr and Roro are getting married!!

And now for the Creampuffs Are Getting Gay Married FAQ:

FAQ: Roro? Getting gay married? I thought you always said that the great thing about being gay is that you weren't expected to get married. And that even if you COULD get gay married you wouldn't! Because queer people should be creating their own rituals and striking down oppressive social mores!

Q: Well, I changed my mind, for a variety of reasons that I'll no doubt elaborate on in later posts. But yes, on the one hand, as a queer person, I DO find it problematic to be participating in and perpetuating a heteronormative ritual which has historically cast women as chattel BLAH BLAH BLAH look at our RINGS!!

Katr's Ring:

My Ring:

Q: Roro . . . is that a plaid flannel pillow case underneath your ring?

A: Actually no, that's my wedding outfit. HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA! No, seriously, it is.

Q: Soooo . . . who proposed?

A: Officially? I did. And since we'd already gotten our rings, I proposed via a new video iPod instead! And I had it engraved. It says "Marry Me!!" on it.  More an imperative than a request, but I wasn't taking any chances.

A: You proposed with an iPOD?? Isn't that kind of . . . impersonal?

Q: Well, she's been DYING for one and she LOVES gadgets and it was the first time I really surprised her with anything and she totally cried. HA ha! So I feel like it worked out okay.

Q: Soooo . . . if you proposed, does that make you the man?

A: Yes. Yes it does. I am the man.

Q: Have you told your parents yet?

A: Yes - because there's nothing like finding out your kid's getting hitched because you READ IT ON HER BLOG.

Q: What'd they say?

A: Well, they think that Katr is the Second Coming (and hey, sometimes she is! If you know what I mean. And I think that you do) so they were totally thrilled. We're seeing them for Christmas this weekend, at which time my father plans to have The Talk with Katr - the same talk that my mother's dad had with him when my parents were getting married. You know, about her roles and responsibilities as my spouse. Plus - and he would never say this - my dad is itching to get rid of these dowry goats he's been keeping for me. Num-Num keeps chewing on his files.

Q: Did your mom immediately call her 4 sisters, 2 brothers and her parents to tell them the news?

A: Since I've always gotten the news of my cousins' (I have 16 first cousins, 14 on one side, 2 on the other - Dad's family is not so Catholic) weddings secondhand, I assumed that the aunts disseminated the news. I learned on Sunday that, in fact, it is de rigueur for the person who's getting married to call everyone. And so that's how I, Roro, Phone Phobic, spent all of Sunday evening on the phone telling all my mostly-Western-Canada-living, church-going aunts, uncles and grandparents that I was getting gay married. My dad's family? One phone call. My mom's? Seven. You'd better believe I called my lesbian aunt first. But of course, they're all totally coming. Because they're effin' AWESOME.

Q: Why do you keep saying you're getting "gay married"? Isn't "gay married" and "straight married" the same in Canada?

A: Yes, yes it is. But saying "gay married" is funny. So zip it.