30 » pink weddings magazine
Mix
and
match
With wedding planning
a part of her job, Tracey
Robinson had no shortage
of ideas when it came to
arranging her civil
partnership with Jo
TrACeY AnD JO
banquetng rooms turned out to be quite reasonable
to hire – it was all the bits and pieces that added up.
We had to have the goblets with the gold bits on! It’s
the kind of place to be a bit extravagant. We told all
the boys atending, including our dads and brothers,
that they had to wear morning suits. You should
have seen them all strutng round like peacocks!
And who says ‘straight boys don’t like dressing up’?
The boys loved it.
Our ceremony was in William III’s old
banquetng suite. It’s like the Sistne Chapel, with
paintngs on the ceiling. You’re only supposed to
have 50 people in there, but we squeezed 53 in.
We were wondering what to do about
etquete. My Jo is normally larger than life, but she
L
ast August we had our ceremony in the
banquetng house at Hampton Court – a
litle turreted building on the side of the
Palace, right on the riverside. We live near it and
see it every day.
We didn’t realise you could have a civil
partnership there and thought when we enquired
that if they were at all snoty then we wouldn’t
bother. But their reacton was ‘oh that’s amazing!’
and they were great. It really makes a difference to
have people who are gay friendly.
I plan weddings myself all the tme at
Broadoaks, my hotel in the Lake District. I’m used to
working with spreadsheets for this and that, but
there was none of that at Hampton Court. The litle