pink weddings magazine » 77
NOEL AND STEPHAN
accompanying dinner and of course, near naked muscular
men as ushers!
I decided that Fonda had to be involved, but I refused to
spend my wedding day in drag. So the show opener was set
up as a cinema screen and I made a film reel that brought
our guests up to speed with the story so far. It cut to a scene
filmed in my loft, where Fonda was supposedly being held
hostage, hidden from view while my husband’s parents were
staying. She did what she needed to do, got the audience
laughing at her expense, then kicked off the live action part
of the show by singing the first two verses of the opening
number – a song from the finale of a Broadway musical that I
had reworded to recap the tale of ‘Noel and Stephan so far’.
As her vocals ended the announcement was made: ‘Ladies
and Gentlemen: please welcome… The Robdingleys!’, and
with that my husband and I, clad in the tuxes we had worn to
our official nuptials way back in December, entered the stage
from the sides of the cinema screen and duetted the rest of
the number while walking either side of the congregation
and back down the aisle to the stage.
We received rapturous applause, and maybe the audience
felt, as the song had ended with the words ‘I DO!’, that would
be the end of it. But no! I felt there needed to be some kind of
ceremony. So I took a standard script of a humanist wedding
from the internet and ‘gayed it up’ ever so slightly! Mark
Lanahan, musical theatre star, master of ceremonies and
singer for all occasions – not to mention, dear friend of mine –
performed wonderfully as a vicar with slightly questionable
ethics. He suggested we open with a hymn, so we led our
audience to our first hymn
The Gay Way
as Stephan jumped to
his feet and declared, ‘We don’t do hymns, we do karaoke!’
and our audience was duped into singing
Dancing Queen
while the words flashed up on our cinema screen.
We then cut to a reading – the disco classic,
You To Me Are
Everything
by The Real Thing, read in a very sombre fashion.
My great friend Jason Bollingbroke delivered it with an air of
audacity, stunned that people could snigger at such a heartfelt
piece! It was definitely one of the highlights of the show.
Then came the moment to say our vows. When asked to
say something about my husband, I did what any showbiz
queen would do and resorted to singing the opening lines of
the Gershwin classic,
Crazy For You
in an overly orchestrated
rendition complete with hammy ‘jazz hands’ dancing. Then
came Stephan’s turn and he sang
I Want To Grow Old With
You
, strumming out the melody on an acoustic guitar.
Then it was time to swap rings and kiss the groom, which
we did to a standing ovation. All that remained was to close
the show with a finale worthy of
Britain’s Got Talent
, so with
the help of a bubble machine and a ton of foil confetti,
...we brought the house
down with a song from the
Muppet Movie, then quickly
emp ed the room with a
conga to avoid the pomp and
ceremony of a receiving line,
leading us out onto a sun-
drenched terrace overlooking
the English channel, where
our naked butlers awaited
with trays of Pimms.
We then broke off into various groups for photo shoots, with
spectacular results by Paul Page Photography. Paul shadowed
our entire day and well into the evening, capturing every
nuance better than we could have ever hoped.
It was then time to make our entrance into the reception
room. We went for a very simple theme, 4 July, celebrating the
union of an American with a Brit, so we went for three gas
balloons on each table in red white and blue, held in place by
LED-lit thin nylon strings, and trimmed the sides of the room in
Union Jacks and star-spangled banners. The staff at the venue
were excellent at advising and helping us with our décor. The
finishing touch was to name the tables after Muppets, placing
a framed photo of each Muppet at each centrepiece.
As our guests were seated and enjoying their first
courses, I put out party packs and beach games to occupy
