Queers.

_

When I was wee,

and we'd be out in the car and we'd pass a wedding,

a church or outside a registry office, my mum would, without fail,

slow down, roll down her window and shout out,

"Don't do it, you mad fools!"

In retrospect, I think she was still processing her feelings about

the divorce, but we just thought it was funny.

Every time! Really funny.

Though not if you were a...

... reluctant bride with acute hearing.

Such incidents bred in me a suspicion,

a certain uncertainty towards marriage.

Towards men.

Towards making promises amid pomp and circumstance.

Towards institutions and the done thing.

What one ought and what one not.

Oh, my scepticism is a rich inheritance.

The family fortune from my mother's side.

But here I am...

... which is why I have to get this right.

Which starts with getting THIS right.

All those Jaffa Cakes inhaled for inspiration can't have died in vain.

Once upon a time, a plucky young man

went on an adventure miles from home.

In a magical kingdom in a far-away land,

he met a handsome prince who spent all his days

bringing joy to the lives of others.

One night, at a ball

where all the beautiful people in the kingdom had gathered,

the handsome prince spoke to the man who was minding his own business

while desperately trying to get served at a bar where, yet again,

he had forgotten to take off his cloak of invisibility.

So kind was the prince that he bought the plucky young man a drink.

And so gracious was the man that he asked the prince to dance.

And the dance was so entrancing

that everyone else in the room vanished.

The world stopped spinning and it was just the man and the prince

in each other's arms on top of the world...

... with only Lady Gaga for company.

Now THERE'S a threesome!

Pause for applause, wild applause, possibly some cheering.

Obviously, if I fill in a few details,

the magic of the story may pale,

as magic often does when you see its mechanics.

The adventure was a fortnight in Florida.

The ball was a club playing Bad Romance.

The plucky young man was...

... youngish.

And the prince wasn't a prince at all,

but another plucky young man on an adventure of his own.

That his adventure was working on a roller-coaster in a theme park

gets bonus OMG points in my mind,

but then I've always loved roller-coasters.

Real and emotional.

Lest you hadn't noticed.

Of course, this story isn't like the fairy tales I was raised on.

No horse-drawn pumpkins, way too many homosexuals.

I do have a story about three bears, but NSFAJ.

Not Suitable For Auntie Janice.

Nor anybody else, mind you.

No, people like me didn't feature in the stories I was told growing up.

Felt as if I didn't exist.

Even if there were characters like me,

they were Hall of Mirrors distortions that made me feel like

I didn't want to exist.

I had a go at ending my existence back then.

But I was as good at suicide as I was at physics,

so I lived and learnt.

It's painful to be invisible in other people's stories, but there is

a sliver of liberation.

You can tell your own story.

You can author your own life.

There's no script to stick to...

... which is fucking terrifying.

And quite exciting.

And fucking terrifying.

Not that scripts can't be quite useful.

For me and my people...

Oh, my God! My people?

For me and other gay people, we now have the opportunity, the right,

to have the fairy tale wedding that others have always had.

Even just for a day,

we can be handsome princes and/or/and beautiful princesses.

Though inevitably,

some of us will end up more Princess Margaret than Kate Middleton.

We, the gays, can now tell, out loud and proud, our stories.

And everyone... yes, even you,

Auntie Becky, who told me I was making my life difficult

with my "choice"... to be gay...

... has a better life because of it.

Me having the right to get married

doesn't take anything away from anyone else.

Rights aren't like cake.

Me having some doesn't mean you get less.

And speaking of cake...

Too wordy? Too wordy?

Too twee? Too angry? Am I angry?

Maybe I should start a fight.

Set fire to something.

Uncle Frank, perhaps.

Bloody straights!

Not only do they go around

shoving their lifestyle down everyone's throats,

but they've also exhausted every aspect of getting married,

made every possible choice, and to a cliché!

And only now, when it's on its last legs, do they wheel in the gays

for a vital refresh after all this time.

Hardly any time at all.

Not just a big day, but monumental.

Part of me wants the formality and frivolity over and done with

so life can get back to "normal".

Another part of me wants to live in perpetual anticipation...

... in the thrall of the imminent thrill.

And another part of me wonders if it's a good idea at all.

Even in victory, you lose something.

The feeling of...

... being the rebel...

... the subversive, the outlaw.

I know! Never happy with what I've got.

Until him.

I personally have no reservations, no nerves, no niggles,

no last-minute jitters,

no brief or lengthy reconsiders for the love before this one,

or for my first, or for the one that got away,

or the one that required an escape.

Not even for my great unrequited who might have...

... if I'd asked.

Nope.

The answer to the proverbial question when popped

was never going to be no.

It's at moments like this you realise, despite your best efforts,

you've still been indoctrinated with old-fashioned, romantic,

sentimental ideas of what love is and how it plays out.

I read it described once in a book

as having fairy tales stuck in your innards.

Love is a sentimental tapeworm.

Sometimes, I still can't believe I'm having a wedding.

Getting married's one thing, but a wedding? Ha-ha!

And a wedding of this size!

A wedding we technically cannot afford.

A wedding at which

I'm already having an issue with the table decorations.

From Auntie Sheila.

She normally buys them half-price in the January sales

for the following Christmas. Only, this year,

she decided my getting married was a special enough occasion

to get them out six months early. A special enough occasion!

And the fact that she's not sure she'll be around come Christmas,

her bowels...

... being what they are.

All I care about is they don't pull focus today.

The bowels, not the crackers.

These crackers were only from Asda.

But let's not get entangled in Auntie Sheila's innards.

Marriage... an institution for the insane

to which you commit yourself voluntarily.

For those that won't commit or submit, those that can't,

won't or don't fit...

... there are other institutions.

Asylums and prisons, say.