Chapter Seventeen The Wedding Planner
Overcoming his initial resistance to hiring a wedding planner Danny found a list of the city’s top event organizers, immediately ruling out the renowned planners located in Kensington who required minimum spends of fifty thousand pounds and specialized in oligarch and celebrity weddings.
Near the bottom of the list, he chanced across the website for a small company called ‘Red Jacket Event Planners’ which stated in their business biography that they only started planning weddings once civil partnerships became law.
The offices for ‘Red Jacket’ were in the theatre district near Covent Garden where the supernatural thriller The Woman in Black was still running at the Fortune Theatre.
After graduation, he had applied to work there backstage, recalling a young man with many ambitions except that one day he might be married.
Located on Maiden Lane, Red Jacket shared a shabby Victorian building with casting directors.
In the communal area Danny passed aspiring actors seated outside audition rooms studying monologues.
He climbed the uneven stairs arriving at a narrow corridor with a brightly painted red door at the far end.
The reception was furnished with a circular mahogany table, decorated with a vase of white hydrangeas, one day past their best, a wooden magazine rack of glossy bridal magazines and a seasonal fruit platter worthy of a still life portrait.
As a first impression it announced that this company was playful yet precise with a sense of genuine delight in the ceremonies they helped organize.
But the quest for a perfect wedding had begun to stir memories in Danny of the body issues he suffered as a young man, never thin enough or strong enough.
Before Luis, no matter how hard he tried, he wasn’t the physique other guys wanted.
He was too scrawny, too quirky-looking, closer to an alley cat than a pedigree.
At one point he dropped to five per cent body fat and would suffer from constant colds as if his body could tell that it was a disappointment.
A fresh-faced young man greeted him, dressed in a double-breasted red jacket the same shade as the front door.
He shook Danny’s hand explaining that he was the junior associate of Jasper, the founder of the company who would be with him shortly.
Taking a seat, Danny flicked through the magazines which included Bridal Monthly and World’s Best Weddings.
He wondered if this ceremony could ever truly be co-opted for two guys if the central creative force always seemed to be the bride.
Observing Danny’s reaction to the bridal selection the young man retrieved a separate set of magazines called Just for Him, crudely produced, amateur by comparison, printed on pamphlet paper.
He explained that the magazine was self-published by an Australian wedding shop, the first intended solely for straight grooms. It ran for only three editions, with a print run of a few thousand before closing due to lack of interest. Danny asked if there was a magazine for gay couples.
There was nothing. The young man said, ‘That’s why we’re here. ’
Wondering why he felt it necessary to lower his voice, Danny supposed that if they were pigeonholed as exclusively gay it would be the end of their business. No planner could survive without a slice of the straight marriage market.
Exactly on time, Jasper opened the double doors to his office.
Concise and compact, no more than five foot seven, wearing the same style of double-breasted red jacket as his colleague, he shook Danny’s hand with the aura of a concierge from a grand European hotel, brimming with knowledge and excited to share it.
Assessing his client, he observed the frayed trousers, scuffed Puma trainers and striped John Smedley sweater.
More significant than his clothes, Danny was attending the appointment alone.
Jasper ushered Danny into his office, guiding him away from the formality of the desk towards the sofa by the bay window.
He pulled up a chair as if he were a marriage therapist, with a Moleskine notebook resting on his knee and a handsome Waterford fountain pen in his hand.
‘Tell me the dream.’
Unsure what to say, Danny remained silent.
He didn’t have a vision for this marriage; he hadn’t collected a selection of magazine clippings.
Even after proposing the big day remained vague in his mind.
Tongue-tied, he didn’t know what to say.
Jasper prompted him, ‘In your email you said your fiancé’s name is Luis Lagana. Which is a Spanish name, yes?’
Danny nodded.
‘Luis was born in Cádiz.’
Jasper wrote his first note. Danny checked to see if the ink was red. It was black.
‘Were you interested in marrying in Spain? I’ve helped arrange international weddings in France and Italy, but Spain also has many fantastic locations.’
Danny quipped, ‘Luis would be happy getting married in a London register office next weekend if it was down to him.’
After a thoughtful pause, Jasper wrote his next note.
‘Is that why Luis isn’t here today?’
Danny shook his head.
‘No, it wasn’t that he couldn’t make the time. He didn’t want me to feel demoted after the engagement party.’
Curious, Jasper asked what had happened at the party. Danny summarized the drunken revelry. Jasper said it sounded like a fun night, which Danny accepted.
‘But it’s not what we want for the wedding.’
Jasper asked directly, ‘What do you want?’
Danny was honest.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything about weddings. I never imagined I’d have one. I’m worried that I’m doing everything wrong.’
Jasper screwed the lid back on his fountain pen and tapped the top against his notes, realizing that he wasn’t dealing with someone who needed help with specifics or logistics; Danny needed help with the concept of weddings themselves.
Affixed to the page was a printout of the email Danny had sent him.
‘You and Luis have been together twenty years – that’s a remarkable achievement.’
The compliment caught Danny off guard.
‘But we never made a big deal about it. We just got on with life, you know?’
Jasper shook his head.
‘No, tell me.’
Danny expanded, ‘When we met – we’d been through tough times, changing cities, losing our families.
Our faith. I was partying too much. Luis was working too much.
We were different kinds of lonely. I was lonely in a nightclub.
He was lonely in an office. Being together was like being in a life raft.
We clung on to each other. It never crossed our mind to celebrate.
The relationship was a form of survival. ’
Jasper was moved by this description, understanding its deeper resonance.
‘What could be more romantic than that?’
Danny agreed, except with one important qualification.
‘We’re settled now. We’re not lost. We have friends. A home. Careers. A life together. I don’t know what we’re even celebrating at this point. Except I know that I want it. A celebration. Even if I don’t know what it is.’
Standing up Jasper walked to the window, resting on the ledge.
‘Weddings should be an expression of you and your partner. There are no other rules. There is no right or wrong. The only weddings that struggle are the ones trying to be something they’re not or the ones trying to fix something that’s broken.
Weddings can’t make a sad person happy, or an unloved person feel loved.
They can be magical but they’re not magic. ’
Quite unexpectedly Danny observed, ‘I just have this feeling that marrying Luis might be the best thing I do in my life.’
It was hard to tell if Jasper was charmed or concerned.
‘There it is. That’s my brief. No frills, no gimmicks. Let’s not gild this lily.’
Danny was so desperate to work with Jasper that he began to worry that he wouldn’t be able to afford him. Jasper handled the issue of money with tact.
‘In New York City the average spend is seventy-five thousand dollars. In Alaska it’s fifteen thousand dollars. Does that mean weddings are better in New York City? No, of course not. It means the venues and catering are more expensive.’
Danny thought on the numbers.
‘We’re closer to Alaska than New York.’
Jasper said, ‘That’s a parameter not a problem. I can still arrange a wonderful wedding. The issue with the other planners is that they charge a proportion of the budget, so the bigger the budget the bigger their commission. I charge a flat rate. I have no incentive to upsell.’
Feeling overwhelmed Danny looked down at the floor.
He had never cared much about money, but he would love to pay for this wedding himself rather than relying on Luis.
He never felt this way about the apartment or their international travel.
Luis contributed more financially because he earned more.
He was instinctually fair minded and handled their finances with so much grace that the disparity was never an issue.
With the apartment, Danny could make up the difference by doing more of the decorations and home improvements.
With the travel, Luis was more motivated to journey to far-flung locations.
But the impulse to be married had come entirely from Danny.
He was leading this charge and he should pay for it.
Sensing that his mood had slumped, Jasper joined him on the sofa.
‘I’m to understand that you wanted a gay wedding planner?’
Danny said, ‘I wouldn’t presume.’
Jasper waved this comment away.
‘Tell me why.’
Danny looked out of the window.
‘I don’t want to feel like I’m being smuggled into a foreign country by friendly forces.
Do you remember at school, when they would pick teams?
For football, I was always chosen last. I didn’t care about that – I wasn’t proud – but when the game started and I was on the pitch, running around, I felt like such a fraud, you know?
Going through the motions? And I don’t want this wedding to feel like that. ’
Making a deliberate calculation, Jasper allowed his impeccable facade to slip.
‘Part of my job will be to navigate you around the venues who would rather not host us, the people who don’t want to bake our cakes or print our invites.
I’m going to match you with people who love weddings as much as I do.
And I’ve always loved weddings ever since I was a child.
My mother believed they were the most joyous ceremonies on earth which explains why she married three times.
In her eyes the men never matched up to the wedding.
She never said they didn’t deserve her – she would say they didn’t deserve that day.
In your case, the opposite is true. We are building a wedding worthy of your love story. ’
Danny asked, ‘Have you ever been married, Jasper? Sorry. That was a rude question.’
Jasper seemed sad for the first time in their meeting.
‘Unfortunately, no. I admit, it is strange arranging weddings when I haven’t experienced one for myself.’
Trying to be helpful, Danny said, ‘For so long we weren’t even allowed to dream about it.’
Jasper shook his head.
‘Except I did dream about it. I’ve dreamed about being married even when I was young.
The law never stopped me from dreaming. And I’ve tried to find someone.
I’m still trying. It’s hard at my age, without muscles or a jawline.
Working in this business doesn’t help. On first dates I tell people what I do for a living and they think I’m coming on too strong as if I’m already planning our wedding, which of course I am.
That’s the line I tell my mother anyway. ’
Danny was fascinated by the idea of his mother, who must be in her seventies or eighties, wanting nothing more than her gay son to be happily married.
‘And she’d attend your wedding?’
Jasper widened his eyes.
‘Attend? She would be organizing it with me. When I came out, she told me, rather than don’t ask don’t tell, she would ask, and I would tell. I was very lucky in that regard.’
Jasper smiled, adding, ‘Notice I haven’t spoken about cakes or clothes or flowers or venues. These details we can figure out later. Here’s the only thing that matters – how do we make this day feel like your day and not some overpriced rehash of other people’s expectations.’
Danny couldn’t have wished for a better guide.
Only after signing the agreement and stepping out into the corridor did the thought occur to him that the role Jasper was playing should have been Luis’s to play, the two of them hand in hand on this adventure, guiding and advising each other and perhaps Luis had sent him to a wedding planner not merely to help arrange the event but to outsource the excitement he couldn’t provide.