Following Elton John & David Furnish’s wedding, my friends David and Neil officially tied the knot this weekend in London after living together for 13 years.
Vincent and I arrived Friday on the Eurostar for the celebration and David and Neil’s reasoning for making it on Friday was that everyone would have 2 days to recover instead of one.
The ceremony was at the Islington Town Hall near where the boys live. At 3PM about 100 well-dressed people gathered into a very official, elegant room with comfortable green leather seats. The first thing that struck me about the crowd was the flamboyant and festive hats the women wore decorated with flowers, feathers, and bows. It looked Sunday church in Alabama. Grayson Perry, the controversial artist who won the 2003 Turner Prize, England’s most prestigious art honor sat in front of me. Grayson is sometimes more controversial for publicly being Claire, his cross dressing altar ego than for his pottery. He was dressed as Claire wearing a whimsical pink print frock with teapots, and beige patent leather Mary Jane shoes. Grayson and Neil worked together on an award-winning brilliant documentary “Why Men Wear Frocks” shown on England’s Channel 4 in 2005 and is about transvestism and masculinity.
Grayson Perry/Claire
The ceremony was perfect: simple, from the heart but not sentimental, and short. The boys looked so cute dressed in their stylish new suits with white roses on their lapels. I met David in a cheesy bar in Key West in 1992 and he invited me to stay with him in London if I ever came to visit. Never one to refuse an invitation to stay free in expensive London, I took him up on his invitation in 1993 and spent many a memorable and fun time with him and Neil over the years since. They’ve become our London family and I was very touched by the words they exchanged and was moved by their love and commitment for each other over the last 13 years.
After the ceremony we walked to their house on a cloudy, muggy day through the streets of Islington dotted with well-preserved Georgian houses, passing Jamie Oliver’s that David had pointed out to me once before. Home is a sleek wood, glass and stone California style house with 3 stories on a quiet cul-de-sac. We were welcomed with flutes of Champagne followed by delicious, prettily presented hors d’ouevres and serenaded by a Marimba trio. David and Neil mostly being non-traditionilists, opted for a 60’s pop decorated ice cream truck instead of boring wedding cake, serving adult treats like coffee ice cream with espresso poured on top along with kiddy flavors too.
The boys always threw fun parties with great people and this was no exception. The crowd was lively, easygoing and very friendly. We ran into some of their family of friends who we had not seen in years and it was nice to catch up with these warm, lovely people. I spoke at ease with many people I had not met before and by the end of the party I had received invitations to visit the Hague, to do an insiders art tour of Berlin, and a dinner in London of smuggled in Lobel’s steaks from New York from an delightful, riotous American woman named Sara. Sara had been living in London for the last 22 years and we had a lengthy conversation about the joys of shopping in Duane Reade drugstores in New York.
Too exhausted to stay but not wanting to leave, we departed at 11PM having thoroughly enjoyed this wonderful and memorable day.
Read more about my London weekend including the latest about theater, restaurants, and museums in my next posting. Cheers!
Philip Treacy, eat your heart out!
Posted by: JudyG | September 08, 2006 at 10:12 PM