Queerly Ever After #36: THE PERFECT WEDDING (2012)
Queerly Ever After is a bi-monthly column where I take a look at LGBT+ films that gave their characters a romantic happily-ever-after. There will be spoilers. Also, don’t forget to buy your Queerly Ever After merch right here.
The Perfect Wedding is what you would get if Hallmark decided to make a gay Christmas movie, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s a sweet, inoffensive piece of white bread. It’s not a movie you’ll be thinking about long after you watch it, but if you’re looking for the sort of romantic holiday fare churned out by Hallmark, Lifetime, and now Netflix on a yearly basis, but with gay leads, this is the movie to watch.
Set during Christmas time, as you may have guessed, the movie follows Paul Fowler (Rico Aragon), a roguishly handsome recovering alcoholic who has been living with his parents since he entered recovery and started piecing his life back together over the past year and change. This Christmas promises to be a little different than usual because his sister Alana (Apolonia Davalos) is engaged and wants to use this holiday weekend to plan her wedding. In order to do that, she has enlisted her two best friends, Vicki (Annie Kerins), and Roy (Roger Stewart).
Roy also happens to be Paul’s ex-boyfriend, on whom Paul drunkenly cheated. The two have not seen or spoken to each other since the breakup, and Roy for one is nervous to see his ex. So, he does what people in movies often do, he convinces his friend Gavin (Jason T. Gaffney, who wrote the script along with his parents Ed Gaffney and Suzanne Brockmann,) to tag along and pretend to be his boyfriend. Sparks immediately begin to fly between Paul and Gavin, but Paul doesn’t know the relationship between Roy and Gavin is all a ruse and believes he is reverting to his old scoundrel ways.
Wedding Planning is Hard
Of course, there is also some family drama going on. Alana and her fiancé, Kirk (Brendan Griffin), want nothing more than to have a small wedding on the beach. However, Alana’s father, Richard (the late James Rebhorn), is suffering from Alzheimer’s, so Alana allows her mom, Meryl (Kristine Sutherland), to hijack the wedding planning in favor of a large, extravagant party.
Paul knows that this is not what his sister wants, but that she doesn’t feel she can say anything to their mom about it. So, Paul enlists Vicki, Roy, Gavin, Kirk, and his friend/AA sponsor Zach (Sal Rendino) to help him secretly plan the perfect small wedding for Alana right in their backyard. Meryl realizes that this is really what her daughter wants, and they have the wedding right there over the holiday weekend.
In Conclusion: The Perfect Wedding
That’s really all there is to it. After Paul eventually learns that Gavin and Roy are not actually a couple, of course this happens after Gavin kisses Paul and Paul feels guilty, the two officially get together. The movie ends with one big happy wedding for Paul and Gavin. So, when the holiday season rolls around and you’re looking for that light, fluffy Hallmark fare, without the heteronormativity, watch this.
The Perfect Wedding was released on VOD in 2013.
Watch The Perfect Wedding
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