A gay wedding can bring together people who have never quite occupied the same world: relatives from home, friends from queer nightlife, and the people who became family along the way.
For Darlene Mitchell and husband Branden Marcus, that meeting became one of the most touching parts of their celebration.
In a new November 10 interview with Out, the RuPaul’s Drag Race season 18 finalist recalls her conservative father being overwhelmed by the welcome at their March wedding. He described a place where “joy is abundantly available.”
Support that was already growing
Before leaving to film Drag Race, Darlene had told relatives about her drag career, uncertain about some of their reactions. Her father sent encouragement before she left.
The whole family later attended the wedding, alongside members of her chosen family. Darlene says her father has since been to his first drag show.
That is a story of growing understanding, rather than evidence that he had previously rejected her.
A wedding with something familiar for Dad
The celebration took place at SmogShoppe in Culver City, California. In their earlier PEOPLE wedding interview, Darlene explained a particularly sweet connection: the venue had been an auto repair shop, while her father and grandfather were car builders.
A setting chosen for a couple’s own celebration could hold a little family history, too.
The personal touches extended to the vows, which the couple read from DVD cases of Steel Magnolias and Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.
These grooms clearly understood that sentiment and camp can share a wedding programme.
Chosen family, with room for everyone
Out’s original wedding coverage reported that Darlene and Branden had been together for ten years. Their guests included fellow season 18 queens such as Nini Coco, Juicy Love Dion and Jane Don’t.
For their first dance, they chose Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, with an image of Kermit and Miss Piggy in wedding finery projected behind them.
It is a wonderfully affectionate image: a couple celebrating a long relationship in a way that feels unmistakably theirs, surrounded by people from different chapters of their lives.
Many gay readers will recognise the nerves that can accompany those introductions. Will the jokes land? Will everyone relax? Will the people who raised you see what your friends have always seen?
No single wedding answers those questions for every family. Here, Darlene’s account offers a hopeful glimpse of what can happen when people arrive, share the celebration and discover they belong in the room.
📷 Nate Howard / @theshalomimaginative / @itsdarlenebtw / @rupaulsdragrace