Inspired by Pam and Tommy, a Poison music video, the 80s and early 90s, strippers and rock ‘n’ roll, Jay and Kate’s wedding was wild, free and so very them. It happened in Las Vegas at Sure Thing Chapel, although they told their friends they were attending their joint bachelorette trip! At 3:30pm, after an hour of photos around town, the group found themselves standing outside a wedding chapel. Their photographer had ‘just happened’ to suggest stopping there, but inside Lady Elvis was waiting to marry them.

They walked in together to 99 Problems by Jay-Z as their friends laughed and cheered. “We walked in to this song because we’ve certainly got 99 problems but a bitch AINT ONE!!!”

They skipped exchanging rings. Both already had awesome vintage engagement rings which they didn’t feel needed another band. Instead, they had custom grills made in Korea and engraved with the number 13. “We were engaged on Friday the 13th and married on October 31st so we liked that the 1 and 3 could be read front to back or back to front and still represent our ‘love days’,” they explained. “We also skipped the whole have your dad walk you down the aisle thing, NO BOYS ALLOWED! We chose our mothers and Kate also had her best friend by her side.”

Afterwards, everyone returned to their Airbnb just outside the Strip. It was mid-century modern, with a pool that became the centre of the weekend. Music played constantly while people drank, swam, talked, disappeared, came back, and went out again. “Honestly, we feel like we did it all right,” they said, “We focused on being present and there was no people pleasing. We did everything we wanted to do; it was OUR day after all. We had people who smoked, didn’t smoke, heavy drinkers and sober people… Muslims, meat eaters, gay people, bi people, and the straights, folks in their 20s, 30s, 50s and 60s… Nobody felt like our party excluded them. There is space for all of us and we really like that it felt like that.”

“Our support,” they said, when asked what stayed with them most. “Being LGBTQ+, we don’t always feel widely accepted, but there we were, surrounded by our friends and mums, people with very different backgrounds, celebrating together. Our win feels like a win for all of us!”

“This is your life, your marriage, your memories,” they concluded. “Do everything the way you want because there are no rules. Do the cringe thing, go to Taco Bell, be as insane as you want to be. Your happiness is genuinely the only thing that matters. If people complain they don’t have to come or you can just do it alone. It is about you and your love!”