QUAINT QUEER WEIRD

After a night on the tiles at Brighton's premier gay disco "Revenge" (Jägerbombs £2 a shot, very classy), I was up early this morning for another LGBT/alternative wedding fair, my second in four months. Officially I was representing Pip Wyatt and gayweddingsinspain.com but Robbie came along too in case there were any hot men around (there were).

As a now seasoned gay wedding fair delegate, I was actually expecting Quaint Queer Weird to be wackier than it was: more camp men, more funeral directors (there were two at the Gay Wedding Fair including the Co-op), more drag queens and at least a smattering of bondage. Quaint Queer Weird was rated 18+ by the organisers and I had high hopes that the Corn Exchange (which normally hosts jazz quartets and the like) would be magically converted into a scene of wild bondage-themed abandon, oozing sexuality and awash with scantily-clad, body-painted wood nymphs. There was also talk of a "fetish duo" plus the Mayor cutting a ribbon, in a non-fetishistic way, clad in a revealing crimson cloak and tricorn hat with feathers in it.

Sadly we missed the Mayor and couldn't find the fetish duo but Robbie practically passed out with joy when we saw a shirtless Ryan Gosling lookalike stretched out semi-naked having his arm tattooed and we both had to be forcibly restrained from jumping on the PolarSnap guy.

Olly Dall (aka Mr PolarSnap) is a sort of one-man, mobile Polaroid photo booth who will not only take snaps of people with a range of props, but also load the pics up to facebook. Olly is considerably cheaper than a stationary photo kiosk or taxi photo booth and I imagine it's also easier to get people posing if you're wandering around interacting with them (especially if you look like Olly).

Hats off to Feathered Fantasy who make ravishing headwear concocted out of feathers, fur, bone and other bits and pieces hand-foraged in woodland mainly inhabited by elves, fairies and centaurs. Beautiful.

  

Also stunning was Freya von Bulow’s paper couture wedding dress - although maybe a bit impractical and I'm not sure what the flammability rating would be.

Fat Cakes Design’s tiered wedding cakes were amazing, super gothic and looking like something Tim Burton might have thrown together. The skull one was fantastic but I couldn’t discuss it with the owner because she was busy having a tatoo done.

Thanks to the organisers, especially Lesley Taylor, for a thoroughly entertaining morning and a lot of pretty inspiring suppliers. The best are above but honorable mentions to the following:

• Victoria Lily Vintage - who will vintage up your wedding and also take pics with retro props.

    

• www.wonderdubs.co.uk - nice couple with a cute vintage-styled VW camper van.
• Jaunty Twig, an app which allows guests to take and share photos during the event – and view all the pics live at the venue.
• Antoinette Hoogstrate who makes photographic prints on wood

• Pauline Moore De-Lights – cool “MR & MR” Hollywood lights, and their facebook page also has one saying LOVE

• Favour Forty Five who make pretty cool personalised vinyl LP place settings. 

Hotel Pelirocco - Brighton's original rock'n'roll boutique hotel. Amy and Cecily were the lovely girls running the hotel's stand and got us plastered in about a minute flat with something called Cheeky Milkshake (Bols, yoghurt liqueur, Stoli Chocolate Raspberry, lime guide, vanilla).

Things I’m gutted I missed:

• Louise Tyler’s “bespoke crochet table centres” (I googled one of her crochet mushrooms – staggering!)
• Death & Glory Taxidermy - as I can’t think of anything much nicer to wear to a wedding than a dead, stuffed animal (only these morning I was wondering I could get away with wearing stuffed zebra finches)