The Perfect Wedding tells the story of Paul Fowler (Eric Aragon) and Gavin Greene (Jason T. Gaffney), two young gay men who meet and fall in love over the Christmas holidays.
Charismatic, handsome Paul is a recovering alcoholic, eighteen months sober, but still picking up the pieces of the destruction he’d wrought while drinking. He lives at home with his parents, Richard (James Rebhorn) and Meryl (Kristine Sutherland), and with their support and the help of his AA sponsor Zach (Sal Rendino), Paul is learning how to live one day at a time.
But Christmas is approaching, and Paul’s adopted sister Alana (Apolonia Davalos) is coming home for the holidays. This won’t be just a regular family celebration — she’s recently engaged and the weekend will be spent planning her June wedding. She’s bringing her best friends Roy (Roger K. Stewart) and Vicki (Annie Kerins) home with her, to help with the task.
Problem is, Roy is Paul’s ex-boyfriend, and their relationship was a casualty to Paul’s drinking. In fact, the two young men haven’t seen each other since their very messy breakup. Nervous about seeing his ex again, Roy talks his good friend Gavin into joining him for the weekend, and pretending to be his new boyfriend.
When Paul and Gavin meet, sparks of attraction fly — but Gavin thinks Roy’s still hung up on Paul. And of course, the last thing Paul wants to do is hurt his ex all over again.
Meanwhile, like all families, the Fowlers must deal with bad news as well as good, and we discover that patriarch Richard has been recently diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer’s. He is essentially symptom-free, but Meryl is terrified of what the future holds and throws herself into planning a lavish wedding for their daughter, Alana. Even though Meryl knows it’s foolish, she wants to create a wedding so big and so beautiful that no one — not even Richard — will ever forget it.
When Paul realizes that his sister’s wedding plans are getting steamrolled by their mom, he gets involved and convinces Alana’s fiancé Kirk (Brendan Griffin) to re-propose to her, asking her to marry him that very day, in a small ceremony at sunset near the water, with only close friends and family attending, just as Alana has always imagined. And with Paul’s help, Richard also confronts Meryl and convinces her to join him in the present instead of living burdened with the uncertainties of the future.
The proposal, the intimate wedding, and Paul and Gavin’s ultimate connection are touching scenes in a warm and funny story about a very real, modern American family.
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