On Tuesday night, TV Land promoted the second season of its sitcom Happily Divorced in a rather unusual way. Instead of the typical red-carpet-focused affair, the event at the XL nightclub saw show star Fran Drescher officiate a gay wedding. And the stunt by the Viacom-owned channel wasn't a hoax: Drescher, who became an ordained minister especially for the occasion, led the short ceremony between Tom Wahlen and Russell Kemp before a crowd of the couple's friends and family as well as press and network executives.
Produced by Lori Levine and her team at Flying Television, the 400-person event inside the newly opened gay-targeted hotel Out NYC was designed not only to play off the main theme of Happily Divorced—the series is inspired by Drescher's own marriage to a gay man who later came out—but also underscore the actress's support for the L.G.B.T. community. "We all had a very keen sense that while what we were doing was technically promoting a show and getting two people married, we were also shining a very big spotlight on marriage equality," said Levine. "That's so important, and it's a huge cause for Fran."
"This is a very special occasion for that family, so I take my responsibility very seriously," Drescher said. "I want tonight to go well, I want it to be meaningful for them. I don't want it to seem like a rushed publicity stunt. I also feel like it's an opportunity to leverage my celebrity and bring focus to marriage equality. I think they are an exemplary example of what a same-sex family looks like. Anyone that turns the love between two consenting adults into a negative doesn't truly understand the meaning of the word."
In that spirit, "Love Is Love" became the tagline used by Drescher and TV Land to promote the festivities on social media channels. For the physical elements of the event, Levine enlisted some wedding vendors to help set the scene inside the 14,000-square-foot club. Floral company Blush Designs provided arrangements of white orchids and an aisle runner, while noted cake-maker Sylvia Weinstock designed a piece shaped to look like a over-size vase of flowers. Georgetown Cupcake provided dozens of its baked goods, M2M supplied a DJ, and the hotel's soon-to-open restaurant Kitchin served an array of passed hors d'oeuvres.
To keep the focus on the couple, the production team kept promotional imagery to a minimum, using only a few areas such as the façade of the DJ booth for branding. Other nods to Happily Divorced included adding cassis to the Champagne for the toast, which gave the bubbly a pink hue to match the color of the show's logo. Additionally, signs dotted around the space encouraged guests to promote the event on social media platforms and TV Land posted photos to the show's Facebook page, tweeted throughout the night, and gave out season one DVDs to the first 50 who checked in on Foursquare.
