A Nice Day for a Not Wedding

Hey everyone!

I really loved the last episode. I thought it captured so well exactly what was going on during that time. I actually never wanted to even have a party that big, it just kind of kept growing. Not like a wedding, but kind of like a wedding.

Gary Stressing and Brad Resting

And then when Brad and I met with Steven Petrarca for lunch to discuss the party and he said people would expect me to say something, it got me thinking about WHAT I wanted to say and what it was that I could do for Brad that would illustrate in some way how I felt without having to actually say it. Steven and I talked at some point after that lunch, and I expressed to him I wanted to do something special with a performance aspect, but one that was very personal, and he suggested a flash mob. As soon as he said it, something clicked and I thought what if we did a musical theater flash mob to One Day More from Les Miserables.Instantly I knew that was the song, but I didn't know if this was a crazy idea or if we could even pull it off. I immediately texted my friend, Alec Sulkin, who I write with on Family Guy and who is also a big "Les Miz" fan, something like, "Thinking of doing surprise performance for Brad of One Day More at party. Would you be in it?" And his response was, "Love it. Yes. Already nervous." So that decided it for me. At least I had two of the parts already cast. Not to mention I've never even sang before, much less in public (and on TV). Megan Mullally and I are friends from Will & Grace, and I adore her. We were having lunch around this time, and I told her what I was planning, and she loved the idea, and I was like, "Good, would you play Eponine?" After that it was our friend James Lecesne to play Thenardier and Brad's college friend from Canada, Trish Lahde, as Cosette and our writers' assistant at Family Guy, Jonah Platt, as Marius and Lindsay's dad, Philip Myers (who is a musical theater performer), as Jean Valjean, and finally as Madame Thenardier I called Brad's mom, Debbie, and I asked her if she would be interested, and she immediately said yes. The chorus consisted of our friends and family.

It became quite an undertaking. We also worked with Flash Mob America and my vocal coach, Jerry Sternbach. Everybody had to learn the song on their own. And we had only two mornings to rehearse for about 90 minutes each time. And we had to get the sound, lighting, blocking, and choreography down. It was very intense and, truly, the night before the party I thought I had made a horrible mistake and this was too big a production to pull off successfully with so little time to prepare.

And I was so afraid of disappointing all the people who agreed to participate in this, much less Brad. I really felt like I was starting to unravel. But the morning of the party during the second rehearsal (after several microphones broke and we had to figure out how and when we were going to put these microphones on during the party) something clicked and I thought we just might pull this off.But by this time MANY people knew about the secret (I would only allow people refer to it as "the thing"), and my biggest fear was that someone was accidentally going to slip and mention it to Brad. It had been a month in the planning at this point, and I really think I would have lost my mind if he found out. I was becoming a crazy person.

The day of the party I even started to lose my voice, which Brad of course instantly commented on. At that point I was lying about so many things that I couldn't even keep track of them -- where people were, who they were with, what I was doing, where I was going at 7:30 in the morning when I was taking voice lessons with Jerry (who I couldn't have done this without, thanks, Jerry!). I was starting to crack a little and I hadn't even prepared my speech.

My feeling was I'll just wing the speech to introduce the performance, but now I was getting nervous that I didn't have anything prepared. But once the party started something just took over. It was such a beautiful night, and Steven did such and AMAZING job! (It was the party I saw in my head, exactly! I can't thank you enough, Steven!)  Whoa Nelly catered the most incredible food, and when our family and friends started arriving, I was so happy and excited to see everybody that I just kind of let it all go. And when I got up and started my speech and began talking about how I met Brad, everything just felt so right and suddenly the performance started and now I barely even remember it happening. I just remember thinking once it started, "Oh, my god, this is really happening and I have no idea what my lyrics are." But it went off so beautifully, I couldn't believe it. (Remember we couldn't screw up at all, there was no chance for a do-over). Everybody was amazing! I was so happy and relieved and so incredibly grateful to all these people (and there were a lot of them!) for doing this for me. I was really moved, and as I say in the episode, that really took me by surprise, because the whole time I was focused on giving Brad a gift without even realizing that I was the one getting the gift. It really was a magical moment and the performance totally summed up how much I love Brad.We had crazy fun that night, and I owe so many thanks to so many people for making it happen, so thanks again, everyone! It would have been a perfect wedding. If it was a wedding. But it wasn't, Brad. It was, though, as much like a wedding, without actually being a wedding, as you can actually get.

Pushing Gary's Buttons

Brad and I approached this show as something that would celebrate our relationship and the people in our lives. So to all our friends and family who participated, thank you so much, you trusted us, and that means the world to me.

And I want to thank all of you who watched the show. It was a strange thing to open up your life like this, but somehow it has ended up only making my relationship with Brad stronger. I am so proud of him and so excited to see what the future holds for both of us.

Love,
Gary

We both miss Jasper very much and were so happy the episode was dedicated to him. He was the best dog.