Power

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Power 〰️

The Edinburgh Fringe is back for 2026, and with it, our annual feature series! This year, we’re taking on POWER: Who’s got it? Where is it? Where should it be? How do you get it? Our comedians are the only ones with the answers.

By Courtney Büchner

When my fiancee and I started planning our wedding we knew we wanted to do something BIG, BOLD and DARING. Something no other white, middle class woman had ever done before...Something so crazy our friends would say “WOW! Only two kooky crazy lesbians in love could do this.”

So we got married in a barn. Have you ever seen a couple do this? I don’t think so. We are the first.

I was also one of the first of my friends to get married and as I’ve watched more of my girl friends get engaged I have seen them slowly lose their mind.

They often turn up on my doorstep, straight women holy water in hand (Aperol Spritz) crying that they hadn’t heard of lymphatic drainage before and that a bride on BrideTok told them that they were a “little piggie” because they hadn’t lymphatic drained since the day of their birth. One of my friends, after her third Aperol but before her first Savvy B, asked me why I hadn’t found planning a wedding complete hell.

The thing is, once my fiancee and I had picked our insanely unique and controversial wedding venue, we were hit with so many decisions from vows, to dances, to music choice, napkin folds and floral arrangement all of which I had never thought of before (I have now concluded that posh pocket napkin is the best and who the fuck choses swan?). But it dawned on me, while I sipped my chamomile tea and my friend had her first Savvy B, that the reason I could find joy in making these decisions and in planning my wedding was simple. It was because of…

Heelies.

Early on in the planning, I had decided that I wanted to heelie at my wedding. Yup, the verb to describe lacing on a pair of white trainers that (SURPRISE) have a wheel underneath them.

I didn’t know if it would be down the aisle, as the intro to dinner or in the first dance. But I knew that if I wanted to…I could heelie anywhere and at any time I liked. That this decision was ultimately my own. Knowing I could do whatever crazy and kooky thing that popped into my mind was beautiful and it granted me pure bliss. But why did I feel this way when none of my fellow engaged friends did?

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And then it hit me. They were straight (we are allies supporting them on this journey) and I was gay. Maddy (my fiancee) and I are two women in love (brag). We had absolutely no traditions that needed preserving in the eyes of the old JC (Jesus Christ) or ST (Sandi Toksvig).

This is a lot of our guests' first gay weddings.

This is my first gay wedding.

There are no rules.

There is no “this is how it’s always been done.”

And so, when I suggested to Maddy that we enter our wedding breakfast to RAYE’s “Where the Hell is my Husband” on heelies, she didn’t bat an eyelid. We loved that idea. Why wouldn’t we do it? To some of my friends this might have seemed like an “out of the box” idea but we had no box.

The power of heelies gave us utter freedom.

And the freedom didn’t stop there. Every question that has a “traditional” answer we got to choose ourselves based on our personalities rather than something that was set in stone hundreds of years ago or that we panicked our family/friends might expect.

Who is walking down the aisle. Me. I like attention more than Maddy.

Who will stand at the front? Maddy. Cause she’s worried she’ll forget how to walk if people watch her. (I’d argue this position is more attention seeking as you stand solo in front of people for a while).

Are we having hymns? No, we’re having our guests sing our favourite pop songs. I love karaoke.

Are we giving our guests weird sugar-coated almonds? No, I want to give them ties to wear around their heads. Why? The closest I’ve felt to pure ecstasy was when I wore a tie around my head at a party (straight men are cooking with this).

Are we both wearing dresses? Maddy has worn a dress once in her life and it was like a dog walking on its hind legs. She’s wearing a suit.

Are you taking cute “prom” style couple photos or school style photos lined up with our family? No and we all (straights and gays) should stop doing this.

So from your friendly neighbourhood lesbian (four chamomile teas in), if I could offer you one bit of advice, it’s that it wasn’t really ever about the heelies. It was about what they represented: The freedom to celebrate however we wanted because a celebration of your love is exactly that…a celebration of YOUR love.

So go and find your own pair of heelies and make your wedding yours not someone else’s x

(And if you want to include heelies, I recommend training for at least 3 months because it uses thigh muscles I didn’t even know existed till I put those shoes on.)

Courtney Buchner: One of the Girls is running in Pleasance Courtyard (Cellar) from August 7-31st, 18:55. Tickets here

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