"I'm going to marry Patrick. I am going to officiate at his wedding," the actor told the host of the UK's Jonathan Ross Show. And while it won't be the first time McKellan has presided over a friend's nuptials, he's still a little foggy on all the legal details. “I don’t know [how it's legally permitted],” admitted the actor. “But in Massachusetts, in the middle of America somewhere, you get a friend along, and I read out the words, and Sunny and Patrick will then be married… I’ve done it once before with two guys having a civil partnership. I was crying my eyes out,” said McKellan.
The Hollywood Reporter explains: "Massachusetts' Secretary of Commonwealth offers a service that allows a family friend or relative to perform a couple's wedding ceremony for a one-time fee of $25," says THR. Coincidentally, Massachusetts was the first US state to legalize same-sex marriage (way back in 2004), so if you happen to be writing some X-Men fan-fiction in which Magneto and Professor X do end up together, I think it would be nice to set the wedding there.
In case you're wondering what one wears to officiate a wedding, McKellan has a few pointers (it's not a wizard's robe or a villain's cape and it most certainly isn't your favourite t-shirt, regardless of how cool everyone thinks it is). At this first wedding he presided over, McKellan wore "a rather fetching white gown which I bought in India," which wasn't a problem, since neither of the two grooms wore white dresses. But for the Stewart/Ozell wedding, McKellan says he'll choose a different look. "You mustn’t upstage the bride,” he advises.
