This wedding is going to be Fab for all. Since the age of 7, Queer Eye’s culture expert Karamo Brown has been planning his future nuptials to the love of his life, imagining that he would someday have everything from the dreamy venue down to his ideal color scheme. In 2020, all that and more will become a reality when Brown marries his fiancé Ian Jordan.
“I’m in full planning mode,” Brown, who got engaged in May, tells The Knot in an exclusive interview. “Because when I was a boy and I was 7, I was already planning my wedding. I knew it wasn’t legal at the time. But in my mind, I had faith in our country that one day, my love would be recognized. It was literally [recently] watching people like RuPaul that had me thinking, ‘It has to be!’”
He adds, “If it wasn’t for four generations back-to-back having the courage to love and to live, we wouldn’t be doing this together today.”
The Netflix personality proposed to Jordan in a sentimental, family-filled moment in May, and he teases that his nuptials will be similar in experience for their beloved guests. Thankfully they have some time to work through their checklist. “We have the date set, it’s really special,” Brown says. “It’s 10/10/20, and we’re doing it that far off because hopefully we have more seasons of Queer Eye, so… you know, we’ve got to plan around that.”
Along with the date, the pair has secured a venue smack in the middle of the desert. “We rented out the Merv Griffin Estate in Palm Springs,” reveals Brown, who was promoting the new American Express Cash Magnet Card in New York City. “It’s beautiful because I want everyone to be on the estate and I want it to be a big party… We want all of our friends from college and our family—mine is overseas from Jamaica and Cuba—to be there, so we had to plan. It’s not like people are down the street, and his family, they’re working class people from Maine, so we want to give everyone more than enough time.”
(Photo Courtesy of Bill Davila for American Express)
Guests will be especially lucky to experience what sounds like a hyper-personalized occasion, which of course is a specialty for the show’s culture expert. “We’re going to be combining both of our cultures—he’s from Maine and I have a Caribbean background,” Brown notes. “We just did this tasting for curry lobster. We wanted to mix both of the cultures together, so we’ve been testing plates to see what works… Incorporating family and tradition is really big for me.”
While the menu is a work in progress, the color scheme may have been locked in, all thanks to Brown’s due diligence. “I have a folder for our outfits and our color scheme. Since it’s a fall wedding, we’re doing a plaid with navy and green,” he reveals. “There will also be some moments that I’m already planning because I’m big on surprises—obviously given the engagement.”
Brown dropped to one knee at the Hyde in West Hollywood on his longtime partner’s 40th birthday, and he even involved his kids in the surprise proposal. “It took about four to five months to plan due to shooting [Queer Eye]. To be honest, I wanted him to propose,” he admits. “And I realized he’s not going to do it—not because he didn’t love me, but there’s a lot of anxiety for men to do it right—and he was suffering from that. He’s an alpha in his own right, and we’re equals.”
For the elaborate moment, Brown adorably threw it back to their first date. “We talked about our family for like, two hours, and I was like, ‘They have to be a part of it.’ It was special,” he continues. “My sons called him ‘dad’ for the first time that night. The kids were like, ‘We have a surprise for you. We want to call you dad.’ And they were like, ‘Dad, turn around.’ And that’s when I was on my knee.”
While the moment was incredibly sweet, there was one tiny blunder: “I dropped the ring!” Brown exclaims. “As the kids were saying, ‘Dad, turn around,’ it rolled on the ground and everyone around me was like, ‘What the f—!’”
Thankfully, Brown retrieved the rings, both black David Yurman pieces featuring black diamonds. “Back when I was a social worker and a psychotherapist, I made a regular salary, but there were certain brands where I was like, ‘If I make it, I’m gonna buy this,’” he says. “And this was the one.”
Season 2 of Queer Eye is now streaming on Netflix. Secure your ideal wedding vision by starting with The Knot’s Style Quiz, here.
