Love is a many-splendored thing, especially when you’re gawking at it from the outside. In this column, we’ll be examining the celebrity couples that give us hope for our own romantic futures and trying to learn what we can from their well-documented bonds.
Pride is a great excuse to celebrate all that s great (and collectively mourn all that s still not so much fun) about being part of the LGBTQ+ community, but amid all the parties and parades and inexplicably rainbow-hued cocktails, it s nice to remember that queer and trans love stories aren t just limited to the month of June; personally, I m very committed to over-investing in cute LGBTQ+ couples all year round, and one of my very favorite examples of the genre is Broad City star and A League of Their Own reboot creator Abbi Jacobson and her wife, actor Jodi Balfour.
Jacobson first referenced her bisexuality publicly in a 2018 Vanity Fair interview, telling the magazine: “I kind of go both ways; I date men and women. They have to be funny, doing something they love.” Later that year, in her memoir, Jacobson described her coming-out journey in somewhat wistful terms, writing: “I felt open, and figured if I ever met a woman I was interested in, I would see what happened. But I didn t really put that much thought into it, and I never felt that pang of desire, so I stuck with men. Looking back, I wish I had explored myself more thoroughly and found the beautiful parts of who I am that are attracted to the person, not the gender.” (Jacobson s Broad City co-star Ilana Glazer is also queer, and the show features some of TV s most memorable gay characters; remember Ilana s doppelganger girlfriend, played perfectly by Alia Shawkat? I also like to believe that Garol from North Brother Island is canonically queer; happy Pride to her only.)
Jacobson has been with Balfour, a South African actor who has appeared on shows including Ted Lasso, True Detective and The Crown—as Jackie Kennedy, no less!—since 2020, but the two made news this week when photos of their recent wedding were published in Cultured magazine (and uploaded onto Instagram for nosy queers such as myself to peruse. See the images for yourself, below:
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There are infinite ways to dress a two-bride wedding—remember this Vogue wedding with the custom Ralph Lauren velvet cape, which I reference way more than is mentally healthy?—but I have to say that I m particularly partial to Jacobson s decision to pair a black gown with Balfour s more traditional white dress. Both of the brides looks were The Row and were purchased “right off the rack,” and although Balfour noted in the interview that the party got so rowdy that “everyone s nice clothes became wet rags,” the side of me that has been working at Vogue for the last five years deeply hopes that they preserved their dresses intact before partying down. (Then again, I m currently spilling croissant flakes on the bought-on-sale-but-still-expensive Mara Hoffman top I swore to myself I would treat like precious cargo once I found out the brand was shutting down.) Anyway, mazel tov to the happy couple!
