Luna: New Moon

Meridian loves a wedding and there is no wedding bigger than the marriage of Lucasinho Corta and Denny Mackenzie. The Eagle of the Moon has donated his private gardens for the ceremony: the trees have been dressed with bows and biolights and twinkling stars. The bergamots and kumquats and dwarf oranges have been sprayed silver. Paper lanterns are strung between the branches. The path will be strewn with rose petals. AKA has donated a hundred white doves for a spectacular, wing-clapping release. They’ve been engineered to die within twenty-four hours. The vermin laws are strict.

The contracts will be signed in the Orange Pavilion. Behind the happy boy and boy a squadron of aerialists will perform a winged ballet high in Antares Hub, weaving ideograms in the air with streamers attached to their ankles. The Eagle of the Moon has made small grants available for the residents of Antares Hub to decorate their neighbourhoods. Banners hang from balconies, streamers festoon the crosswalks and the bridges drip strings of Diwali biolights. Balloons in the shape of manhua bats and butterflies and ducks navigate the hub’s airspace. Space rental on those balconies with the best views has hit six hundred bitsies. The finest vantages on the bridges and catwalks were tagged and bagged long before. Exclusive image rights have been signed to Gupshup after a ferocious auction: the access agreement is stern: media drones must keep a respectful distance and no direct interviews with either oko will be entertained.

The four hundred guests will be waited upon by twenty catering staff and eighty servers. Cultural and religious diets will be accommodated, and all manner of dietary intolerances. There will be meat. A joke is running around that Lucasinho made the wedding cake, in his signature style. Not true: the Ker Wa bakery has the longest established tradition of oko cakes and moon cakes. Kent Narasimha from the Full Moon bar of the Meridian Holiday Inn has created a celebratory cocktail: the Blushing Boy. It involves a designer one-shot gin, foams, cubes of jelly that dissolve and send spirals of colour and flavour up through the gin and flakes of gold foil. Virgin cocktails and herbal waters for non-alcohol drinkers.

The security screening started a week ago. LDC, Corta and Mackenzie security have liaised on an unprecedented level. The gardens of Jonathon Kayode are being scanned down to the level of dust-motes and dead skin-flakes.

Three days to the wedding of the the year! What will the boys wear? Here are spreads of Lucasinho Corta’s latest looks. The preppy colloquium boy. His moon-run party tweed and tan pants. His two weeks as a fashion icon, when everyone pulled on suit-liners and drew on them with marker pens. His grandmother’s eightieth party; his grandmother’s memorial, so sad, so soon. His return to the fashion flashlight: who does his make-up? So very defining of this season. Heads up, boys! You’re all going to be wearing this look. Denny Mackenzie: oh who cares? When was a Mackenzie ever fashionable? But who will design the wedding suits. We simply can’t leave it to the familiars. Design AIs we’re loving include Loyale, San Damiano, Boy de la Boy, Bruce and Bragg, Cenerentola. Who will get the contract? And the cosmetics …

Two days to the wedding of the year! What makes the Dragons so much better than any of us: class. The Cortas have shown sheer class throughout the matrimonial process. It’s less than a month since the terrible attack on Ariel Corta, but not only is she as mobile as ever on her bot legs, she arranged the nikah from her hospital bed! And only two weeks ago, the whole moon was rocked and saddened by the news of the death of Adriana Corta. But what better way for the Cortas to show their courage than chin up, dress up, glam up: the wedding of the year! Class tells.

One day to the wedding of the year. The sure social signifier of the now is: are you on the guest list, or aren’t you? No one’s telling, but Gupshup has called in a few debts, dealt out a few threats, lavished kisses and micro-kittens and we can exclusively tell you who’s on the guest list! And who’s not! Prepare to be shocked …