Tomorrow, Elton John will marry David Furnish.
Like Canada, gay marriages have just become legal in Britain, and the marriage of Elton John and David Furnish will be one of the first.
Elton's £100,000 wedding warm-up
by NICOLE LAMPERT and EMILY COOK, Daily Mail
December 2005
Here comes the bride: Elton arrives for his 'hen night'
The guests were not sure whether it was a stag do or a hen night.
But Sir Elton John's £100,000 pre-wedding party seemed to offer the best of both worlds.
Guests who arrived at a former strip club in Soho last night were greeted by bare-chested waiters wearing stag horns.
The cabaret show - which included performances by Bryan Adams and Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant - was compered by TV presenter Paul O'Grady, also known as the drag queen Lily Savage
"We're going to tie them to a lamppost, cover them with shaving foam - it's an old-fashioned stag do," he said.
Elizabeth Hurley, in shimmering white, added a little girlie glamour as she arrived with boyfriend Arun Nayar.
Other guests at the Too2Much club included columnist Janet Street-Porter, Take That singer Gary Barlow and rock star Kid Rock.
They were followed by TV presenter Donna Air, Jimmy Choo owner Tamara Mellon, TV style gurus Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, Tim Rice and the Osbournes.
Cilla Black already had a wedding present in mind as she arrived.
"I'm going to get them a toaster," she declared.
The club Too2Much was formerly Raymond's Revue Bar, a cornerstone of Soho for decades.
Inside, the plush decor includes an auditorium with red leather and banquette seating, a bar decorated with Swarovski crystals, chairs dipped in rubber and sculptured glass walls.
Sir Elton, 58, and his partner David Furnish, 43, were an hour late.
Unlike most of their guests, they were keen not to be seen arriving and were smuggled in through a back door minutes before the show.
The couple, known for their outrageous dress sense, looked unusually understated with Sir Elton in a turquoise suit and Furnish in a sparkly black number.
The party was arranged by shoe designer Patrick Cox. The couple are both expected to be wearing his shoes at their wedding ceremony tomorrow. The hour-long cabaret show also included performances from Sir Ian McKellen and former Blue singer Lee Ryan.
Many guests regarded last night's lavish party as simply a curtain raiser to the main event tomorrow.
The couple will 'marry' at the Guildhall in Windsor in one of Britain's first civil partnership ceremonies.
They will then celebrate with 700 of their closest friends at their £ 12million home nearby.
The reception is expected to cost about £1million.
At least £10,000 of that will go towards covering the cost of police officers to control the star-spotters expected to turn out.
dailymail.co.uk
