Bridal Party
Kaz DeWolfe - Enby of Honor
Kaz DeWolfe is Shira’s closest friend in the Mad Pride/disability justice movement. Shira reached out to Kaz after Kaz posted in a neurodiversity group, and they quickly discovered their shared worldviews and beliefs. They co-founded a blog and a digital space together, and they frequently collaborate on projects. They text almost every day and sometimes they think about things so similarly that Shira says they have a “shared brain.”
Caroline Hance
Caroline Hance is Shira’s best friend from childhood. Shira and Caroline met in the ninth grade at the Ada Long Creative Writing Workshop at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Caroline was a huge source of support when Shira experienced bullying in high school, and even though they attended college in different parts of the country, they continued to keep in touch and support each other through struggles with dating, school, and family.
Gabriella Garaffa
Gabriella Garaffa is another good friend of Shira’s. She reached out to Shira after seeing some of her writings online and finding out that they both live in Tampa. They became close friends after discussing their shared belief in Mad Pride and Mad autonomy, as well as their mutual interest in the intersections between Mad Pride and fat acceptance. Gabby has been a huge source of support throughout the wedding planning process and even helped Shira pick out her wedding dress!
Ginger Hoffman
Ginger Hoffman is the first Mad Pride activist and researcher that Shira ever met. Her research, and more importantly, her friendship, played a critical role in helping Shira come to accept herself and be okay with herself as a Mad, neurodivergent, disabled person. Through countless voice memos, mini philosophical rants about the terrible state of humanity, and late night text conversations, Ginger has supported Shira through numerous periods of crisis and distress. Shira is very excited to celebrate her wedding with Ginger!
Nev Jones
Nev Jones is a professor at the University of South Florida, a mentor to Shira, and the reason she and Andy moved out here in the first place. Nev and her husband, Bradley Jones, hosted them when they first visited Tampa in 2018, and housed them when they first arrived. Her wisdom, experience, vision, and generosity have been instrumental to Shira as she has oriented herself both to Tampa and to the professional world.
Groomsmen
Will Collings
William is the younger brother of Andy Collings. Growing up, he was Andy’s arch-rival, the antithesis of everything Andy thought he wanted to be. Two weeks after Andy moved out, he magically transformed into his best friend, the only guy who really got it. Funny how that works. Will is now a goddamn rocket scientist, pursuing his masters degree in electrical engineering while working in a research lab funded by JPL, AKA the rocket guys.
Will Anklin
Will Anklin is, functionally speaking, the third Collings child. He was best friends with Andy and Will simultaneously, as difficult as that juggling act must have been. It is theorized that he learned to speak by watching a combination of Toy Story and Red Dwarf tapes, finishing every day with a ritualistic screening of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Combined with Andy and Will Collings, they form the sketch-comedy supergroup “Weaselonius,” where he served as the auteur visionary that was plainly too skilled for the rest of the group to keep up with.
Patrick Hwang
When Andy moved to Los Angeles, he had nothing. No cash, no credit, no job history (Burn Notice. Watch it). But he found his way to a screenwriting group that Patrick ran, and he knew then that things would never be the same. With Patrick, Andy attempted to make half a dozen films, delighted in the glories of In-N-Out Burger, learned to cook more than macaroni, and explored parts of LA that he never would have found otherwise. Patrick is a top-secret software engineer, coding well into the night to protect our freedoms and our social security numbers. Or maybe he’s developing an app….? Hard to say. It is top-secret, after all.
James Aponte
James (or Jim, for short), is one of the best things that Andy got out of film school. On a film set, the two just click; they gel; they groove. They work together like peanut butter and chocolate, or like peanut butter and jelly, but not like chocolate and jelly (gross). Jim is the best friend who is always there to tell you “man, that blows. But you gotta keep moving, dude.” He writes a feature-length screenplay every month, he has a list of 100 movies that Andy NEEDS to watch and probably never will, and he refuses to take “no” for an answer. Ever.