Director Brett Haley knew from the moment he began adapting People We Meet on Vacation for Netflix that one element of the story required special care: the gay wedding.
Speaking about the film adaptation to Gayety, Haley said ensuring the authenticity of that moment was both a creative and personal priority. The wedding, which appears in Emily Henry’s bestselling novel, plays a meaningful role in the story and its emotional arc, and Haley was adamant that it remain intact on screen.
“When there’s something like a gay wedding in a book, which there is in People We Meet on Vacation, I wanted to make sure that we got it right,” Haley said. “And I wanted to make sure that we were true to the book and true to those characters.”
Haley said there was never any consideration given to altering or minimizing the wedding to make it more “mainstream.” In fact, he was blunt about rejecting that approach altogether.
“The last thing I want to do is sort of wash that and say, ‘Oh, let’s just make it a straight wedding,’” he said. “I think that’s bullshit. We’re not going to do that.”
For Haley, authenticity extended beyond the script and into the casting process. He said representation behind and in front of the camera mattered, especially for a moment as culturally and emotionally significant as a queer wedding. The grooms, played by out actors Miles Heizer and Tommy Do were the perfect choice.
“It was very important to me that we attempted to find actors who were out as a first starting place,” Haley said. “That was important to me too.”
That approach ultimately led to the casting of Tommy and Miles in the roles of the couple getting married. Haley praised both actors for their performances and the energy they brought to the production.
“So we started there, and we ended up with Tommy and Miles, who are incredible and kill it,” he said.
People We Meet on Vacation, based on Henry’s popular novel, follows two longtime friends whose annual trips together slowly evolve into something more. While the central love story is heterosexual, the book has been embraced by LGBTQ readers for its warmth, emotional honesty and inclusive world, including the presence of queer characters whose lives are treated with care rather than spectacle.
Haley said he also wanted the wedding itself to feel intentional and celebratory, not generic. While filming in Barcelona, he envisioned a setting that felt distinctly queer, joyful and cinematic.
“When we were in Barcelona, I was like, gays would have a night wedding with amazing lighting and lights everywhere,” Haley said.
The result, he said, is a wedding scene designed to feel elevated and authentic, a reflection of joy rather than a checkbox moment. Haley emphasized that he wanted the sequence to feel like a natural extension of the characters’ identities, not a toned-down version made for broader appeal.
As Hollywood continues to face criticism for sidelining or sanitizing LGBTQ stories in adaptations, Haley’s comments underscore a growing push among filmmakers to protect queer representation, especially when it already exists in source material.
For Haley, the goal was simple: respect the story and the people it represents.
“We were true to the book, and we were true to those characters,” he said. “That mattered to me.”
