“It was the best of times, it was the worst of…”, oh hell, as much as I would love to sound intellectual quoting Charles Dickens, there is yet another great American author who’s advice I truly cherish at this moment, the great Kenny Rogers, who said “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run”. On our flight back from Arizona, the debate quickly began, as to the location of the wedding.
According to SD and “The Google”, the wedding is typically held in the bride’s hometown. However, as both of us currently resided in NYC, as does my whole family and a good amount of hers, Phoenix seemed a tad unreasonable. So, like any other mature intelligent adult, I recommended that we get drunk and throw darts at a map of the US, and pick the closest city to the winning dart. This was swiftly vetoed. So, we moved on to Plan B which was making a list and pricing out venues (autor’s note: you’ll be happy to know I was drunk while making the spread sheet, so I got half my plan accomplished!). We looked at Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, Austin, etc. etc.. And finally settled on Southern California, which thankfully is perfectly nestled between New York and Arizona. In all fairness, I’ve always been fond of SoCal, and it’s surprisingly cheaper to fly cross-country then to most points in between. Now that we had a general location in mind, it was time to find the perfect venue.
Months before we had attended a wedding at the same spot as my Senior High School Prom, it was one of THOSE weddings. You know what I mean, the type where they checked all the options, complete with belly dancer, full row boat full of shell fish, a spinning wall with smoke and light up fireworks that the bride and groom emerged from behind. It was Long Island-tastic, and great for laughs, but I’d prefer another 20 guitars, or a Porshe to the 20 table moving dessert presentation complete with fake fire dancers. With this in mind, we had a baseline of what we didn’t want, and what we were looking to avoid. After figuring out costs and locations we narrowed it down to two venues, one a traditional catering hall space, and the other a non-traditional museum space, in San Diego.
We had been to the catering space on a prior trip out that way, and were pretty sold, even before the plane touched down. After visiting both spots, we took a ride up to Universal Studios Hollywood to get a bit of relaxation in, and sort out our thoughts. Lucky for us it took forever with LA traffic, on the trek to see the Back to the Future set, it made me really wish we had a flying DeLorean. During this time SD was in touch with a member of Billy Idol’s band’s wives, who had advised her that in her experience non-traditional people should have non-traditional weddings. So much for our White Wedding! We both came to realize that if we were going to do this destination wedding it should be unique to us.
As we both choked down our Dodger dogs after nearly puking on two small children on the Simpson’s ride (not even a real roller coaster, I’m pathetic, and I know it), we decided that having our wedding on a 120 year old ferry docked in the harbor would suit our personalities far better. I was glad we had the chance to think with clear heads and make this decision, especially, because, much to my dismay, the Back to the Future set was closed for a TV taping!
With Decision 1 made so easily, this wedding thing didn’t seem so scary after all. But needless to say, the fun was yet to come, and I didn’t have the first clue.
