I’ve had a few people tell me that I’d feel different after the wedding, but that it quickly reverts back to normal (I believe these words of wisdom would only apply to people who marry after having lived together for a while). Both S and I agree, though, that we feel no differently than before. That said, I think we’re both quite pleased to be the other’s lawfully wedded spouse.
The wedding was good. One of the better ceremonies I’ve been to. Certainly the best wedding that I’ve ever participated in! We got a lot of positive feedback – but that might be mostly based on the open bar (that, oddly, opened before the ceremony).
Here’s a mini review:
Venue: OverJoy Lounge
This is the bar over top of Joy Bistro (hence the name). Wooden floors and bar, some exposed brick walls, velvet banquettes, chandeliers, fireplace, good windows, and really bright bad art on the wall which somehow manages to look ok at night. Steve, the event guy (actually, I don’t know Steve’s title) made us feel at ease and well taken care of. We asked that there be a lot of candles, which, combined with the chandeliers turned low, looked fabulous. The servers and bar staff were very excellent – friendly and professional. Everyone found the food to be tasty, although with hor’s doeuvres it always ends up that some people get 4 pieces and others get 24.
After we picked the venue, almost everyone we spoke to knew of the place, had been to a wedding or event there, and liked it. Who knew? I’d definitely recommend it.
Officiant: Roben Goodfellow
As I mentioned earlier, Roben is a very friendly, fun person and we liked her immediately. I was a little dismayed not to hear back from her for a few weeks, but after calling her to enquire about the draft ceremony’s whereabouts ( it had apparently become lost in the vast unknown ether of the internet) we got a first cut that was very close to what we were looking for. We felt completely free to tinker with it so that it was a true reflection of what S and I were trying to accomplish. But I’m sure that for many people, the first cut would have been perfectly good.
Roben did an excellent job performing the ceremony, and, although I have very little experience in this area, I’d say we picked the cream of the officiant crop. We got a lot of positive feedback, everyone thought she did a great job.
Interestingly, when we started looking at officiants, Lil Sis said that if we wanted, she could find out the name of the officiant who performed some of the weddings on the boat she worked on in the summer. According to Lil Sis, she thought the woman might meet our needs. She never did get the name to us, but when she saw Roben at the ceremony, she said “that’s the one I was talking about”. Go figure!
Rings: Shelly Purdy
As I mentioned before, we decided to have Shelly Purdy make rings for us. New Year’s Eve came and I hadn’t heard from her yet, which got me a little worried that they wouldn’t be completed in time. So I called her and left messages on her cell and studio voice mail as well as sent an email. A few hours later, she called me back, saying she had just recevied the finished rings the day before, but had to polish them yet. She could get them to us that evening.
So that evening she came by on her way to spending New Year’s Eve with her kids at Nathan Phillips Square (sounds like fun!) with a little shopping bag with tissue paper and two ring boxes. I was worried – wondering if I made a bad decision to get diamonds in mine, wondering if they’d get in the way of the design. But my worries were unfounded. The ring looks great and the diamonds don’t get in the way of the design at all. The metal is yellower than I expected, though. Overall, it looks like pale yellow gold rather than white gold (when compared to other white gold rings I’ve seen at places like Experimetal or Hasler and Kim). I know you can get them rhodium plated – but I don’t like that ulta shiny white chrome look – which doesn’t look like white gold to me either.
S’s is a totally different looking ring than mine, except for similar engraving (which she asked for so that there’d be a relatedness between the two rings) and the overall pale yellow tone. On my finger, her ring looks like something from medieval times; on her finger it looks excellent. And my ring looks old-lady-ish on her hand. Which is why we don’t have matching rings! She’s jealous that my diamonds sparkle more than hers (mine are brilliant cut, and hers are princess cut. Hers are bigger, so I don’t feel sorry for her at all), and I’m a little jealous of the general flatness/squareness of her ring (mine curves out).
We’re both happy with our rings, though. I just have to try not to scratch the hell out of mine. I put my hand down while I jumped over a small wall in Arizona and the volcanic rock scraped into my ring. Piss me off. All so I could take a picture of the beautiful vista on a camera that would get stolen a day later.
Wedding Cupcakes: Cream Puffs in Venice
Ivonne is a co-worker of mine who loves to bake. She brings in fabulous baked treats to work now and again, for us all to enjoy and has a blog with the most wonderful food porn. One day, she came by my office with these attractive cards — each with a crop of one of her wonderful pictures on the front, and her co-ordinates on the back. She said she was getting into the business of being a baking caterer.
I’m not sure how much business she’s getting. I think that her day job and travelling keep her pretty busy. But I approached her about baking cupcakes for the wedding – I could think of no one else I’d rather hire for the job – and she was excited at the prospect.
I gave her very little direction (S and I had only a general idea of what we wanted), and she came through like a champ. Beautiful and delicious – some orange, some chocolate - they were nicely decorated (fancy but not uptight, and she did all the icing flowers herself) with plenty of icing (one of the few requests we made, due to S’s love of icing). The cupcakes ended up being just perfect. Plus, she threw in dozens of cellophaned mini rosemary shortbread cookies to give out to the guests to take home.
If anyone is looking for a baker, hire Ivonne. Do it!
Flowers: Ladybug Florist
We weren’t sure whether to have flowers or not, so on a whim we stopped by Ladybug florists while we were in the village. We explained that we were having an “event” at OverJoy and thought an arrangement for the bar and for the gift table would be a good idea (we said “event” for fear that saying “wedding” would add 50% to the price). So they said they could do a tall one for around $85 and a smaller one for $45 for the gift table. I was surprised at the $85 quote, especially since his hands made it seem quite tall. So we ordered them and had them delivered (one less thing to worry about).
They were in place when we got there, one on the little signing table, and the other on the gift table. But I didn’t notice them until I asked S later in the evening and she pointed them out. Yes, I’d say they were as described when I think about it – but they didn’t look particularly interesting and I don’t think they added anything to the event. The candlelight was enough on its own. We took the flowers with us to grace our house for the open house we had the next day – and left them to rot in their vases while we honeymooned.
Music: iPod and the internet and iTunes and stuff I already owned
We were told we could just bring an iPod in and supply our own music for the event. This sounded irresistable to me. First, it gave me an excuse to buy an iPod. Secondly, it let me try to create a mood using music. Thanks goodness for Lil Sis and her skills at acquiring music from the interent, though, because I had to supplement my own music with 100 or so tracks from the magical internet. S also put on a dozen or so songs from iTunes.
The person we assigned the duty of operating the ipod made the same mistake I sometimes make with the nano’s ultra small control wheel – skipping over the first song or playlist and starting with next one. This was unfortunate because I had picked Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole to be played while we were signing (not only is it a most excellent and dreamlike rendidition of the song, but it’s also a little over 5 minutes long!). Alas, it was skipped over. But in the big scheme of things, not a problem.
Kazoos: Hohner
I could have bought a bunch off of eBay, but didn’t want to risk the wait, so went to Metro Sound and Music near where I work. I hoped to get 10 the same colour, but had to settle for either going for the rainbow effect (I know, a gay wedding – it would be perfect. But just because I’m a homo doesn’t mean that everything I do has to be done with a rainbow motif) or for 5 purple and 5 white. I chose the purple and white. $2.39 each – not bad. And they’re good durable kazoos, too!
After we asked people to kazoo, it turned out that more people wanted to join. So we tried to buy two more kazoos, but they only had a white one left (and a bunch of red, yellow and orange ones). So we bought the white one ($2.99 – they use a variable verbal pricing policy) and had 11 kazooers.
We asked our friend Laura, a conductor and musician, to lead the kazoo band. She held a kazoo rehearsal at our house and I was amazed that she was able to get such a great performance out of the group. It was more than I expected. It wasn’t just fun, it was actually good.
Although some of my co-workers thought having the processional done via a kazooed bridal march would not be sufficiently dignified, everyone loved it. It was definitely unique, it sounded great, offered people the chance to participate (and get to keep a souvenier kazoo), and set a relaxed and fun tone for the rest of the ceremony. Yah Hohner, Yay Laura and thanks to our kazooers (even my sister, who laughed through most of it, causing Romy to laugh too).
Photography/Filmography: Various
Ok – we decided not to use a “real” photographer. Instead, we asked one of S’s uncles to take pictures during the ceremony (but with no pressure – saying we were also having someone videotape it) and we asked M to videotape it as well (actually, she was going to be the back-up photographer, but I think she offered to tape it, and edit it!). Plus, we encouraged the guests to take pics and share them. D&T get bonus points for bringing us a disk of pics the next day! So far those are the only ones we received, although some have shown up on Facebook.
I had taken some pics of the wedding on my canon G3, and also brought it on the honeymoon (leaving the Panasonic FZ7 for S to use). I took a lot of pics, as S was not inclined to carry a camera with her all the time. Unfortunately, I left the camera in the Subway restaurant in Boulder City, and some asshole swiped it. I don’t really care about the camera, just wish I had the pictures. I guess in the future I’ll have to find a way to download pics often during the trip.
Travel Agent: Flight Centre
I had done a lot of searching using Expedia.ca, but didn’t have the nerve to actually use them (google them and you’ll find a lot of complaints). So I decided to use a more bricks-and-mortarish travel agent, first calling Travel Cuts. They claimed the hotel I wanted had no availability during that period. Ok – that just wasn’t true, so I certainly wasn’t going to use them. Next, I dialed the 1-800 number for Flight Centre. The person who answered the call was so busy that she said she’d have to call back the next day. Ok…
She called back the next day (New Year’s eve) with a brief quote, saying I could book it on Jan 2. Nothing like doing it all last minute! Prices were comparable to Expedia so I booked a flight to Phoenix, a car rental in Phoenix with a drop off in Las Vegas, hotel in Las Vegas and a return flight from Las Vegas. Mind you , she said the hotel rates increased from our last call. I checked out the hotels website and the rates there hadn’t changed, so I got the travel agent to “match” the hotels posted rates. (!). I decided that we’d sort out a hotel in Phoenix when we got there. She didn’t mention that this could have been a significant problem when trying to enter the US. Luckily someone else did before we got to the customs officer.
Flight: US Airways
One of the few airlines that offered affordable direct flights from Las Vegas. But you get what you pay for. Narrow seats, someones seat cushion wouldn’t stay secure so had to switch it, the in flight movie was shown overhead on tiny tiny screens (only watchable if you pay for the headsets), a meal could be purchased but they only had something like 12 meals on hand.
When we got to the airport, the US Airways rep said we had to know where we were staying when we landed or we wouldn’t get through US Customs. Good to know – and why didn’t our travel agent mention this? He also said “you’re travelling together?!?” – and we learned that we had seats reserved in different rows from each other and that there was nothing available together. But he was great, and by the time we checked in at the gate, he found us two seats together. He made it sound like this was a failing of the travel agent. So I sent her off an eamil and asked that two seats, together, be reserved for our return trip (and we did get to sit together without problem on the way back). Anyway – I was quite happy to have run into that US Airways rep – especially considering US Airways came in last in a Consumer Reports customer satisfaction survey (per Wikipedia).
Car Rental: Avis
The travel agent recommended Avis because they have a better record with customer service issues than the other rental companies. We ended up with a PT Cruiser, which was ok to drive and easy to get into. I don’t think I’d ever choose to own one, but it was fine. The travel agent warned us that there’s be a $100 drop off fee because we were returning it to a different city, and she said to expect to pay another 20% in local taxes/fees. Well, it ended up being more like 50% in taxes. We paid $198 for the 3 day rental, $100 drop off fee, and $143 in taxes. Crazy. But the last time I rented a car it was with another company and equally shady.
Travel destination 1: Phoenix
It reminded us a lot of Ecuador - the palm trees and cacti and cement walls around residential areas. It definitely had the feel of someplace that wasn’t home anymore. The USA sure has a varied geography. Day 1 we drove to Globe then along the Apache Trail. Very excellent scenery along the winding dirt road. I took a lot of great pics (I hope the asshole who took my camera enjoys them). It took us around 6 or 7 hours, but was a great drive.
We had intended to drive to Monument Valley, but to do so we’d have to drive through Flagstaff which was expecting around a foot of snow (on top of the three they already got). So instead we headed west to the Colorado River and drove north along that. Stopped for the night in Lake Havasu City, where the original London Bridge sits, having been moved there in the late 1960’s. The next day took us along the old Route 66 – an excellent highway through the desert, with many a twist and turn through hils. A great drive. We went past the Hoover Dam stopping in Boulder City for lunch (and losing my camera there).
Interestingly, we had to stop at inspection checkpoints twice. Once when we went into California briefly – we were waved through, we thought because we had California plates. The second time was before we crossed the Hoover Dam – again we were waived through. They’re also building a huge bridge beside the Dam, as a result of hightened security following 9/11.
Travel desitnation 2: Las Vegas
I had been to Las Vegas once before, with Romy. We stayed with her brother, who lived there at the time. I thought it would be a fun place to return to – like Disneyworld for adults. But I’d have to say this time I was overwhelmed by the excess of it all. It seemed to be a celebration of everything despicable about western culture, and was likely my last time there.
Hotel in Las Vegas: Wynn
It’s one of, if not the, most expensive hotel on the strip in Vegas. The room was huge, the bathroom had marble floor, a huge bath, separate roomy shower, hers and hers sinks (more marble) and a separate water closet. Big closet with two robes. Nice king-sized bed with remarkably comfy hypo-allergenic pillows facing a huge floor-to-ceiling window with a great view of the strip. Sofa, ottoman, small table with two chairs, desk with chair, and a small flat screen tv. The towels were turkish (but suffered from the hotel’s laundry) and the sheets were egyptian cotton. Andy Warhol daisy prints on the wall.
As with expensive hotels, you can get anything – at a price. Laundry, but $7+ to have a t-shirt washed. Snacks in the room, but $10 for a bag of chips (all on pressure sensors – if you move the item for more than 60 seconds, you automatically get billed for it). High speed internet, but $11.95 for 24 hours. The Comfort Inn near Phoenix, in contrast, had rooms at 1/3 the cost and included breakfast, free internet (and computer access if you didn’t have a laptop with you), a vending machine with regular vending machine prices, and a coin laundry for guests.
Still, I wanted someplace gorgeous for our honeymoon, and it was that. Noisy though – I hadn’t considered that an expensive hotel on the strip would transmit the noise so easily to the person trying to sleep on the Egyptian sheets in the king sized bed, covering her ears with the nice hypo-allergenic pillow. The concierge did give us 4 pairs of earplugs, though (for free!).
Cirque du Soliel Show: “O”
You can’t go to Las Vegas and not see a Cirque show. They’re everywhere. The first time there, Romy and I saw Mystere – it was absolutely fantastic. Every Cirque show has failed in comparison since (although Kooza last year came close). O also failed, but it was still fun. Not $165 per ticket fun, but fun. And definitely something I hadn’t seen before, with all the water. We’d have gone to see Mystere too, but it was dark while we were there.
Most Expensive Meal: Various
At the Wynn, I had a $15 plate of spaghetti and on another day a $13 burger, but they were both delicious and almost worth the price. At Magellano’s (a non-hotel restaurant), we shared a $12 salad and a $15 bowl of baked ziti (not as good as M’s, but still tasty) while sitting across from a huge signed headshot of Sinatra. At Paris (the casino, not the real Paris), I had chicken and frites with mushrooms for $18 – chicken was a little dry, but it was an entire half chicken so I wasn’t able to finish it anyway. The best part of the meal was sitting across from the Bellagio and watching the fountain show. For lunch at the Bellagio, I had the steak special for $19, which was technically the most expensive meal I had (although it seemed like more of a bargain than a $15 bowl of spaghetti) and was better, I think, than the $23.50 5mm thick steak S had at Paris.
Because the food was so good, I didn’t mind that it was sometimes expensive. But why $4 for a glass of diet coke? Why?
US Shopping: Fashion Show mall.
Ok, we shopped at a mall on the strip in Vegas – so I figure we were definitely paying top dollar — and it still came to less than we’d pay here. S bought a lot of necessities – new shoes, bras, underwear, wallet, lululemon wear for yoga class, luggage to carry it all back with. She rarely shops, so it was good that we had the time for it. I saw a waffle iron that I considered buying (but where would I put it?). Waring Pro $80 – it’s something like $130 here. I bought a jean jacket because I didn’t have a jacket with me (just my winter coat). $50 at the Gap at the Caesar’s Palace shops - I’m sure it would be at least $75 here. We brought back way less than permitted by Customs though. I guess we didn’t try hard enough!
So – that’s more than anyone ever wanted to know, I’m sure.
