T-15 Minutes: Hiding in the Cactus Cave

I'm not sure what you are supposed to feel right before you get married. Given the wedding party and I were huddled in a dark cave adjacent to the ceremony site, secretly sequestered away, I'm not even sure what I did feel was what *is* commonly felt. Nevertheless I felt excited. Happy. Ready to do this thing. I felt a little anxious too, but only in as much as I worried I would mess up my part of the performance (I did later flub my vows... 😅). I was in a beautiful place with my friends and family who loved me, about to commit myself to a lifetime with my best friend. I cannot recall any chilly feet or burgeoning second thoughts. Perhaps I just lack introspection or appreciation of the tasks ahead to keep a long term relationship flourishing. Perhaps I was just too excited about that donut castle. But if uncertainty or any of those feelings are at all a part of  the normal spectrum of feeling before marriage they are not feelings I felt. Waiting for Queen's "Somebody to Love" to start playing, waiting for my cue, I mostly just felt like I wanted to get the ceremony over with. Say the magic words, marry my bride, and enjoy the party the best that I could as someone responsible for hosting said party. Then, finally, after the dramatic crescendo concluded with an equally dramatic drum strike I, along with my parents, began my walk towards forever.

To infinity and beyond!

[I was stationed at the top of the stairs with my dad, behind a corner. I had 15 minutes to wait up there and nothing to do except think about the nerves. As soon as I took my post, I felt rumbling in my bowels and hoped I could make it through the ceremony without making a dramatic run to the bathroom. I wanted so badly to sneak peeks at what was going on below, but my coordinator signaled to me to get out of view. I resented some of the DJ's song choices (any song I hadn't pre-selected) but had no way of communicating to her. Maybe I should've brought a crossword.]

We thought it best to wait in the cave until it was clear the crowd wasn't hostile.

T-5 Hours: Cake vs Cake

Ever since cro-magnon man married the first neanderthal lady, there have been wedding cakes and for almost as long, there has been a groom's cake to accompany the main cake designed primarily by the bride. [Yet somehow, I never heard of nor saw a groom's cake until planning this wedding.] Never ones to pass on more cake, Liz and I of course had both.

The wedding cake was an impressive construction unto itself, composed of three tiered layers of different flavors mixed with difference fillings. The top layer consisted of chocolate cake complemented by a peanut butter ganache, the middle layer was a simple yellow cake with a passion fruit and lime zest, and the bottom layer was another layer of chocolate with raspberry filling. The entire cake was frosted with the world's most delicious almond buttercream colored in a vibrant red-orange-yellow ombre pattern. And just because that still wasn't enough, a cascading fall of vanilla mermaid nguyens adorned one side. Of course the piece de resistance was the cake toppers: two cute little felted sloths decked out in their wedding best. They unfortunately, or fortunately, were the only part of the cake not edible though Planty and Butternut may have thoughts otherwise.

[You better believe that every aspect of this cake has a backstory. We browsed cake toppers for ages, debating which style, which animal, or maybe little people figurines in track suits, okay sloths, which felt artist would make the best sloth, and then had to send back our sloth because the original hat looked too silly. I made a waterproof butt protector (with more rainbow duct tape) so that the sloths could keep their felty furry books clean of frosting, so they could have a second life in our display case at home. One of my earliest cake decisions was that I wanted a cascading element, and I was into the idea of a cascading vertebral column. Scooter was lukewarm at best about this idea, and I couldn't really figure out how to work it, so I later changed it to the much cheaper, simpler merengue cascade. I informed the baker, who requested that we provide the merengues (?), so we bought some at Trader Joe's and dropped them off on our way to Nevada City. Then, the baker got cold feet about the merengues and thought they wouldn't look good, so she didn't place them, and told the coordinator to double check with me and if I actually wanted them, she would come back and place them. The coordinator checked with me, I asked her to ask the baker to get her butt back to place the merengues, and they looked totally perfect.]

The groom's cake was in the end not a cake at all, but a donut castle. Initially conceived to be a donut pile, it was quickly upgraded into a more proper donut tower before evolving into its final, more grandiose, form of imperial donut fortification. [There were many aspects of wedding planning that elicited great indifference from Scooter. The donut pile was the element he felt great passion for, so I encouraged him to follow his heart, hoping the passion would spill over into decisions about table settings and dinner music and aisle decor.] It was constructed out a variety of donuts followed by a few replacement donuts [thank you, Best Woman] after the wedding work crew ate a few -- a crime for which they are still awaiting trial. The final construction of cake, yeast, and bar donuts was further accented by a generous addition of red, orange, and yellow pennants crafted with the help of family [and balls of string derived from the fabric garland -- I knew they were worth keeping, but their final disposition as castle ramparts was a last-minute decision]. The donut castle stood in full majesty for about three hours before being devoured to its crumb cake donut foundations. Eyewitnesses blame the Huns.
 

My crowning achievement as an accomplished donut architect.

 

Almost as beautiful as delicious.

Me and Liz.

T-9 Hours: 300 Pounds of Fabric

The Stone House, our wedding venue, is lovely. It is also, however, being a recently refurbished stone and wood structure, a little drab. Since gray, brown, and slate weren't our wedding colors it needed a bit of sprucing up. Since poppy, fiesta, and mango instead were our colors, it required quite a bit of sprucing up. This was accomplished primarily through pounds and pounds of technicolor fabric, most of which was all then conjoined together. Here's a list of some of our more prominent decorative items:

Garlands - I think this was initially supposed to just be one strand of our three primary colors of reasonable length. By the time all was said and done it had morphed into three strands of a gradually transitioning three-color-ombre approximately forty feet long a piece. Although I have no idea how the objective changed so much, the result of mission creep was in the end my favorite part of the decor. Most importantly the federal cat inspector, Lettuce, gave it her paws up of approval after multiple rounds of inspection. (As an aside, I am grateful we were able to get the garlands inspected in Sacramento as the Davis cat inspector, our own Planty, typically insists on multiple taste tests. Pagey and Dorian Gray were happy just to sit on it.)

[So, we originally thought the fabric garland would be a cheaper alternative to floral aisle decor. In the end, after multiple fabric shopping trips and dozens of hours, mostly by my mom, cutting strips of fabric, removing strings, and tying the fabric to the garland... nope. It took more money and time than anticipated. We used 16 shades of Kona cotton solid colors as the base, and then added 1-3 "fancy" fabric (shiny, glittery, tulle, satin, chiffon, organza, etc.) for each base color. They turned out gorgeous, but we're not entirely sure what to do with them now.

There was one strand on each side of the aisle, and the third strand was a late addition and a different style. See, the venue originally told me that the patio would be modified so that the parking lot would not be visible, but it soon became clear that they were done modifying and the parking lot was very visible, which greatly displeased me. I started brainstorming visual barriers, which was a challenging and long process with false starts, but in the end we went for draped canvas and, at my mom's urging, another fabric garland with long hanging strips. This created even more work but helped us plug an unsightly gap on the patio and looks great in photos. Also my coworkers enjoyed playing in it.]

Lights - Next to the garlands -- and of course the floral arrangements -- the additional lighting we installed and arranged for the reception were probably the next biggest investment of time and effort. Every pillar, arch, unadorned wall, and sleeping hobo had to have some sort of illumination attached. This was in part due to the fact that bottom floor of the Stone House is usually a dance floor with limited baseline illumination, but also because fairy lights make everything better [and it worked]. We would have light wrapped the Ring Beagle too, but she has a penchant for eating small plastic objects and emergency room visits for swallowed batteries was not written into the wedding program.

Vetrap Gauze - Every table needs stuff put on it -- this is why potpourri exists -- and in the case of weddings, it's table runners and candles the table gods demand. The tables at the Stone House were actually a beautiful natural wood which we really wanted to leave largely unadorned, but nevertheless sacrifices were called for, so sacrifices were made [well, Scooter doesn't realize that table runners and candles are wedding imperatives... but the beautiful wood spared us from needing tableclothes, hallelujah]. Given our science-y / medicine-y / campy-y theme we went with white and brown gauze for table runners and vetrap bows for votive candles. The gauze was complicated a bit by the fact that it turns out gauze manufacturers don't invest a great deal of effort in being consistent with their colors and the vetrap was similarly complicated due to limitations in selection and supply. Like so many of the minor details in decor, though, I'm sure few people noticed, and of those that noticed fewer cared, and of those that cared fewer remember today. And to those remaining few who noticed, cared, and still remember, well thank you for thinking so much about our wedding!

Jello Petri Dishes - Pretty much as they sound. Petri dishes full of jello. Not jello shots 'cause that's just silly, and not Penicillium, 'cause we couldn't find any. Color titration complements of Liz's mom.

Photo Booth - What does one do with over forty feet of multicolored cloth garland? Well, you repurpose it for a photo booth of course. Since photo booths are inexplicably expensive and we had veteran photo booth industrialists in the family, we were able to have others do it on the cheap. The perfect way. Space was limited, though, so in the end the booth got stuck in an awkward corner in the bar. This was further complicated by a somewhat lengthy distance between the camera itself and the video monitor people used to take the photos, and perhaps a bit too much wine on some individuals' parts, such that the picture quality wasn't always great. But, hey, it was one of the few things that didn't go over budget. And that's even counting the 24 karat gold-plated PVC pipes holding the whole structure up.

T-20 Hours: Flowers for Hours

Flowers, flowers, flowers. Any good wedding has a bride's weight worth of flowers, and our wedding was nothing if not a good wedding. Being a Pizza Inferno wedding, however, we had to take it to the next level. Gold plated flowers! Flowers on fire! Flowers that shoot laser beams from their stamens! Flowers don't weigh very much, though, and even a slender bride's worth of floral arrangements can start to add up cash wise. The solution? As with everything wedding-wise, DIY. And by DIY we of course mean have friends and family do it. 😁 Thankfully we had an excellent flower supplier, Maisie from Soil Sisters, who sold us buckets and buckets of freshly picked blooms straight from their farm just a few miles outside of town; an excellent work crew of poorly paid Keeneys, Shadi, Crabtrees, McCormics, and Jenkins; and an even bajillion pieces of refurbished scientific glassware to serve as vases acquired from a no-questions-asked second hand science warehouse in Sacramento.

The final result of our collective labors, including buying a sorting the glassware, sanding the glassware, transporting the glassware, and finally filling the glassware with flowers, was a beautiful bunch of floral arrangements that might I say made for a very fine wedding.

Including some gorgeous bouquets and boutonnieres (actually made by Maisie):

A lovely garland of marigolds to adorn our birch tree wedding arch:
[arbor and garlands assembled by Jenkins... arbor provided by us. We brought a ton of stuff to that patio.]

Beakers and flasks of flowers out the wazoo:

Test tubes of buds out the ying yang:

And a few choice centerpieces:

In a perfect wedding world, which does not exist, there would perhaps have been some fern fronds and fiddleheads thrown into the mix, but, personally, I think this was more than good enough.

[Flowers are one of the few, maybe the only, aspect of the wedding with which I am fully satisfied and would not change a thing. Except maybe more photos of them, but that's not the flowers' fault.]

T-1 Day: Practicing the Most Important Day of Our Lives Once

Nevada City is an evolving mix of old nineteenth century nostalgia, rugged rural California, hobo-chic hippy, New Age crystal-toting mumbo jumbo, and modern development trying to capitalize on it all. Our rehearsal dinner site and attached airBNB, Reiki Kitchen, appropriately captured all of it. The beautiful, verdant garden patio was to be the focal point for our meal, but an unexpected early cold front -- September is usually the hottest month, they said! -- meant everything got moved indoors. Thankfully there was a beautiful altar of buddhas and knick-knacks perched above everyone's heads in the side dining hall to really set the tone instead. Kathleen, the friendly but slightly flighty venue owner, had a prepackaged decor which simplified the planning. Emily, the nice but often hard to get in contact with caterer, provided a delicious meal. My parents generously provided the funds. And all we had to do was show up and enjoy. Never to be satisfied with good enough, however, Liz insisted on bringing some greenery to spruce up the place. We chose about three dozen tiny succulents. And by succulents I mean mostly tiny cacti. Perfectly sized to fit in the palm of your hand.

The rehearsal itself took considerably more planning and the plans broke down accordingly. Apparently there was a forty-six car, train, plane, space shuttle pile up on I-80 E leading to an additional couple hours beyond the usual couple of hours it takes to get to Nevada City from the Bay Area, so a good portion of the wedding party was late or absent. The portion that did make it on time spent their free time spreading filthy lies, telling me they had forgotten the Best (Wo)man at the airport. The wedding rehearsal was therefore pushed back an hour, the traitorous members of the wedding party were flogged in accordance with frontier justice, and my Best Woman was replaced by Butternut Beagle, who behaved as a true lady. We nevertheless mostly got it done -- which was good 'cause I had no idea how a wedding procession was actually supposed to go-- and we then headed across town, a good quarter of a mile, for dinner.

[I, on the other hand, went pretty nuts trying to coordinate a small group of wedding party participants and a large group of hangers-on, who were minimally committed to the task at hand, and more interested in getting wine, moving inside where it was warmer, talking to the venue people, chatting to each other, etc. This is when I became truly worried that our best-laid plans for timing, blocking, and coordination would be for nought. Also when I became a little short with our beloved relatives, but I was desperate.]

Dinner, after multiple rounds of negotiation and high level mediation, in the end consisted of a buffet of salt and pepper tri tip, chicken provencal, stuffed portabello mushrooms, rosemary roasted potatoes, seasonal roasted vegetables, garlic green beans, grilled vegetable couscous, and two salads whose ingredients almost led to an international incident. Presumably it was greens and other bits of an unremarkable entirely forgettable nature. This was complemented by a dessert buffet consisting of vanilla cream puffs, cheesecake bites, chocolate covered strawberries, lemon bars, and mini chocolate cupcakes. It initially seemed to me like a lot of dessert, but in the end it turned out to be just right. Although polls have closed, it remains unclear which dessert was the favorite. I personally thought the cream puffs were most delicious, but I hear cheesecake bites may have the led in early exit-polling. I blame gerrymandering. [The guests I asked all voted for cheesecake bites. We probably tossed enough food that night to feed 15 Nevada City hobos.]

The rehearsal dinner also had a special guest, as is custom in the Sierra foothills. The Pumpkin Bride, as local tradition tells it, arrives via stage coach every fall to wish newlyweds a prosperous future and bountiful squash harvest. She not only came and regaled us with her folksy gourd stories, but stayed through the evening as our guest of honor. To the Pumpkin Bride!

Said to be one of the most beautiful pumpkins in all the land.

This shirt may in fact already be in the trash. Unconfirmed. [Please note that the bride's father acted independently, and the bride had nothing to do with the gifting of this shirt.]

T-2 Days: Wedding Prodrome

At the time of my proposal Liz and I had been together three and a third years. We had been inseparable for almost the same. Given this history, our generally laid back attitudes, and our initial grand matrimonial ambitions, our plans for our wedding were built upon a one year to one and a half year timeline. Too many couples are stressed by the experience -- too stressed to enjoy it -- by trying to get things done faster. Why not slow things down to actually enjoy being engaged? Unfortunately, almost immediately after our engagement we received the terrible news that Liz's dad had fallen ill with an inoperable tumor that was, in all likelihood, a terminal process. Thus what was originally going to be an eighteen month engagement quickly became six months, and the leisurely process became something of a forced march. Nevertheless, through hard work (mostly Liz's), ample use of vacation time (mostly mine), and the assistance of family and friends (mostly Liz's mom), it was now two days prior to the wedding and it appeared everything was on track [Liz: kind of on track?].

As we approached Nevada City, a lovely old Gold Rush-era town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, some residual thunderstorms were still rumbling through. It was a beautiful, gray, overcast fall day. We had spent the morning filling Liz's Ford Escape with bags, garlands, broken lab glassware, three foot long sparklers, and a host of other DIY decor; had secured our nervous and moderately medicated beagle into the front seat; and had dug out a spot in the back for our sick gray tuxedo kitty, Dorian Gray, who had a few days prior received a terminal diagnosis of metastatic disease. We were as we usually are: a traveling band of pets and props, detailed plans, nervous excitement, and perhaps too much luggage, heading towards the official start of our combined future. I cannot speak for Liz who was a bit more emotionally invested in putting on a good show, but at that moment, on that day, all was going pretty much according to plan and, at least in the small world of our upcoming wedding, all was relatively well [Liz: err, not so much]. Despite the busyness that had led up to this day which had dulled many of the emotions we may have otherwise experienced, I was happy and I was excited. We checked in to our heavily shall we say "Eastern"-themed airBNB chosen because of its pet friendly renting policy, unloaded our supplies at Liz's mother's rental a short walk up a steep hill from our wedding venue, had dinner, practiced some dancing (no amount of practice was going to make me a good dancer), [Liz: don't forget about my anxiety/grief/exhaustion breakdown in the evening], and had a sit on our BNB's back patio love seat under a pile of blankets with our cat and our beagle. The wedding was upon us,battle stations!

Four Years Gone

Four years ago today, give or take a few months, I disappeared from blogspot and, some say, the world. Where did I go? What did I see? What brief, poorly composed comments did I have to share on the matter?

I was busy. Busy with a lot of things. Work. Naps. Stuff.

I was also busy meeting the most wonderful woman I have yet had the privilege of meeting, Ms (Dr.) Liz Carbone. We've been together almost four years now, married for almost two weeks, and I'll be honest, I didn't much miss the blogging. Nevertheless, since the underlying premise and reason for my blogging still stands -- to archive my memories before dementia sets in -- I will take up the quill once more.

And to begin? A short tale of an unconventional wedding. :)