Weddingpalooza 2011

General rule of thumb for future life decisions: if it seems like it will be utter lunacy, the likelihood is it will be.

As my fiancé and myself return from a Blitzkrieg campaign of wedding planning in Middle-of-Nowhere, Oregon, we find ourselves depleted of energy but alight with new ideas about the many wondrous things that can be done with this wondrous celebration of blissful love.  And then overly fatigued once more when we begin to think of how said celebration will tax our limited resources of time, money, etc.

After embarking to Oregon on an utterly ludicrous itinerary brought about by the cashing in of frequent flier miles (Champaign through Chicago through Dallas to Portland), we arrived at in the midst of a snowstorm – epically rare in the Willamette Valley and yet the second into which we’ve traveled in the last two months.  The drive from the airport to the quiet town in which my mother resides – though I should say ‘at the top of which my mother resides’ – was fraught with icy roads, hordes of snowplows, and low visibility, unnerving to say the least.  Eventually, fourteen hours after our initial departure, we arrived at a place where we could catch some shuteye.

Unfortunately, this brief respite was just that – all too brief.  Our plans for the following day were to head to the high desert of Oregon, which as you might imagine is at a higher elevation than that at which we denizens of the Willamette Valley reside.  And the snowstorm raged on.  In an effort to circumvent the snow, rolling in from the north, we headed south, to cross the Cascade Mountains not at the apex of Mount Hood but rather on a smaller state highway that crawls through a lower (less than 5000 feet elevation at the highest point) swath of the mountains.  This effort was in vain; the blizzard hounded us, obfuscating our view of the road, slowing down all the cars to just above a dull crawl, and lessening traction just enough to keep you – and your car – on your toes.

But we persisted to keep our rigorously regimented schedule of vendor interviews, attempting to maximize our efficiency during our sole pre-wedding trip to the destination.  After only one incident of less than optimal traction, we arrived safely at our first appointment.  The deluge of questions and counter-questions began in earnest.  What sort of colors did we envision for the wedding?  Were we more string lights or Chinese lantern type people?  Did we want to have all the traditional trappings of the wedding ceremony, like the tossing of the bouquets and garters?  Had we selected the music for the processional, the recessional, the first dance, the father-daughter dance, etc.?  Our brains began to feel numb and puddle-y, with good reason.

Amazingly, we were able to rally on our quest for plans and answers.  In a testament to our compatibility, we managed to have mostly coinciding answers under fire.  We felt somewhat relieved, but oh so fatigued.  Four appointments and a misplaced state-issued id – crucial to our ability to return home post-madness – later, we exhaustedly fell into our hotel beds, garish but inviting all the same.

Upon realizing that we had not considered libations for the reception, we rallied to go test out a local brewpub to sample their ales.  At the pub, there was standing room only – even that was in sparing quantities.  We unanimously decided against a 60-minute wait to be seated, and wandered around the downtown area to find another establishment to sate our hunger.  A directory conveniently located on the corner assisted us in finding a restaurant boasting fine Italian cuisine; something about the day we’d had so far really resonated with carbo-loading.  We were somewhat disheartened, then, when we entered to find that the place had been repurposed to a mishmash diner of sorts, serving only three Italian items, standard deli fare, and breakfast at all hours of the day or night.

Alas, sweet sleep, giving plenty of time for sufficient rest before our 8 am appointment the next morning.  But we had not set our alarms – mine principally due to the lack of screen visibility of my phone resulting from a recent laundering mishap – and so were awakened by a somewhat harried call from my fiancé at quarter till 8, asking if we were ready to depart as we surely should be.

We hurriedly gathered our supplies, readied the room for checkout and set off on our way.  In the hullabaloo, we conveniently misplaced the address for the meeting, which resulted in a scenic tour of the residential areas of town, eventually leading to the planned meeting place.  Another full day of meetings awaited; from our previous days’ ventures, portions of the journey seemed vaguely familiar.  Finally, all consultations concluded, so we picked up my id and headed off across the mountains again.  This time, the sky was graciously clear so that no snow impeded our view, but we wove in and out of the mountains in the darkness, flickering the high beams on and off as each dearth of traffic would permit.

The next appointment was to sample wedding cake flavors, a sacrifice we begrudgingly made for the sake of our special day.  Then we were off to a fourth grade basketball game, followed by milling about a mall for several hours to meet up with a few more vendors.  A one and a half hour wrap up with the planner helped us debrief after our frantic weekend campaign and we headed home to sleep.

We were so appreciative of our return itinerary – Portland through Dallas to Champaign – for its relative simplicity as compared to the flight out.  Unbeknownst to us, a storm had been brewing over the whole of Illinois.  Fifteen minutes before we were scheduled to land, we encountered some ‘weather’ so jarring that it allowed us to experience the sensation of zero gravity.  Admittedly, this could be cool, but generally in situations in which one gets to elect to have this experience.  After emerging from the heart-quickening turbulence, our captain announced that we would soon be landing – in Madison, WI.

The usual trials and tribulations of a cancelled and/or paused flight led us to queue for an hour or two to secure overnight shelter.  We exited to the shuttle loading station at which no shuttle had yet shown.  Hailing a taxi and inviting a friend or two from the halted plane allowed us to arrive at our hotel slightly earlier, quite fortuitous considering 57 people would soon be vying to get checked in and get some much coveted sleep.  We were also lucky enough to secure for ourselves a place on the 5:30 am shuttle back to the airport so that we would have ample time to pass through security and board our 7:00 am flight back to Champaign.

But five hours of rest seems far too cruel an amount when you are facing the prospect of emerging from a warm bed to stalk out into the wintry night.  Alas, we persevered, taking the last two seats on the shuttle; the ride was unsurprisingly quiet, full of half-zombified voyagers caressing their hot caffeinated beverages.  Much to the chagrin of many an experienced Madison traveler, our cadre of crewmates arrived at the lesser-known security checkpoint, veritably gumming up the works – which by all accounts were normally quite sleekly streamlined.

At 5:55 am at the Madison airport, there is not much in the way of libation and food options.  We procured a bagel with cream cheese and a coffee for my beloved, a giant sugary cinnamon roll for myself (so as to compensate for my aversion to the caffeinated beverage in an energy sense).  At the gate, we were somewhat amused to hear that the flight had been delayed an hour due to the fact that the crew would not be able to get sufficient quantities of sleep had they undergone the same process that all we weary travelers had.

But we made it.  We returned to Champaign, with better and more concrete ideas in our minds, having now a skeleton of something that vaguely resembles a wedding.  An exercise in fatigue, but fortuitously not in futility.  And after a full day of work, we’re really quite exhausted.