How to Plan a Wedding In One Hour
July 09, 2011, By Steve Kissing 0 comments
According to conventional wisdom, it takes a year⎯maybe more⎯to plan a wedding. I was reminded of this when I, a divorced dad, proposed several years ago to a woman foolish or drunk enough to say "yes." My beautiful bride-to-be, Angie, and most of her friends assumed that we would get married a year after my proposal. Or, at the absolute earliest, the coming spring, then about eight months away. I suggested that waiting so long was unnecessary nonsense and claimed that I could plan a respectful wedding in about an hour. Eyes rolled, faces snickered.
Clearly, I was just a dumb ass groom-to-be who didn’t know that a wedding can't possibly come together that fast unless you're having a Las Vegas-style drive-through ceremony. According to the naysayers, it takes a few months to just page through one of those 800-page bridal magazines to find the right veil. I felt I had to stick up for myself and grooms everywhere⎯and battle the evil marriage-industrial complex that had managed to convince women that weddings take months, not minutes, to plan. So the next day, a phone book in my lap, my computer before me, I set out to prove my case⎯and make it clear who was going to wear the pants in this relationship.
60:00 - The Venue. I decided to start with the site of my pending nuptials and build everything else around that. The popular places book a year or more in advance, so I figured securing a site would be my biggest challenge. I called several hotels and party halls. The conversations all pretty much unfolded like this:
"Hi, I'm calling to gauge availability of dates in October."
"October of next year or the year after?"
"No, this year."
"So you mean next year."
"No, this year, as in two months from now."
There was then a pause or awkward cough. The people on the other end of the phone clearly thought I was demented. Or pulling a prank.
"Sorry, we're booked up through the end of the year and well into next year, too." This was then followed by a hollow sounding, "Good luck finding another place."
I spent about 15 precious minutes on these calls. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. I turned to the Web, the source of all knowledge and wisdom. Within a dozen or so clicks, I stumbled across a website for a sculpture park in a neighboring county. It looked like a cool place. And the artsy-fartsy nature of the park fit Angie and me. (She's artsy; I'm fartsy.) I called them. Success! The park was available. We could even get married in the shadow of "Oh Belisk," a metallic sculpture that would rival any phallic symbol. It could lend our wedding the air of a pagan fertility ritual, I later suggested to Angie. It also could provide an omen for a very happy honeymoon. She didn't buy either.
NEXT: Hotels
