With only three weeks left to go, it seems like we should buckle down and start planning the important things- like where to eat! We're flying out 9th of October and touching down in JFK. New York City is our first stop! I've never been further East than Chicago, and all Tarra remembers about her visit to the Big Apple is being there for 5 hours, hitting the highlights, and being rushed out before nightfall hit. Though this is where we're actually going to be wed, so I think we may have to stay past nightfall this time!
We're planning on taking the first night easy, navigating the legendary traffic to our hotel on Manhattan Island: The Bowery House. It's small, sure. It's also a hostel with a shared bathroom-but look how cuute! The next morning is reserved for finding the courthouse and obtaining our license to be married. I have never done anything like this and am expecting it to be something akin to the DMV, so our plans are open. There is a 24 hour waiting period, so we will return to the courthouse on 10-11-12 in the wedding skirts and veils we made ourselves, and the bouquets made of veggies, herbs, and flowers from whichever store we find, and our homemade love and handwritten vows to legally bind our lives and emotionally celebrate finding that one person that seems to make your future not only make sense, they make your future feel uncontrollably exciting.
We chose the courthouse for a number of reasons, cost being a large one. Most officiants wanted $400-600 just to say those words in front of you and tell you when to kiss. Looking at the cost of what we thought a wedding should be- the dress probably the same as the officiant, lets say $500 being reasonable (for something to wear once and OH MY GOD fly on a plane!); then the bouquets $100X the both of us; veils $100X two of us; a venue- anywhere from $300 to several thousand...Somewhere along this line of thought, creating the "perfect" wedding that we were socialized to imagine, my feminist radar went off. When did love start being about how much money you could spend to make people believe your love was beautiful? Tarra's thoughts were that people felt insecure about their relationship and were compensating for it with extravagance. Whatever the sociological narrative people carry out, it just wasn't us. A simple courthouse will do, making a simple garment to celebrate made sense, flowers aren't hard to come by and my degree in art can finally be of use, and overused vows don't make much sense either- our relationship is anything but run-of-the-mill. So, fuck the system, we'll do it our way thanks, we don't want to "buy" your kind of love. I think this is where we all start chanting, "Make love, not profit!".
Our trip to NYC will be dominated by this event, though, we thought we'd sneak a few other things in. Namely- TARRA GETS TO GO TO A BROADWAY SHOW! It'll be like glee, but with more costumes (that's how she explained it to me, I'm not much into musicals). We're going to see the Lion King the night of the 10th. Speaking of which, what the hell does one wear to that sort of thing. Speaking of THAT- I am nervous about wearing anything in New York City, I've watched enough Sex in the City to know everyone is thin and beautiful and wears $400 shoes. Right?! Anyway, the food is what's got me excited (oh, I mean besides the wedding and all). So, on the list we've got:
Posioden Bakery
Shorty's Cheesesteak
Empanada Mama
Bianca NY
We haven't decided on a fancy one yet to celebrate our nuptuals. I mean it is NYC, the food capital of the world! We're willing to spend around $100 to taste some of the what the world's top chefs have to offer! Suggestions anyone?
We're planning on doing some of the touristy sorts of things too, like Time's Square, the Statue of Liberty, Empire State building and such. Our last stop will be Grand Central Station. We're hoping to run into Hugo and have lunch, then hop on a train and get out of the city. Somewhere just outside the traffic, we're hoping to pick up a car and drive though some mountains to Ithaca and the Finger Lakes, but that's for another post.
We'll nail things down solid in the next week, we both still have work, Tarra has interviews, and I have my second job- we'll get to it...we'll squeeze in the time!
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