Grand, Baby, Grand

DAYS REMAINING: 361

We have chosen a location for the reception! It’s so, so, so…grand. Eh. That probably sounds more poetic in Icelandic.

After briefly considering some locations outside of Reykjavik city center (centre?), Eric and I decided to go with the big city (200,000 whole people! Two-thirds of the country’s population! Fun facts about Iceland sprinkled where you least expect them!) after all. I guess we thought hotels outside the city would be less expensive, but since they are so few and far between, good locations outside of Reykjavik tend to be quite a bit MORE expensive. Not to mention quite small. Add to that the fact that people are already flying across the ocean to attend the wedding. In the final analysis, we thought it best to limit everyone’s travel as much as possible after touching down in this strange new land. Guests will stay at the hotel, of course, and we’re hoping the ceremony won’t be more than a few steps away. More on that when I actually get around to doing something about it.

In Reykjavik proper, we jettisoned a few possibilities because they were too expensive, a few more because they were too small, and one, our very favorite hotel in the city, because it was a heady mix of both. Also, because we are two boys who have no natural instinct for this kind of thing (honestly, I thought Bride Wars was in another language, though I’m guessing so did many female viewers as well), we wanted to go with a location that had an on-site planner to, y’know, do everything for us from 2,600 miles away.

And so we settled on the Grand Hotel, the largest hotel in Reykjavik which, let’s face it, is going to look super-cool on the invitations. I have already made contact with a truly lovely event planner under the hotel’s employ and, seriously, we’re going to make her do everything. Her name is Anna, and her last name consists of forty-seven or so letters, some of which are recognizable as letters and some of which look like English and Gaelic had a threesome with an umlaut and this new alphabet is their crazy zombie baby. From our one telephone conversation, I can already tell she is more than up to the challenge. I was so excited to make contact that I hung up the phone after our conversation realizing that I never even mentioned to her that Eric and I were a same-sex couple. Worried, I emailed her immediately to clarify, to which she wrote me back, “My grooms to be: Lovely! Thank you for your email.”

Iceland!

I look forward to meeting her when I go to visit Reykjavik for a long weekend in December. Oh! That’s something that’s done as well! I will be flying out to Reykjavik on the night of December 2 to meet with Anna that Friday so she can show me around and we can see the sights. Except I don’t know how much we’ll actually be seeing, as December in Reykjavik features twenty-four hours of darkness. Y’know, per day. No wonder my round-trip ticket cost $300.