Meanwhile, on the surface of the moon...

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Here are two interesting perspectives on the Ring Road around the entire island: the scary and the even more scary.


(For anyone still interested in a post-wedding road trip, you can check out the tour we're taking or just plan your own road trip, as some have decided to do.)

(Thanks to Meesh for the links!)

Fairy Tale 2: Rise of the Fairies

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It is now 69 days until our wedding and, at the moment, there remains a distinctive lack of helpful elves and task-aware dwarves planning it for us while Eric and I have been spending twelve hours a day at work. Luckily, I have one more week at my current job before a luxurious two-week break, during which time I have a “to do” list consisting of exactly one item: PLAN THE ENTIRE WEDDING. Within that one item lies about a billion terrifying details.

Back when we sent out our invitations (what seems like 100 years ago), we kept falling back on a reassuring stump speech that went something like, “At least we got one huge thing out of the way. Think about all of the people who haven’t even started planning ANYTHING at this point in the process!” But as the months have peeled montage-style off of the calendar, we have run out of excuses, and are getting perilously close to running out of time. And so this morning, we returned to the only actual place we can get anything done – our old friends at Fairytale Affairs – for the next stage of the planning. Because any great Icelandic event must run first through Massapequa Park. You think the 10th Century Norse explorers who discovered the place didn’t first stop at All-American? You’re wrong.

First a reminder about this business: Fairytale Affairs is a stone’s throw from my mom’s house on Long Island, smack in the middle of a town not know for its stark liberalism or cultural acceptance. My mom had worked with Tracey on invitations for events such as my grandmother’s birthday party, and approached her with skepticism many months back to make sure “it would be okay” for the store to take on the lightning rod issue of printing wedding invitations that had TWO BOYS’ NAMES ON THEM. Tracey laughed that idea right off because she is a nice person and a hell of a pro as a businessperson, and has since added our gorgeous invitations to her stable of samples she shows her other clients. Yay, Fairytale Affairs! You should all support local businesses who know what side their bread is buttered on, is all I’m saying.

For today’s excitement, programs for the wedding ceremony. We wanted a simple design with the straightforward information of the ceremony (if only we know exactly what those details were going to be!), and that is exactly what we designed. We briefly thought about not doing programs for the ceremony, but, y’know, people are coming all this way, why not give them a little keepsake they can leave in their hotel rooms or tuck in a mail sorter when they get home and then throw away when they move to New Jersey? And we’re having it bound together with a ribbon! You fly to Iceland, you get a ribbon. It’s just polite party hosting is all.

So now we were on a roll. Tracey is definitely not an upseller in the standard “let me help get you guys into this 1987 Datsun that runs just like new” way, but once the programs were done, the three of us collective started poking around for what other visual elements were going to help tie the look of the day together. And right then, the words “Well, I guess that’s it, then…” collectively vanished from our vocabulary. Place cards! Monogrammed napkins! (Yes, really.) Specially-designed gift bags for our welcome packages! (Yes. Really.)

In the end, the best part of the day was starting to get really excited about the plans for the wedding again. Which is good. Because now that we crossed one thing off of our list, all we have to take care of is shuttleinformationfromairporttoguestswelcomepackageathotelfinalheadcountforrehearsaldinnerchoosemenusendinvitestorehearsaldinnerarrangeshuttletoandfromrehearsaldinnerfromhotelgetalllegalpaperworktogethercheckinwithBryndiswriteceremonychoosesongsbuysuitsfinalizeheadcountseatingchartflowerstablecenterpiececakeaskaboutsoundsystemforipodfigureoutfavorspoolpaymentarrange shuttletofrompool. Oh, and figuring out day care for the cats while we’re out of town for three weeks.

And that’s it!

The Ring Didn't Mean A Thing

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When Eric and I got engaged, I bought two titanium rings and proposed to him at the restaurant where we celebrated our anniversary every year in LA. I wanted it to be a complete surprise so I guessed at Eric’s ring size, going for the average men’s size of 9. It turned out to be way too big, so I exchanged it for a size smaller, convinced that getting a new ring without getting his finger sized this time was a totally great idea. Size 8? Not even close. So because his ring still falls off every time he swings his hand or walks or thinks small thoughts, I decided that for our actual wedding rings we would do it right. We would go to a real store, talk to a real human, and get our actual ring sizes. And if you’re going to do it right, you should do it as right as you can. So we took ourselves to Tiffany.

We’re not actually getting our rings at Tiffany. But it was fun to waltz right in there, tell the nice lady at the counter that we were getting married in August, and have her show us to a table where she sized our fingers with this thing…

 …showed us their collection of hilariously expensive gold bands, and sent us on our way.

(Eric’s ring size is 6.5.)

More Budget Accommodation!

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 Further to our entry about non-hotel lodgings we wanted to add one more from Tracie:

Hi guys! So we've finally settled our lodging situation and are actually staying here.
It's located about midway between the Grand and the city center, which seemed to make sense. I hope Anna forgives me. Anyway, come over! We'll cook you dinner.

IS YOUR PASSPORT PICTURE THIS ADORABLE?

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Nephew Everett smiles for his close-up and dreams of international adventure.

And We're Getting MARRIED

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Gay Stuff!

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 If you're looking for another travel option and you remember that you're flying all the way to Iceland for a GAY WEDDING (rather than what we're framing it as: the wedding of your nice friends who are just like everybody else blah blah blah), here's a travel company who found us: Pink Iceland.

Here's their pitch:

Iceland is a great destination for LGBT travelers because of the gay friendly atmosphere. Our goal is to make your stay in Iceland as wonderful and welcoming as possible. We offer an array of services from booking short tours around Reykjavík to all-inclusive luxury excursions around the country. We also organize events with local and international LGBT groups. Our partners are either gay owned, gay operated or gay friendly and with a great cooperation of this Icelandic velvet mafia we hope to make your stay unforgettable.

They also run a bar/cafe in Reykjavik called Truno, and I'm trying to decide how to have a party of some kind there, because...fun!