"Venuegate is Over"

Why did Madman's 2E's burst into tears the very moment that he walked into their cozy Los Angeles apartment yesterday afternoon? (Please circle one option below.)

   (a) She was just so overjoyed to see his face
   (b) She was overcome when she saw the bouquet of pink mini roses he'd bought for her
   (c) She found a ceremony venue that is available, affordable and in walking distance of our reception venue, and she was just so effing relieved that she couldn't contain herself
   (d) all of the above

If you guessed (d), you're cute, but no.
If you guessed (a) or (b), you haven't been reading.

That's right boys and girls, brides and grooms, the correct answer is (c), and today -- on this day -- I can't blame her. You know the Photobooth cloud? That grey, looming, egg-shaped thunder cloud that hung over her head when she realized that we couldn't possibly afford to have an old-school photobooth at our reception?

Well the Photobooth cloud was nothing compared to the London Tower edition ball and chain ceremony venue shackles (patent pending).

In the words of my childhood, this stupid, poo poo-faced ceremony hunt has kept us in a wedding planning slump for months. It's left us dragging ass with rejection after rejection, letdown after letdown. It's even left some family members wondering whether the wedding would happen or not...

(...which is fascinating, because if this blog never existed, never came to be, then no one would be clued in to our venue setbacks.)

And the problem was not motivation or lack of resources. The problem, you see, is that 90% of the venues in New York City exceed our (apparently) meager budget. 9% of the remaining 10% are either too remote or too small or too ugly. That left 1%. One-friggin'-percent. One percent is a blessing and a curse. It narrowed our search, but it also narrowed our search.

(The statistics above are absolute bullshit.)

What saved us was dedication. What saved us was 2E's setting a goal: to find a place within walking distance of the reception space, whether it be a restaurant or coffee shop, art gallery or artist loft, warehouse or whatever. If it held 85 people and wasn't rat infested (and we mean infested), we were going to make it work.

In the final days of my new york city residency, the Best Man and I took a visit to Brooklyn to see a few more places and do a walking tour of the neighborhood. The results? Well, the first place we had an appointment with totally dropped the ball and forgot about us (sign of things to come?). The second place didn't have air conditioning ... ever. And the other places were either closed or down dark staircases or up long and winding staircases. It was not looking more and more like we would be in Brooklyn Bridge Park, nestled beneath the Manhattan Bridge, with an AMAZING view of the East River and lower Manhattan but with no rain back-up and god knows how many random strangers walking through and around our ceremony.

And then powerHouse Arena came along.

"WELCOME" is right. WELCOME to our kickass venue.

powerHouse (also powerHouse Books) is a "boutique, book store, performance, and events space ... with soaring 24-foot ceilings on the 5,000 square foot ground floor with over 175 linear-feet of glass frontage and amphitheater-style seating." It's raw and city-like; it's got great levels built into it; it's nothing like our reception venue; and most of all, it's very us. We've passed it what seems like hundreds of times in our trips to Brooklyn over the years; we just never thought we could afford the rental cost.

And in truth, we can't. To hold our wedding there would put us at least $3K over budget. But to hold just our ceremony there -- a fixed 2-hr window plus an hour for set-up -- is do-able. YES. FINALLY.

And the best part is ... those of us who can manage will be walking from the ceremony to the reception. It's 0.2 miles. It will take 3-4 minutes. 5 minutes in heels.

As bride, fellow blogger and groom supporter Lara said last night, we are "so glad #venuegate is over." And now we can move on to the other 8 million things we have to do, cloud-free, shackle-free, and on-budget. For now.

She Comes, She Goes

My silence this weekend was in part due to the hectic goings-on of our closing weekend of The Irish Curse, a remarkable little play that touched my heart (and the hearts of many others) and marked my Off-Broadway debut here in New York. And it may have had something to do with the fact that my 2E's was in town after a two-month separation with 3,000 miles between us. We were occupied.

Our plan was to fly back to LA together on Wednesday morning ... but as it turns out, 2E's was summoned two days early for a pretty hefty commercial audition callback (cause she's, like, uber-talented), so she's on a plane at this very moment ... leaving me stranded in New York ... and leaving me, yet again, with a fair amount of homework.

(Being a groom is not unlike that chem class you take in your senior year of high school. The course in which you had to complete entire notebooks of lab work, tasks that were so daunting that you'd just stare at the empty pages for hours rather than just jumping in and getting it done. Only I'm answering to a bride and not to a disheveled, graying man in his early fifties. The latter now seems totally manageable.)

2E's and I have shifted our focus back to our Loft reception space -- and we are blessed in that, in our meanderings around the neighborhood, we stopped into Dewey's Candy shoppe on Front Street (thank you, sweet tooth), and in that shoppe found an updated brochure with all of the new neighborhood perks and resident artist lofts, and in that brochure found a few spaces that might serve as ceremony venues ... all within walking distance of our reception space ...

... so guess what I'm doing tomorrow.

Luckily my handy-dandy Best Man is in town to keep me company, sane and inebriated all at once. It's no easy task. He'll be joining me this evening as I scope out our second rehearsal dinner venue option, the Union Smith Cafe in BKLYN (our first option is a hip joint on 3rd Avenue with fantastic, upscale bar food and a sweet private room downstairs).

And so off I go. Because I can't afford to sit here in my cozy Upper West Side Starbucks any longer. I've got hundreds of empty, college-ruled papers to stare at.

Starting Over

Our location saga -- as all sagas do -- has now come to a close.

A quick sum-up for those who are just joining us:
1. We booked our reception at the kickass Loft venue and put a "small" deposit down on the space.
2. We were hoping to book the space that is often referred to as the Manhattan Bridge Arch (pictured below) for our ceremony, but we were told in back in October that the space could not even be considered until Feb 2010, when the events calendar comes out.
3. In Feb 2010, we learned that the date might be booked ... it was being considered for an event. Yay.
4. After weeks without updates or word, we decided to contact the BKLYN borough president, who told me that he couldn't assist with our efforts but did tell me who the client was.
5. I decided (b/c/ we still had no new information) to call the client directly. They would have answers, wouldn't they? They would know if and when this event would be taking place, how many people would be invited, how "raucous" this archway party would be...

The most desired archway in all the land. 

Not only did the high-profile, hush-hush client tell us everything we needed to know ... they were also completely understanding. They sympathized with the fact that we had a wedding to plan from across the country, with invites to send out, living with the potential of this corporate gala next door (the archway is literally twenty feet from our reception space). 

We quickly learned from the client that the date of the event was, in fact, solidified (possibly had been for some time), that it would be an all day event, that it would host live bands and about 1500 guests. A party of that size would surely eat up the archway and spill out onto all neighboring streets. Music from the live bands would without a doubt ruin any semblance of an intimate ceremony. 

And so, we've decided to give up. We've decided to let the space go -- both ceremony and reception -- and find a new location inside of Brooklyn and outside of Dumbo. It wasn't an easy decision. We really have fallen in love with our event space. But we knew that this would not end well. 

My event designer pals tell me we made the right decision ... not just because of the excessive noise and foot traffic but because the place will surely be wrecked after an all day event. Garbage everywhere. Delivery trucks picking up rentals and equipment. The overwhelming stink of feet and booze and body odor. All things that just scream wedding. 

Most of our guests are traveling over 1,000 miles and spending hundreds of dollars to be with us. Why even entertain the possibility of competing with a full-on, 1500-person event the same day. It's insanity. 

Our Loft contact has been wonderful, promising to give us our entire deposit back as soon as he books the date for another event. 

We've learned so much from the experience ... we've learned that some people don't have it in their hearts the capacity to help you, no matter how much you try to get them on your side ... we've learned that only you and your 1E or 2Es know how important this wedding is, so you need to do what you think is right ... and we've learned that, between the two of us, I should get on the phone whenever an aggravated vendor calls. These little lessons will hopefully save us headaches in the future.

And 2E's is fantastic as always -- already looking up new spaces and scheduling times for me to go visit them while I'm in the city (and thank god I'm here). 

Don't pity us. Our parents have already done that task. Just please root us on as we do what all engaged couples hope they never have to do: start over. 

cheers,

madman

Pre-Weekend Words of Wisdom from the Best Man

My Best Man gave me the following profound bit of wisdom when I was griping about our yet-to-be secure ceremony location last night:

"Look, it doesn't matter where it happens. It doesn't matter if you get married on the subway with party platter sandwiches from Subway. Everyone is just going to be so happy to be there with the two of you."

He then got up, went to the mic and did his rendition of Bill Withers' Lovely Day.

No, this wasn't a karaoke bar.


love,
madman