Ding, Dong, the witch is dead
Ummm, oops, wrong jingle...
Yup, I've actually gotten married. It was official as of December
21st of last year.
Anyone who's known me for the last 6 years knows Dawnise, and anyone
who really knows us is not in the least bit surprised that we're
married - they're more surprised that it took this long.
The Planning
So, some time ago Dawnise and I went to San Francisco and drove across
the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir
Woods. If you've never seen it - just go watch Return of
the Jedi (coming soon to a theater near you) - many of the
Endor scenes were filmed there. It's one of the most beautiful places
I've ever been. The first day we were there Dawnise and I both
decided that when we got married we'd love it to be in the National
Reserve.
The Preparation
When discussion turned to actually planning a date for the wedding,
the topic instantly became -- where are we going to have it. One of
us (I don't remember who) said - what about the Muir Woods Idea - so
Dawnise made some phone calls and it turns out you
can have a wedding in the National Monument -- it's a
$150 permit fee and you can only have 30 people in attendance.
The 30 people didn't really bother us, we were planning on a small
wedding anyway, and $150 - it's the absolute cheapest wedding hall you
can get - and far more beautiful than anything indoors.
The Clothing
A good friend of ours had, some years ago, introduced us to going to
Renaissance Faires, and Dawnise and I had decided that our wedding
would be Renaissance themed long before we decided it would be in the
woods.
Being a rather talented seamstress, Dawnise took it upon herself to
make my wedding costume, with the exception of my doublet, which was
custom made for us using the same material in her wedding dress.
Her wedding dress, on the other hand, she didn't have time to make, so
she enlisted some help. My mother was happy to lend her time to
construct the dress. Oh, did I forget to mention that my mom goes to
Faires as well? Well, she does, and anyone who knows my mom knows
that she never just "sorta" does things - she jumps in head first.
The dress was beautiful - an Irish Bodice design in a lovely berry
fabric. I didn't actually get to see the dress until Dawnise arrived
for the ceremony. She was absolutely stunning...
The Week Before
As it turns out, I had to head off on a business trip the week before
the wedding was to take place. In the mean time, Dawnise and my mom
decided to have a chat with a nice fellow from the LA Times about the
wedding. He was interested enough that it appeared in print (and far
more to my liking, in the LA Times On Line). So while I was on the
trip I got an email from Dawnise with an URL pointing to the LA times -- it seemes that we ended up in the paper (unfortunately the link has expired, so it's no longer here...).