We have solved the problem of famine in the Third World

...Adrienne and Steve need to re-create our engagement party for any region of the world that is afflicted by famine. Seriously, I've neve seen so much food in my entire life! Of course I didn't actually eat any of it.
So to catch everyone up, two weeks ago Kenny and I went up to New York for an engagement party thrown in our honor by Adrienne and Steve and the 5 Towns wedding mafia. It was awesome! The weekend was totally nuts though. We arrived in New York on Friday, and spent Saturday with Kenny's family getting ready for the party. Saturday night we met up with all of our bridesmaids and groomsmen and their significant others who had come in from out of town. That was also extremely cool! We were looking at photos of that night, and it was so exciting to see pictures showing friends from college sitting together with friends from grad school. My cousin Kris and friend Erma also came by, which was fun. Kris got hit on at the bar, and while she complained and feigned shock, I know she liked it :)
Sunday morning was totally nuts. I woke up at 7:45 so I'd be ready for Audrey and Tara, the make-up and hair girls, at 8:15. Kenny brought my parents to the house so my mom could have her hair and make-up done. Lauren and Adrienne also came down for the same routine, and Steve joined my dad in making fun of all of us for the trouble we put into looking pretty for everyone. So we had six women, hyped up on coffee, and three men, confused and milling about, not quite sure what to do with themselves. My dad tried to convince Audrey to give him a makeover, but thankfully she put him in his place (which happened to be in the other room).
Then we showed up at Beth-El for photos at 11. That went on for about an hour, but was fun. Hy, the photographer and a close family friend (one of those wedding vendor mafia types), is a great photographer and makes the whole experience worth it. After all of the getting ready and the photos, I began to wonder if I had accidentally just forgotten to wear my wedding gown.
When we walked in, I was blown away at the scale of it all. We were greeted with cocktails (yes, it was still before noon. Rock on!) right when we walked in, there were beautiful flowers everywhere, and a spread of food you just wouldn't believe! I'm convinced it could have fed a small nation. Or one Jewish family.
It's difficult to give details of the actual party since it went by like a whirlwind. I think I got a preview of what it will be like at the wedding, and let me say, I'm glad Jewish weddings have yichud! For those who don't know, yichud is the period of time just after the ceremony when the bride and groom go off into a room by themselves. Kenny has a dirty idea of what goes on in that room, but I'm planning to eat dinner.
I spent most of the party talking to guests and meeting family members and friends of the Grossmans, so I didn't really get to eat much, but what I did eat was fantastic. Gayle and Bob, the caterers, were absolutely amazing. I've never seen such an incredible spread in my life! Everyone else seemed to rave about the food, so I'm looking forward to seeing more of it at the wedding. I'm sure the quantity will be even more obscene since the guest list for the wedding will be about twice a big as it was for the engagement party- I can't wait. They were also very liberal with the alcohol, as we can see from this photo of my dad. Turns out they carry his favorite Scotch.
All in all, it was a fantastic party, and I can't till next December!

I want to be a part of it...Long Island, Long Island!

So we last left off with He Who Shall Not Be Named and She Who Is Without Brain getting fired. That was pretty fun. What was not fun was breaking it to my parents that Austin just was not accomodating for a Jewish wedding and that we would have to do it in New York. I think they were skeptical at first- the stunned silence really spoke volumes. This was especially difficult since my mom has never been to New York, and my dad has only been there for a total of 48 hours, only 2 of which were spent outside of his hotel since he was there for a conference.
The tough person to convince was my mom, mostly because her vision of Long Island is straight out of Goodfellas. Back when I first met Kenny (I had never been to New York at that point either), I had planned a trip up there to visit over the summer after our freshman year at Emory. Kenny had just told me that Goodfellas was filmed in his town on Long Island, so naturally I rented it and watched it with my mom- 2 days before my trip. Bad move. After the movie, my mom turns to me, eyes wide, and says in her charming southern accent, "They don't still have gangsters in Kenny's town, do they?!?" On her first visit to New York last week, we made sure to point out the mob "graveyard" (aka "dumpsite") that was recently found 5 minutes from Kenny's town. This only reaffirmed her suspicions as to how Kenny got me such a pretty engagement ring and why the wedding was so easily planned without a single problem on Long Island. That's right- the Grossmans are members of the 5 Towns Mafia. Wedding vendors don't dare cross Adrienne!
So anyway, after some discussion everyone seemed ok with New York. Of course, I think Kenny's parents felt like they had just won the lottery when we broke the news to them. When I told Adrienne, she didn't cheer or scream or anything, she just said "I think it will be much easier from now on". I'm pretty sure that as soon as she hung up that phone balloons fell from the ceiling of the Grossman's kitchen, a disco ball dropped down from above the stove, and Steve appeared in the dining room doorway covered in glitter.
After all Kenny and I had been through trying to do this wedding in Texas, I was really happy to move it to New York just to get rid of the splitting headache that came on anytime anyone mentioned the word "caterer". Not to mention the fact that I had already been to the venue in New York and thought it was beautiful.
So here's the amazing part: We planned the wedding in 2 weeks. No kidding- two weeks. Of course, the mob connections really helped move that along. But really, as soon as we made the decision to do it in Cedarhurst, we had the venue, the caterers, the baker, the photographer, the band, the hair stylist, and make-up artist, and the hotel! Truly amazing. And what's even better, because of Steve and Adrienne's connections in the community, all of these vendors are friends or friends of friends. Maybe the Grossmans aren't part of the real Mafia, but I'm pretty sure they're made members of some sort of wedding vendor mafia. I'm fine with that.

Will you just pick a freaking venue already???

In the words of the Jewish sages whose works I have been reading over the past months- "Oy vey!" Wow, who'd have thought having a traditional Jewish wedding in Texas would be this difficult? Difficult is the wrong word...Impossible is more like it! In the past six months, we have moved the wedding from Dallas to Austin, and finally, to New York. In doing so, we have managed to piss off just about every member of both of our families- what fun! Let me tell you of the story of the Spring and Summer of '05...
It was a lovely day in Dallas. Birds were chirping, the sky was blue, and Harry Hines Boulevard was lacking the usual crowd of prostitutes looking for a John. That's right- we almost had our wedding in the midst of Hooker Central at the Wyndham Anatole. It's a great hotel, but not such a nice part of town. I'm glad we didn't do it there, even if the hotel did boast the largest piece of Wedgewood in the world. Really, who cares? Oooh, its a big freaking piece of china. Well, the ballroom was pretty at least. The hotel was much too convention center-esque for my taste. This would be great for our guests who wanted to drop by the Annual Meeting of the Society for Medical Conditions only Lauren and Dwight Can Pronounce on their way to the wedding, and I imagine we might actually have lost Lauren and my dad to one of those, but not so nice, so the Wyndham was nixed.
Then came the Fairmont. Ah, the Fairmont. Yeah, we didn't even make it to the property before they told us they don't like our kind (that is, our last name was not Bush or Perot). So much for that one.
We also looked at the Adolphus. This one would have been great, except that it was where I had my high school prom. While I probably could have gotten past this, we just ended up dropping it because around this time, Kenny and I had an idea that almost caused Armaggedon (Armaggedon being Kenny and I eloping, but in our parents' eyes, the END OF THE WORLD!!!!). We decided to do the wedding in Austin. Oh yeah. Bring it on.
So we found a great place in Austin called Laguna Gloria. It was, and still is, the most beautiful outdoor space I have ever seen. I will have a party there one day. I will. And it will be fabulous.
Anyway, along the way of our Metroplex hotel hunt, we found this Kosher caterer in Dallas who was going to do the catereing at whatever hotel we found up there. He will be referred to as "He Who Shall Not Be Named." He Who Shall Not Be Named told us he'd come to Austin and do our wedding here, so no need to find another caterer. Yay! Or so we thought...
As with other evil characters throughout history, He Who Shall Not Be Named dangled a tempting offer before us: "I will cater your wedding, providing a cocktail hour with appetizers and a three course seated dinner." So we hunted around town for a hotel that would allow an outside caterer to come in. This was not an easy task, as most hotels have their own in house people and therefore won't let someone else in. Or perhaps they could sense the evil of He Who Shall Not Be Named...If I had only had a disfiguring scar that would have alerted me to his true nature, things might have been different.
Before we knew of He Who Shall Not Be Named's bad inclinations, we were told by the Four Seasons here in Austin that they could provide a Kosher wedding for us. Wow! But oh no! He Who Shall Not Be Named had already sunk his claws into us and had begun to feed on our souls... Anyway, we felt we had made a commitment to He Who Shall Not Be Named, so we told the FS 'no,' much to our dismay.
Then came a wonderful, but at the time aggravating, moment. He Who Shall Not Be Named sent us the contract. It was one page, and did not contain a price. As a lawyer, let me just say "wow." I've kept it on hand just in case I ever want a really quick 'out' of my job- I'll just hand that sucker over to our client and pass it off as my work product. I'd get fired pretty quick, and thus would end my legal career in Texas.
So Kenny and I tried and tried, for months on end, to get a better contract from He Who Shall Not Be Named. Or at least something that was two pages. The closest we got was an actual price per head, but it was so low we figured there were lots of add-ons that he wasn't including, and still no real terms in the contract. We felt it was time to defeat and crush He Who Shall Not Be Named with the purity and goodness that was the Four Seasons. And we did. Until the Four Seasons told us they looked into it and decided they couldn't do a kosher wedding either. Too difficult, too involved. AGGGHHHH!
A fun thing that occurred sometime after we decided to go with the Four Seasons but before they told us they couldn't do it was that we fired He Who Shall Not Be Named. We spoke with his assistant, who should be called She Who Is Without Brain, and she was really shocked that we were cancelling. Really, when someone doesn't call us back for three months and won't send a real contract, what should she expect? A freaking party in her honor? Jeez.
...To Be Continued