Wedding Sched

Rehearsal (wedding party members): Friday, 3pm; Montauk Club (25 8th Ave, Park Slope, Brooklyn)

Welcome Drinks: Saturday, 5 pm; Union Hall (Union and 5th Ave, Park Slope, Brooklyn)

Wedding: Sunday, 5 pm; Montauk Club

We know what we're gonna be wearing but...

We’ve gotten a few questions from you guys about our dress code. Uh-hm, the invites had a demo-derby theme, but rather than going for “Whee! Casual Friday!” (T-shirt, jeans, shorts, etc), think...festive. If you want to wear a tux, by all means, do. If you’d rather wear nice pants and a dress shirt with or without tie, grand. Ladies, same goes for you, of course. Not the bit about showing up in a suit and tie but you know what I mean. We don’t want to put anyone out, however, so call us if you have questions and/or concerns.

Getting from La Guardia airport to the Nu Hotel (and our neighborhood)

It sounds like everyone coming in from out of town is going through La Guardia. To get to the hotel from there, I would recommend the cab. From LGA to the Nu Hotel (85 Smith Street @ Atlantic Ave.) should run approx. $25-30, depending on traffic. Tip a bit, maybe $2-$4. Though many cabs do take credit cards, they will often tell you the machine it broken. This is a ruse. But I'd still use cash so you don't have to argue it out with the cabby.

After you get your luggage, find the signs for the taxi stand. There will sometimes be "car services" at the airport, guys standing around and saying "car service" under their breath. That's fine if you know what you're doing and the approx price but I'd recommend finding the yellow cab stand. All cabs in NY are yellow and there may be a big line but it can go quickly. Sometimes 10 min. Breathe in the noxious exhaust fumes of the airport. Soak it up. Then, when it's your turn, a taxi stand guy will direct you to a cab and hand you a sheet with the approximate expenses to different locales in the vicinity.

Tell the cabbie you're going to Atlantic Ave and Smith Street in Downtown Brooklyn. Tell them to take the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway, but everyone calls it the BQE) and get off at the Atlantic Ave. exit (# 27). All cabbies will know Atlantic Ave, it's a major road in Brooklyn. Go east on Atlantic Ave until you hit Smith St., then take a left and promptly stop. It's on the NE corner of Smith and Atlantic. Pretty simple in the end. Depending on traffic, 20-30 min.

Mapquest has different directions which you can print out. Though they're more direct, the Atlantic Ave route is likely quicker because you are not taken through Downtown Brooklyn and there are fewer traffic lights.

I used to take the train to LGA, and sometimes still do if I don't have to carry luggage. But it's a bus ride for about 30-45 min, then about a 1 hr to 1.5 hr subway ride to get to the hotel. Until I'd done it a few times, it was a bit confusing. If you can spare the $25-30something, I would heavily recommend the cab. If you are adventurous and patient, bus/subway.

If you're hungry, take a left out of the hotel, cross Atlantic Ave and walk down Smith Street, away from the tall buildings. There are plenty of restaurants on Smith for, pretty much, whatever you may crave.

Directions from Nu Hotel to Montauk Club

Most folks are staying at the Nu Hotel. These directions and options will help you get from there to the Montauk Club, the wedding venue.

Option 1) Take a "car service". It is difficult to hail a yellow cab in Brooklyn. Most of the time they will not stop for you or are wanting to head back into Manhattan, therefore they are doing something technically illegal, though unenforceable for all intents and purposes, and you are SOL. Therefore, you call a "car service" which will pick you up at a location and take you to another. Most of the time it is a Lincoln Town Car in decent shape, though this can vary.

Arecibo Car Service 718-783-6465 (This is our preferred car service. Very prompt, typically the best priced.)
Cobble Hill 718-643-1113 (Used only once. Near hotel.)
Promenade Car Service 718-858-6666
Cadman Express River Car & Limo Service 718-858-7771

You will call the number, they'll pick up and say something indecipherable. You should reply, "Hello, I'm needing a car at 85 Smith Street and I'm going to 25 8th Ave in Park Slope, Brooklyn." They'll likely reply "Between?" which means what corner. So you reply "Smith and Atlantic" for the Nu Hotel and "8th Ave. between St. John's Place and Lincoln Place" for the Montauk Club. Then they'll mumble "5 mins." and promptly hang up. After a few mins., go outside and wait for a black Lincoln Towncar (most likely) to pull up. Then tell him again where you're going and ask the price. The car will cost $7-10, likely.

You could also ask the desk clerk to call you a car. That could work too and maybe there's someone else they'd recommend.

The car should know the way. It should only be a 5-10 min trip, depending on traffic. Here are car directions in case you want them.

Option 2) The Subway. Take the 2 or 3 Train at the Hoyt St. stop (at Fulton St.) to the Grand Army Plaza Stop. (Do not go to the Hoyt-Schermerhorn stop, those trains won't get you there.) Exit the subway and you will find yourself at a large arch and an entrance to a park. The Montauk Club is northwest of the park at the corner of 8th Ave and Lincoln Place. If this is your first time in NY, the subway at Hoyt St. could be hard to find. I don't even know that I've been to that subway stop. If you're set on taking the subway to the Montauk Club, perhaps ask the hotel's desk person how to get to the subway stop and tell her/him you're needing either the 2 train, the 3 train, or the B or Q train. That will put you within one to two blocks of the Montauk Club.

Option 3) Walk. If it's nice weather and you're adventurous, walk. It's about 1.5 miles and if you walk through Boerum Hill and Park Slope, you'll have a decent idea of our neighborhood. Above is a nice little walking route. If it's warm, however, I wouldn't walk.

And remember, the ceremony begins shortly after 5 pm.

The Dress Has Landed

Though it was about 115 degrees and condensation was peeling off the walls, it felt wonderful to ride home on the subway with my wedding dress (in a garment bag, 's ok) on my lap. It's now safely tucked away, but I'm probably going to prance around the apartment in it when Nick is away.

Artifact #4

PHOTO TAKEN DURING A BEAUTIFUL STOP IN ALBUQUERQUE, NM

In the summer of 2001, I still had dwindling ambitions of becoming a writer, and so a reporting internship at Reuters* in LA became the impetus for our first roadtrip. We crammed a boatload of stuff (including one--naturally--leaky gas canister) into the pint-sized Ford Aspire and took of from Columbia, through Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and into California.

Many mini adventures were had. A twilight-zone-esque stop in Shamrock, Texas, where the hundreds of dead crunchy beetles underfoot, hostile-looking locals in a grocery store devoid of groceries and the abandoned/vandalized motel we parked in front of creeped us out so much that we broke off our lunch halfway through** and hightailed it out of there. Being involved in a shoot with a famous photographer in Santa Fe. Visits to as many of the gorgeous Southwestern National Parks as we could afford. Delight in the discovery that the $3.99 Grand Slam from Denny's could sustain us for a good part of the day, virtually every day (and that it is sometimes a 'secret menu item;' ordering it made us feel very insidery). Driving through the Mojave Desert without air conditioning was also quite thrilling. About ten minutes into it I had to pull over, change into a pair of Nick's boxers (shorts were crammed into the bottom of some bag or other) and drive the rest of the way clad only in those and a sports bra. An outfit quite popular with truckers.

Nick says that it was during this roadtrip that he realized our relationship really works. If we can navigate halfway across this huge country in a tiny car without ripping each others' throats out, it means we've got a good thing going. The trip is still one of my fondest memories.


*Where I panned such masterpieces as "Crunch's L.A. Aerobics Class Strips Off Pounds, Inhibitions" (now only available on random websites that picked up said masterpieces)
**Interestingly enough we reached our inexplicable-discomfort saturation point at exactly the same time. A strange episode.

Checkitout!

In spite of my earlier (misplaced) misgivings and blather about also buying a memory when you're buying something this important, we decided to purchase our rings online. And when they arrived in the mail and we slipped them onto each other's fingers (dry run; have to make sure that part goes off without a glitch during the ceremony and all...) it felt wonderful and no less special than if we'd purchased them from a physical jewelry store. I didn't want to take it off. And now it's sitting there in its white box, and I really want to wear it some more. But there's only a little over a month to go. I guess I can wait.