mini-moon

Because of the nature of the Army, we didn't know if my groom would be present for the wedding until exactly one week before the nuptials were planned. (The particulars of all that is another post entirely.) This meant that because we didn't know how long he would have off of work (or if he was coming at all), we didn't plan any sort of honeymoon. Once we found out he did get a week off and factored in driving to Texas and saying goodbye to our friends and family, we were left with the night of the wedding (staying in town) and the next night.

His parents booked us a lovely hotel in town for the night of our wedding, complete with a jacuzzi tub, rose petals on the bed, and chocolate covered strawberries. It was fantastic. The next morning we drug ourselves out of bed and met about 30 of our friends and family for breakfast. (Which we would have never done if we hadn't been moving across the country the next day.) I then turned all sorts of grumpy because we had to go back to both of our parents houses to finish packing. We went to my parents house first which is in town and where the moving company was coming to load up all our stuff. I packed as fast as I could and then realized it was time to say goodbye. It was such a strange feeling wanting so desperately to get out of there and spend time with my new husband and yet bawling my eyes out because I knew I was leaving my family. After a tearful "see ya later," we drove 30 minutes outside of town to John's parents house to get some things he needed. My mother-in-law and I talked business while John packed. Finally, it was time to decide what to do for our one night "mini-moon". My mom found an amazing deal on an unpublished hotel in San Francisco. All we knew was the rating (5 star) and the price of the room. We decided to go for it. After we booked the room we found out it was the stunning Joie de Vivre hotel right off the Embarcadero. I was so excited! It was early in the evening and we had enough time to have dinner and spend time in the city before we headed to our room for some quality time.

My husband packed up my little Toyota and I got in the drivers seat to head out. I asked him for the keys as he got into the car. It took all of ten seconds for me to realize the keys got locked in the trunk. Since my car has no trunk release and all the spares were on one ring, the one in the trunk, we called a locksmith. They'd be there within the hour. So here we are, married less than 24 hours, unable to go anywhere, and stuck at our parents house. Awesome. (Yes, you can laugh. I did.) We went inside and watched a musical and had pizza for dinner. Finally the locksmith arrived and with some effort, opened the trunk, and made this bride very happy.

My spirits were unshaken and I sped to the city. (John was still kicking himself at this point). An hour or so later, we arrived at our destination. We could not find the hotel's parking lot, so we pulled into a little driveway. A valet attendant told us that parking was valet only or we could find something on the street. We paid the $50 and gave the guy my Toyota key (that stuck out like a sore thumb with the Lexus and Mercedes and Porsche keys almost as badly as my actual car did.) There was a group of people dressed in Italian suits and Manolo Blahnik heels (not together, even if it is SF) waiting outside for their car. I was in a sweatshirt and Chucks and my counterpart was wearing jeans and a t-shirt as we made our way to the front desk.

At 9 pm (and already feeling out of place), we were told that they did not have our reservation. The website we had booked through had not faxed the hotel our information yet. The man at the front desk was apologetic, incredibly welcoming, and upgraded us to a top floor room with a view. I have no idea how much the room cost, but the run-of-the-mill room we booked started out at $212 a night (we paid $100 for it.) Never have you seen such giddy mini-mooners. Long story short (or is it too late for that?), we dressed ourselves up, went to the restaurant attached to the hotel, sat at the bar, made great conversation with two gay guys from Canada, explored the roof top terrace, and made sweet sweet love. :)






Our view