Four weddings in three months*. All of my traveling this summer has been related to weddings.

It has been good travel, with trips to the Northwest, upstate New York and Virginia. On my list of things to do, weddings top the good times category. All the ingredients go so well together: love, friends, cheesy dance music, free drinks, free food, an appropriate climate to tear up, laughter, great toasts and an excuse to dress up and look all special. No matter how you mix it, it's a recipe that seemingly always works.

As I feel particularly saturated with weddings and their minutia right now, I wanted to offer to future wedding planners the Colin Guide to Weddings. I have taken the best parts of all the weddings I have attended and compiled a number of things to keep in mind if you find yourself planning a wedding.

1. Write Your Own Vows. I want to cry when I see people get married. Yes, I want even the men in the house to get choked up. I have found that the surefire way to make that happen is to have the bride and groom write their own vows in private, especially from each other, and speak their vows for the first time when they are at the alter.

2. Keep the Ceremony to 20 Minutes. Think of the children. And me. I've found that longer ceremonies start too loose the magic, and shorter ceremonies feel a bit rushed.

3. Put Beer in Your Welcome Bags and perhaps some good snacks for those who do not drink the suds. After driving for hours, there is nothing more welcoming than a cold one.

4. Keep It Outdoors. Whatever you can put outdoors, have outdoors. Make the bachelor party a summit trip. Have the after-party under the stars. Just be sure the ceremony is in the shade.

5. Rent Some Good Speakers, and Use Your iPod. While live bands are fun, and there are amazing wedding bands out there, a playlist filled with Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake and 80's music is all you need. The reaction to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" will make the highlight of the wedding. Make sure there is plenty of room to dance.

6. Only Two Toasts. The best man makes fun, the bridesmaid cries. It's a timeless classic that works every time. Do it before they get too drunk.

7. Beer and Wine Is Fine. No reason to get crazy with a open bar.

8. Take Wedding Pictures Before the Ceremony. This really just makes logistics much easier. The people want to go straight from ceremony to the food and booze.

9. Have a Cold Buffet, Mainly Vegetarian. Trust me, this works. Reheating always seems to deaden the food.

10. Use Bubbles. They are fun. We all love them.

11. Have Handlers for the Bride and Groom. This is their day. Everything runs smoother if there is some sort of campaign manager running the show. This is something to consider when choosing bridesmaids and best men.

12. Consider a Reusable Bridesmaid Dress. That light blue dress that they are never going to wear again? That ain't right. Christy has two of them. The only solution I have found to work so far is with black dresses, which worked with the guy's tuxes. You can always wear black again.

That's the end of my list. Any other suggestions?

*If there hadn't been overlap, we could have gone to six weddings. There is one wedding left for this season, my brother and Ammie.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I like the Pacific Northwest, and I hope that it wasn't just because the weather was great while I was there.

Last I wrote, I was in Seattle, enjoying what that fine city had to offer in coffee, good food and friends. Christy and I then drove up to Bellingham, a little town north of Seattle that would be quaint if not for the bustling local tourism that has changed the face of the town. We were there to see a wedding, that would be Todd and Julia's for those familiar. A good time was had by all, including myself.

The day after all the festivities, we loaded up the car again and headed north into Canada to visit Vancouver. The town has sort of an west-meets-east atmosphere, perhaps a Hong Kong light, but with English as the dominate language. This is due in part to the large Asian population, one of the largest in North America (third, if I recall correctly from my travel book), a British vibe that comes with being part of the Commonwealth and an unique urban planing called Vancouverism that fills downtown with spaced-apart skyrise loft buildings.

We walked a lot in Vancouver, seeing most of the city proper. It's a pretty clean and nice place, with oddly safe crosswalks, and just like Seattle, super polite locals. I dare say that New York makes you a bit more suspicious of people's intentions, so the ultra-niceness to strangers put me a bit off guard. They also have a huge park that absolutely makes the place.

The only bad part of the trip was walking through two blocks of the most amazingly sketchy street, with white-faced druggies selling stolen goods next to the dodgiest, tricks-being-made-and-much-worse alley I've ever seen in my life. This was one block north of the historic Gastown, a utlra-safe tourist trap and historic district. Guess the police there like to keep all the riff-raf concentrated in one area. At least I didn't have to worry about being shot.

The highlight of this leg of the trip was a meal that Christy arraigned for us. For those of you who watch Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, we ate at Tojo's an amazing Japanese restaurant, where we got the omakase. It was the best sushi I've ever had. If you get the chance, you should get this meal. It is indescribably good.

That's about it for the trip. Thanks to everyone who came out to see us, congrads to Todd and Julie, and may I soon come back to the great Pacific Northwest.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Christy and I are in Seattle right now, as our summer of weddings continues. This is number three of four, which means that soon enough we will have to come up with our own reasons to go on vacations.

This one has been pretty fun, I must say. We've checked out some good spots in Seattle, walking around to see the fish market, Mario Batali's dad's restaurant, lots of cool little stores and coffee joints of the non-Starbucks variety. We did walk by the first Starbucks, and while I did not go in, I did humbly to tip my hat for their brilliant scheme of world coffee domination.

We saw Mt. Rainer raising beautifully in the distance, which should say something about the weather the last two days: perfect. Two days without rain, I see why they wedding was planned for this week.

We also saw some peeps of ours from our collective pasts, which is great. If any of you are reading this, thanks for coming out.

We are off to Bellingham, WA this afternoon. I'll report back from there. Right now I need some coffee.

Posted by Colin J Allen at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)