Harrison likes to ask questions and then answer them.
What is Wedding Victory Tour? Rather than hosting a large wedding ceremony and reception for all of our family and friends, Mica and I have decided to have a small courthouse ceremony with immediate family, followed by a cross-country (+ Canada!) roadtrip during which we will visit our various disparately-located family and friends.
Why the name “Wedding Victory Tour”? We needed something more interesting than “Wedding Roadtrip.” Wedding Victory Tour seems the correct mix of epic and ridiculous.
Why don’t you want to have a traditional wedding, like normal people? We are rather abnormal people. Namely, we would find spending the better part of two months bopping around in a car more enjoyable than hosting a massive party for family and friends.
What is wrong with parties? Nothing! Given the choice, though, we would rather have many small gatherings with individual family and friends than one huge bash.
The thought of spending that long in the car with any one human being makes me ill. Please phrase in the form of a question.
Why in the world would anybody want to do this? We love travel, roadtrips in particular. I (Harrison) love driving, and Mica loves passenger-ing. We have driven back and forth from graduate school in Illinois to our parents’ houses in Virginia many times, and we recently completed a 2500-mile roadtrip around the middle of the country, so this ain’t our first rodeo, so to speak. We are excited to see whether our astronaut diapers will hold up for the duration of this significantly longer journey.
When is this happening? We will set out in early to mid-June and make our triumphant return in late July or early August.
Where are you planning to go? Roughly, we are planning to make a counter-clockwise loop around the continental US, along with a bonus excursion to the Canadian maritimes. [Mica’s edit: I want to take WVT to the UK, but I’m pretty sure we can’t drive under the ocean. Womp, womp.]
Isn’t this rather environmentally unfriendly? Yes and no. It will certainly have a significant carbon footprint, but so does flying. A 10,000-mile trip in a reasonably fuel-efficient car emits about as much carbon as two passengers flying roundtrip from San Diego to Richmond, VA. We have three family members in San Diego who would have likely been invited to a traditional wedding.
Wedding Victory Tour 
I was initially 100% against WVT because I am primarily concerned about any damage to the environment, but after reading this, I feel enlightened and relieved. Thank you, Harrison, for addressing this; I’m sure that I’m not the only one that was quite feeling ill thinking about all the carbon you will be emitting into the air with your car.
(Just to clarify, everyone, Cass was joking here. -Mica)
I was actually feeling pretty sad about leaving a large carbon footprint with a traditional wedding. The travel for guests is a lot, but so are things like the manufacture of a wedding dress made primarily of polyester, plus the production of things like chairs and dishes and the transport of out-of-season, non-local flowers. I think we’ll try to keep track of the gas we use on this trip and see how it compares. Ideally, it will be equal to, if not less than, a traditional wedding. Hooray!
I’m pretty sure WVT has much less of an environmental impact than a traditional wedding, especially since many couples go on a honeymoon after the wedding, thus adding travel to their footprint as well.
However, my estimates will be ruined if you plan on setting fires in your wake as you travel across the country.