Category Archives: information

information

The 17-Year Itch.

Apparently, 2013 is a year that the 17-year cicadas will descend upon Richmond, VA in massive swarms.

In case you don’t know what a cicada is….

I’m not talking about the run-of-the-mill, annual, green and white cicada. No, I’m talking about the black, orange-tinged, red-eyed cicadas that emerge from the ground in large, noisy quantities. After engaging in cicada orgy, they quickly die off, leaving the ground littered with their crunchy-yet-squishy carcasses.

De-light-ful!

17-year-cicada

 

[Image Source]

I don’t remember the last time the 17-year cicadas arrived in Richmond, but general math skills tell me that it happened in 1996. Harrison remembers that “they were everywhere” and were “really loud.”

“And I saw them having sex,” he adds.

Enough people are concerned about the emergence of the cicadas in wedding season that Cicada Mania even has a section of the website devoted to how to deal with them at your wedding. Basically? You’re screwed.

We’re getting married outside, and Richmond falls right in the middle of the reported brood appearances. In all likelihood, in addition to our parents, we will have hundreds, if not thousands, of [uninvited] wedding guests in the vicinity of our nuptials next Friday.

[More cicada commentary: “They’re like little space aliens,” says Harrison.]

However, given that our wedding on May 24th is actually very small, I don’t see the need to move our “ceremony” inside. Our officiant claims to have a seven-minute ceremony memorized, and we have no music, readings, or unity candle rituals. There will be no tent and no outside food for cicadas to crawl in. And if there are some cicadas in our pictures, that’s fine, too. According to Harrison, there is around a 1% chance of having your wedding fall in the middle of the 17-year cicada emergence. Maybe it bodes well for our marriage…thousands of little good-luck bugs.

This all being said, if one flies up my dress or crawls up my neck, Ima’ scream reaaaaaal loud.

Standard
information

A basic map + what about Bodger?

Many people have asked where we’re actually going on WVT. It helps no one if I just rattle off some dates, so it’s perhaps best to answer this in pictorial form. This is a map that Harrison drew up today. The red dots are cities that we are definitely planning on visiting. The black squiggles are stretches of route where we aren’t entirely sure what is happening.

Rough map of WVT

(Click to enlarge)

Others have asked if our flatulent Frenchie will be coming along for the ride. Bodger will sadly not be joining us on Wedding Victory Tour for three reasons. First, we don’t want to impose his presence/gas on our friends who are nice enough to open their homes to us. Second, not all hotels are dog-friendly, and we are trying to stick with one chain throughout the entire trip. Third, as a brachycephalic breed, Frenchies don’t do well in heat, so we wouldn’t be able to roll the windows down and hop out of the car for spontaneous sightseeing or meals. (Fourth, Bodger farts a lot in the car, so we might die of asphyxiation.)

Bodger in chair

Don’t feel too bad for him, though. He’ll be staying in the choicest accommodations at Château Lois, AKA my mom’s house, with her two dogs, Gryphon, the Briard, and Neville, the not-quite-all-there Old English Sheepdog. You should also not feel bad because Bodger is the least loyal of all creatures and would probably push me under a train if he thought it would advance his comfort in any way.

 

Standard
information

Wedding Victory Tour FAQ by Harrison

Harrison's WVT FAQ

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.

Standard