Cain Manor » Planning

Crossing Ts and dotting Is

Justine Cain — Wed, 16 May 2007 21:49:12 +0000

We are starting to get things sorted out. We’ve had our marriage papers now for several weeks and finally filled them out. They were so helpful to include a blank document in which each line had been numbered with the corresponding directions for each space in English. Otherwise we’d never had known what to write. So the forms are filled out. The nice thing is that we can have our best man and best woman witness the papers for us here. They don’t have to be there with us in Iceland. They sign off on the letters of honour.

My friend Cheryl graciously vouched for me that I am me. And Greg’s best friend James has done the same. The Best man actually has to certify in several places, vouching for both Greg and I. I’m sorry that these special people won’t be able to be there with us, but what can you do? Forever their signatures will be on record at the Magistrate’s office in Reykjavik.

Greg bought a great Canon Camcorder which records in high definition, plus we’ll take the digital camera so we’ll photo-document everything and can share with friends and family.

Last night PBS had a special on Super Volcanoes and specifically spoke of Iceland. It is fun to see pictures of the Island, one with more active volcanoes than anywhere else. It really is a gorgeous place. By 2008 they say that they’ll not rely on oil at all there b/c of all the geothermal energy. It must be great to have hot springs all over the place particularly throughout the cold and dark winter days.

Today we booked our hotel in Reykjavik. I’m getting better at being able to spell this without messing up! We’ll spend the first three nights there. We arrive Tuesday, June 26th at 6am and can’t check in until 2pm. Then at 3pm that day we have a standing appointment for a civil marraige service at the Magistrate’s office in Reykjavik. This could be interesting as Greg and I will no doubt be jet lagged. I’m hoping the hotel lets us in early as I’d like to at least have a shower before I become an honest woman!

I hope we can do a church ceremony in a remote place instead of or at least in addition to the one in the city. But since we aren’t Lutheran and it’s hard to actually track down a church via the Internet or guidebook, I’m thinking we’ll send the papers in to both the magistrate’s office for a civil service and the Dean of Reykjavik for a church service. Cover all bases!

Maybe we can meet Bjork??

Wrote to the Reverand of Reykjavik West pleading him to give us a blessing at least. It would be great to find a church out in the countryside, at least for a photo op. This is, however the land where many still believe in trolls, elves and goblins so maybe one of those can be a witness for us? Very Lord of the Rings which suits Greg perfectly.

Dates of our Trip

Justine Cain — Wed, 02 May 2007 19:06:07 +0000

We leave Seattle on Friday, June 22nd on good ol’ Jet Blue. I love the red eye flights. Seriously, you waste no daytime flying. We land in NYC the next morning. Thank god for my parents who have graciously offered to pick us at at the crack of dawn and escort us out to Connecticut. We’ll stay with them for several days enjoying the beach, some time in Manhattan, etc., before heading to Iceland on the 25th. We arrive in Iceland on the 26th and head back to the States on July 6th. This will give us a nice long time to expolore.

Our current thought is that we’ll no doubt go broke b/c this place is so expensive so we may as well experience everything we can. I think we’ll spend a few days in Reykjavik before heading out into the countryside. There is lots to do in the capitol, museums, bars, festivals, long summer days, food, the Blue Lagoon hot springs, etc. The plan is to then rent a 4x4 camper and take off to see the rest of the island. It’s $350 a day for the camper but that will be our hotel, etc. I figure we’ll eat at the grocery stores and cook in our camper stove.
One thought is to try and get to Greenland for several days. There are daily flights from Iceland and aren’t too spendy. It’s a two hour flight. Or the Faroe Islands. Either way, we’ll probably not get back to these areas again so should see them now.

Tickets

Greg Cain — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:20:41 +0000

It’s expensive getting to Iceland. We were gently looking at tickets for a little while, but didn’t make the jump until this weekend. It looks like we are flying from Seattle to New York on June 22nd, spend three days in New York and fly to Iceland the night of the 25th on the red eye. We leave Reykjavik on the 6th of July, spend that night near the airport, and fly back to Seattle on Saturday the 7th.

We now need to find a hotels (NY and Iceland), get a rental vehicle. There is a part of me thinking how great it would be to ship my motorcycle over and ride around the island. I think a RV type vehicle would be more appropriate, and may save us money. The current plan is to circumvent the island, and see as much of the interior as possible. This will allow us to get to the far away place on this far away island where we will wed.

Word is that you can drive around the island in two or three days if you don’t stop. If we give ourselves 7 or 10 days we’ll be fine. I’m excited about the things we will see. It’s a unique place.

Justines Take on the Whole Thing

Justine Cain — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 22:20:26 +0000

It’s actually all my fault. They say that it’s a woman’s perrogative to change her mind so that’s what I’ve done re:wedding venue and location. The easiest part of getting married is knowing without a doubt that Greg is the one for me. We met almost a year ago and, while I didn’t get a word in edgewise (:>)on the first date at The Matador, by the 4th date we’d had time to get to know each other and I knew he was the one for me.

Several weeks later I said “so long” to life in Ballard and moved up to Phinney Ridge and into Cainmanor. A step up in many ways! Sorry Ballard, but the Ridge is where it’s at.

There was never any doubt in my mind that we’d eventually get married and spend the rest of our lives together, but I was surprised when, at the end of a lovely marina-side dinner in Puerto Vallarta, Greg proposed! Looking back, I did think it a bit odd that he was acting a bit nervous at dinner and gulped down his margarita and then turned to my pina colada… I chalked it up to the fact that we’d just spent the entire day in a very cold and foggy mining town up in the hills. The ride up and back made us all car sick so I figured Greg was “recovering”. Little did I know. The answer of course was yes! Then I heard about the plans for the 23rd of June at the Rose Garden and Smith Tower. Fine by me I said.……

Fast forward a few months later and Justine starts to think that maybe she doesn’t really want to get married in Seattle after all. It is very romantic that the venues and date had been chosen, but.… hmm… it all seems so normal. The wedding expo I attended brought the whole thing home about how expensive these events can be. Factor in your venue site, the catering, the booze, music, flowers, dress, tux, rings, planning for out-of-town guests, and wow! You’ve just spent almost as much on a 4 hour event as you could traveling to Iceland.

I am pretty sure it was Greg’s idea to go to Iceland for the honeymoon. After all, it meant he could use the joke about how he’ll be ready for how frigid things are once married. HA HA! So one discussion led to another and we decided, to blow off the Seattle wedding, disappointing friends and family and head instead to the Land of the Midnight Sun to get married and start our new life as Mr. and Mrs. there.

We leave on June 22nd and as of today still aren’t sure where and what date we’ll get married. It’s relatively easy for U.S. citizens to get married there. Just need to prove you aren’t related (we aren’t), are over 18 (I barely am) and aren’t currently married to anyone else (check).

I do know that the photos I’ve seen are spectacular, that we will experience over 20 hours of continuous daylight and that it’s very expensive! Oh and they serve this one dish of fermented shark that they bury in the ground for several years to “cure” it before digging it up to serve as a delicacy. Apparently it tastes like blue cheese. No thanks! Maybe Greg will try it.

Stay tuned.…

A new start

Greg Cain — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 21:45:42 +0000

Justine & I met on May 2nd, 2006. I’d just gotten a new job, after being unemployed for almost two years. Fast forward a few months, and we are living together. Fast forward to [December|January] and we get engaged in Puerto Vallarta.

Initially, my idea was to get married in Seattle. We would have the actual ceremony at the Rose Garden beside the Zoo, and so close to my house, followed by a reception at the top of the Smith Tower. We first scrapped the Rose Garden because it made things so much more logistically difficult. After spending months planning for a wedding at the top of the Smith Tower, we decided to stop the Seattle wedding all together.

What was our new plan? First, we apologized to everyone that had made plans. Then, on to Iceland. Initially we were going to go to Iceland for the honeymoon, since there aren’t a lot of times you can go to Iceland, and we needed to get away from all the people that flew in from out of town (as tradition dictates.) We figured, if we are going to Iceland anyway, we might as well get married there.

This blog picks up here. It is an attempt to journal our thought processes, our moments of “yow — that’s expensive” and to help us remember these things as we find ourselves removed from them.

Wish us luck… Greg