A wedding in Washington: week one!

Hello dear readers! I thought I’d quickly throw another post at you because the last one was just a bit of a short introduction so it felt only right to treat you with a proper post and begin the actual story!

For those of you who missed that introduction, you can catch up here but essentially this was the beginning of the unforgettable trip that would theoretically result in my marriage!

I say theoretically because as is the case with any international wedding, the first problem is getting there! I think there’d be a bit of anxiety about an international wedding at the best of times but in early 2022 we weren’t in the best of times. Travel was undoubtedly better off than in 2020 and 2021, and I maintain that 2021 was worse than 2020, but we still had some way to go and hoops to jump through in 2022.

We’d already postponed the wedding once. Our plans to get married in Washington in September 2021 were scuppered by the reality that the US border remained closed to outsiders. Those pesky illegal aliens!

People say the wedding is all about the bride so I suppose Haleigh didn’t have to postpone. She could have had a big party in Washington with her family and friends but I dare say that the groom is actually partially fundamental to the occasion so we rescheduled for April 2022 instead.

I’d rather reluctantly booked my flight to Seattle for the Sunday (27th March). I wanted to be in Washington two weeks before our wedding on April 9th but a Saturday flight was £250 more than the Sunday and I just couldn’t justify such a difference for the sake of a day – particularly when any pennies saved were pennies towards the wedding.

Guess what happened?

British Airways cancelled thousands of flights. Naturally mine was affected, along with my parents, sister and brother-in-law who were flying out to Seattle in April. Of course it would happen on this trip wouldn’t it? That little bit of extra unnecessary faff!

The upshot? BA allowed me to move my flight to Saturday 26th at no extra cost. What a stupidly positive resolution. This was the day I’d wanted to fly to Seattle originally but because of the silly fare I wasn’t and now I could just move my flight like that? Make it make sense!

Nevertheless I was pleased. One extra day in Washington, assuming I got there. The other concern at the time was Covid of course. Several weeks before they were due to travel, my sister and brother-in-law caught Covid for the first time. They’d recovered by the time they were due to travel but come on, let’s not do this now!

I’d avoided it myself for over two years and there was that little niggle that I was going to catch it at the worst possible time and not make it to my own wedding for a second time! Any other trip I’d have sucked it up and suffered the consequences of a  cancelled trip but I was desperately hoping it wouldn’t happen now.

One of the daftest things I found in this era of travel was that the only concern was with meeting the criteria at a specific moment in time. I was due to fly on Saturday so went and did a Covid test on Friday morning to satisfy the US restrictions at the time but there’s zero concern for what you do after that test.

Our office cancelled our work Christmas party in December and just so happened to have rescheduled for the Friday afternoon before I was travelling. I had to test myself on Friday morning and then I was free to do whatever I pleased for the next 24 hours.

Do I go to the office party? Don’t I? Does it matter? I was just as likely to pick it up in an airport or on the plane or in America. It seemed such a daft flaw in the system.

I’d paid for the express same-day service which fortunately confirmed I didn’t have Covid at that specific time but still, who would really know if I had Covid by the time I landed Stateside?

Anyway with a negative test, I was on my way to Heathrow! Heathrow was a bit chaotic but I made my way through security and could finally look forward to the trip. I made my way towards my gate, scanned my boarding pass and the machine immediately said “nope”. I tried again and had the same pushback – “please speak to an actual human!”

Be it a random security check or whatever, BA verified everything they had to and then printed me a new boarding pass with words to the effect of “enjoy your upgrade”.

New boarding pass in hand, I distanced myself from the peasants at the back of the plane and made way to.. well, premium economy but still – a little extra legroom felt like a win!

There were no other notable perks but it was a nice way to kick off this trip. Perhaps BA knew? It’s the first time I’ve ever received a flight upgrade and it made up for some of the other cockups on this trip!

Anyway, soon enough myself and Haleigh had been reunited in Washington – two weeks before the wedding!

We had a few pre-wedding errands to run before the big day. One of which was buying wedding rings which you should probably do earlier than we did but I think the intention was we’d buy them together in person!

Important to mention because Haleigh came and met me in Seattle. Normally I’d just fly directly in to Walla Walla but on this trip that didn’t happen. We had a late night shopping outing at a nearby mall, failing to buy any rings, but the upshot to staying in Seattle on that first night was a trip to the Cheesecake Factory.

I gave brief mention to the Cheesecake Factory on a previous San Francisco blog-post but thought it worth giving a mention here too because I don’t think my English or other international readers will quite appreciate its popularity.

You see it mentioned in pop culture, The Big Bang Theory for instance, and it’s one of those names that I’d always been familiar with but visiting it is an experience in itself. I think I appreciated that even more here.

Honestly I’m trying to think of an English or British equivalent and I don’t know that there is such a place.

We visited the Cheesecake Factory in San Francisco a few years earlier and had to wait a while and I was like “well it’s summer and we’re in the heart of the city, it’s dinner time. Of course it’s busy” but no, this wasn’t a San Francisco thing. This is a Cheesecake Factory thing.

America is crazy for the place. It’s worth saying here that they don’t just sell cheesecake, America isn’t that crazy. Their menu is pretty extensive and that’s undoubtedly the cause of its popularity because they have just about everything you can think of on the menu.

We were right out by the airport, not even in downtown Seattle, but it was stupidly busy here too. We had to wait a while for a table with people constantly streaming in and out, it’s predominantly a restaurant but the number of people coming in purely for takeout cheesecake was a bit mind-blowing.

Eventually we were seated and it was good. It usually is, I like the Cheesecake Factory but I think good is sufficient enough praise for what it is. It isn’t Michelin Star fine dining but it’s still equally popular Stateside – if you do visit, expect a wait!

Anyway, it was a nice way to start the trip. The next morning we drove through the beautiful mountains and made our way to lovely Walla Walla. Truthfully it was a pretty relaxing first week. There were a couple of things to take care of, last minute bits and pieces but the majority of stuff had already been dealt with.

We did go and find rings eventually. Honestly, I’ve never been one for wearing jewellery.

Also sidenote but curse the Americanised spellcheck because it really threw me that WordPress thinks that I’ve spelt jewellery incorrectly. I had to double check only to discover its another Americanism or probably Americanizm with your silly Z’s, right?

Anyway as I was saying, I’ve never been one for wearing jewellery so ring-shopping was an interesting experience. I think the idea of it and symbolism behind it incase of a marriage is nice so I was always going to buy one but I don’t think I ever believed I’d wear it beyond the wedding day.

With that in mind I didn’t give a huge amount of consideration to all the different options. Maybe if I’d known how much wear it’d get I’d have gone for something more eye-catching and glamorous but I kept it simplistic – a simple gold band – “that’ll do!”

To emphasise the point, they asked if I knew my ring size (psh, no) and then if I wanted it resized. Haleigh went down that route but I didn’t bother. It’s not a perfect fit but I figured it’ll stay on my hand for the probable one day of my life that I wear it.

It’s funny how quickly you become accustomed to wearing it. I can’t imagine not wearing it now, on the occasions it isn’t on my hand it feels strange and it’s immediately noticeable. So if you see an oversized ring sitting on my finger anytime, that’s the story behind why!

We had a few other minor errands to run, such as arranging to get our marriage licence but really it was a mostly stress-free run up to the wedding. We did our best to relax, enjoy our time together and also enjoy the time in Washington.

That’s worth remembering. This was a wedding trip for me, of course it was the fundamental reason that I was here but it was also a bit of a break. Four weeks without work. Four weeks to just enjoy that sense of being free.

I can’t recall where Haleigh had disappeared to, I think she might have met a friend for coffee, but I found myself with a morning to myself and I vividly remember sitting downtown thinking “I could live here..”.

That was never the plan. The plan was that we’d get married and Haleigh would move over to England but not for the first time, I was reminded that Washington really has become a second home for me. I could see myself living in Walla Walla, I could see myself living in Washington, I could see myself living in the USA.

I understand why people are concerned by some of the things that happen in America and some of their policies, I share many of those concerns. I’m not suggesting it’s perfect by any means but I think it sometimes gets lost in the politics that it is still a phenomenal country. 

I’m luckier than most. I’ve visited 15 states which is probably more than most Americans and the more I see of the country, the more I appreciate how diverse it is. It has so much to offer and Washington epitomises that aswell as anywhere else in the states. 

So I was happy to be here. Not having to worry about work helped of course but Spring was springing (that’s totally a phrase, right?) and Walla Walla was a lovely place to be in the time up to the wedding.

We didn’t do anything overly exciting with our free-time, we frequented a few favourites around the area such as “The Tux” in nearby Prescott and had a couple of jaunts over to the Tri Cities for various reasons aswell as enjoying our time in Walla Walla. 

Soon enough we were going in to another week and family and friends were beginning to arrive in to town for the big day. More on that next time! 

Stay tuned!

Jason