Geekin It Up

Let me start this post by saying that I'm immensely grateful to be marrying a woman who openly makes both Star Wars and Simpsons references in everyday conversation (even if my Indiana Jones and Back to the Future references are consistently lost on her).

This weekend Erin and I went up to Schenectady to, among other things, pick out wedding bands and meet with one of the owners at the Stockade Inn to discuss some of the logistics of our wedding. We've considered many ways in which to incorporate our collective geek obsessions into our wedding, but have generally decided in the interest of good taste and not freaking our respective families out to keep the nerd allusions to a minimum (though rest assured we haven't eliminated them entirely). So with that in mind, I would like to pay tribute to our geek brethren who boldly (and often sadly) used their weddings to play out their fantasies.

Nick sent Erin, Jon, Evan, and me this link the other day. . .

Though I was curious what Nick was doing cruising bridepop.com, it is undeniably awesome. The best part is obviously the Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma figures to the side (despite the fact that neither character was at the battle of Hoth - duh).

Naturally, Erin's first response was that it should instead be a Tauntaun cake (sort of like a cake version of this sleeping bag) so you could cut out the guts and warm a person inside (did I mention I love that Erin knows Star Wars). Sadly our wedding package already includes a cake from Villa Italia that probably doesn't include free animal intestine sculpting. Plus we learned that somebody else has already beaten us to the punch. . .

The folks at Gizmodo also graciously directed us to these amazing confections.

Alright, so pretty much I'm just into Star Wars-themed wedding paraphernalia. Though we did find a page for a Firefly-themed wedding that we felt was pretty sweet. . .

Probably Erin just wants a situation where she gets to pretend that she's getting married to Nathan Fillion. I only object to their suggestion that it's okay for guests to come as Star Trek or Battlestar Gallactica character (c'mon, what kind of loser would want that crap in their wedding).

I also commend the folks behind this wedding for their shockingly tasteful use of classic Nintendo iconography. . .

So I'll leave you to guess at what fun pop culture referencing we'll be including in our ceremony and reception, but just so you don't get your hopes up too much, we're nowhere near as dedicated as these folks. And though their conservative aunts and uncles have probably disowned them, we still salute them.

Hotels! Hotels!! Hotels!!!

The moment you've all been waiting for....drum roll, please.

*drum roll*

Okay, so here's the hotel info for the weekend of the wedding. We have a block of rooms at the Schenectady Holiday Inn (it has a pool!) for October 8th and 9th:

Holiday Inn Schenectady

You can call 518-393-4141 and ask for the Huth-Long Wedding block of rooms.

ORRRR

You can stay at The Stockade Inn (where the wedding is) but there are a limited number of rooms and they only have availability for the night of October 9th.

Stockade Inn Rooms

You can call 518-346-3400 to reserve rooms if you would like, just tell them you're with the Huth-Long Wedding.

Please feel free to email either of us if you have any questions!

It's a date

After already contributing two posts to this blog, Erin insisted that I take the reigns for a change (this is Jimmy btw). I can't believe it's only been a week since we started this whole wedding planning madness (to be fair, Erin's been kind enough to bare most of the burden for that), but we already have a place and a date. We decided pretty quickly that having the wedding upstate near Erin's folks' place in Schenectady was key, both in the interest of convenience and making it a meaningful event.

We'd looked into a number of places in the Capital District, and found a handful that seemed both tasteful and affordable (not an easy task), but without question our favorite was The Stockade Inn in Schenectady. Located in Schenectady's historic district, the decor is rustic and cute (with super sweet wood molding) and, equally important, Erin and her family had eaten there before and could vouch for the quality of the food. We were pretty much ready to book it based solely on the website, but we figured we'd come up here and check it out to be sure. The staff there took us on a full tour of the space, including the accommodations at the inn (very nice), and gave us a full rundown of what we could expect in terms of both the ceremony and reception.

Everything there seemed pretty standard (in a very cute, tasteful way) as far as I can tell from the few weddings I've been to, with enough flexibility that we feel like we can actually make it our own, and with a few little extras (can you say 'antique billiard room') to sweeten the deal. It's also just the right size that it can comfortably fit everyone we're expecting to come, but small enough that we'll pretty much have free reign of the place. And they were still available for most of the dates we wanted. So it might seem silly to not look at any other places, but we didn't see any point. We were sold.

So, folks, mark your calendars. Saturday, October 9, 2010 (that's 10/9/10). Stockade Inn. Schenectady, NY.

Erin and Jimmy get hitched.