Secondly, I would like to do my Wish List Wednesday, Thursday Edition! (Thanks for my sis-in-law, Lilac Barries, for doing a Wish List Wednesday and reminding me about blogging!) I would like a digital picture frame so I can up load the cutest pictures of my wedding and take them to work with me. Something like this:
LOL! I love the expression on that kid's face! :) With a digital photo frame, I can show off lots of pictures w/o taking up that much space - and I can change the photos out when I feel like it. Some of these frames come with remotes, which I don't think is necessary. The last thing I need is another remote to keep track of. The price isn't bad - the cheapest one I saw on Amazon was about $30 before shipping. The reviews say it can only hold 10 pictures, but why would anyone want more than 10 pictures in one slide show? I get kind of bored after that anyway. :P So there's my Wish List Wednesday on Thursday!
Anyway, on to the REAL blog entry! The Wedding Night Story - keep reading! It's rated G. PROMISE!
So, since the wedding was SO perfect, in the back of my mind, I was kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop - so to speak. And it did. The ceremony lasted into the night, 9 or 10pm, and we didn't get out of there until late. We spent some time packing up my things at my parents' house then went off to the first stop of our honeymoon in San Luis Obispo. We were going to spend our first night in a hotel there then go on up to Morro Bay for a few more days. Well, here is where the other shoe dropped. We arrived at the hotel very late, which didn't have an elevator by the way, checked in and went to our room. Our room was on the second floor and poor P carried two big bags up the stairs. We get to our room, open the door...and BAM! We were hit with a wall of cigarette smell (coming from a non-smoking room none the less!). I reeled back and said, "We can't stay here" and we promptly went back down stairs with the big bags and asked for another room. There were no rooms available. So, we asked for a refund but since we reserved the room from an online company, we had to call them to get the refund. Since it was so late, nobody was there to issue the refund so we had to wait until the next day. Fine...but where were we going to sleep?
By this time, it was..oh about 1am and everyone we knew in the area were hosting other people and didn't have room in their houses - or asleep and unreachable. So, we went next door from this horrible hotel to the Courtyard by Marriott. I know swanky...and if the story stopped here, it be awesome but it wouldn't be a story! So, we walked in, stood there waiting for another family to check in - which felt like forever since around this time at night, and after such a long day, time seemed to slow down to annoyingly snail-like slowness. We finally get to the receptionist and tell her our sob story about how this was our wedding night and the hotel we had smelled like smoke and how I was allergic to smoke, etc... The receptionist was sympathetic to our situation and actually hung up on somebody who was holding for the VERY last room they had! Amazing right?! Well, the room was $200 JUST for that one night (even after the AAA discount she was going to give us) and she didn't tell us how much the room was until AFTER she hung up on that poor guy. I felt bad for the guy because we could not afford that much for just one night, especially since we had just spent so much just on traveling to California from Arizona. The receptionist was nice about us declining the last room available and didn't kick us out of the reception area when we tried to find another room.
After we declined the room at the Hyatt, we had to find another place to stay. So, we go on the phone with this really patient guy with Hotels.com. We tried to get another night at the Inn at Morro Bay, which was the hotel we booked in Morro Bay for our honeymoon, but the hotel was completely booked. Since it was SOO freaking late by that time, the guy from Hotels.com had to physically call hotels instead of book them online, so he put us on hold and proceeded to call other hotels in the area. We also gave him a price point of under $100 to remember while he was asking about rooms.
During our time on hold, I decided to thank the receptionist for hanging up on the guy and let her know that we appreciated that she didn't kick us out while we called pretty much her competitors in the area to get a cheaper room. She was really nice about the whole thing and we got to chatting. Come to find out, she was once a flower shop owner that my Mom used to work for back in the day. Crazy huh? Small world!
Anyway, around that time, P finally got back in touch with the guy from Hotels.com who had found us a room in Santa Maria at the Historic Santa Maria Inn. Now, if you're not familiar with the central coast of California, let me educate you. :P Our wedding was in Arroyo Grande at the Gardens at Peacock Farms. We went from Peacock farms north about 10 minutes to Grover Beach. From Grover Beach, we drove north another 10, 15 minutes to San Luis Obispo where that smelly hotel is located. Santa Maria is a little over a half an hour SOUTH of San Luis Obispo, and an hour SOUTH of Morro Bay. And it's 1am...after one of the longest (but one of the best!) days in our lives. But, the distance doesn't matter because this room was the ONLY room on the central coast - that was reasonably priced. So, we decide to take it out of shear desperation and start moving on out. We thank the receptionist one more time and she gives us some free refreshments to help us with the drive that seemed like a trek across the world by this time. She also reminds us that it's not really that far away and that now we have a story to tell (which we do!).
We get to the hotel...and it's BEAUTIFUL! The lobby is clean, full of historic furniture, lovely wood trim and a roaring fireplace. We check in and the receptionist gives us a late check out because it's about 1:30, 2am by the time we get there. As we went up to our room, we encountered a drunk guy waiting for the elevator. He reeked of alcohol and stumbled into the elevator before us. I didn't want to join him in the elevator since he smelled so bad and I was afraid of being thrown up on, or worse, having to talk to a drunk person, so we waited. The elevator went up a few floors and then stopped. We waited a few more minutes and then called the elevator back down, figuring he had gotten off to stumble to his room. When the elevator came back down, guess who was still there? That's right, the drunk guy! When the doors opened he was in the middle of taking a header into the wall of the elevator. I think I shrieked a little which woke him up a bit and he pressed the button to go back up. We waited for the elevator again, this time a little longer to ensure that he got off. After a few more minutes we called the elevator back down...and he was still there. This time, he was right on the other side of the doors and when they opened, he stumbled out, almost right into me. We let him go and grabbed the elevator before he could orient himself back to the elevator. The elevator smelled like alcohol, but luckily we were only on the 2nd floor. We FINALLY got to our room and pretty much crashed right away. When we finally got to sleep it was around 3am. When we woke up in the morning, we opened our presents, ate wedding cake for breakfast and lounged around until check out.
I would highly recommend the Historic Santa Maria in to anyone! The beds were very comfortable and the bathroom was clean with a nice hot shower. The only thing that was kind of disorientating, especially that late at night and being so tired, was that the building was old and the floors were slanted.
Kind of an amazing and funny story huh? Aren't you glad you kept reading?
And that was our Wedding Night Story...and yes, I have made people blush when I tell the story and start off with that title - which just adds to the awesomeness of it all! :)
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