It all started the previous year when Ale and I spent our first Thanksgiving on the beaches of the Yucatan. (See the previous Yucatan blog for details.) We said to each other, “If we end up getting married, let’s do it here on these gorgeous beaches. (Yes, we were contemplating the possibilities only a few months after meeting!) By spring the following year we had decided that a wedding was, indeed, in order. My thinking was that since I have a week off for Thanksgiving and people in the States have at least a four day weekend, it would work. It would give my NJ friends and family an excuse to come sun themselves in the Caribbean as winter began to take hold of them. Unfortunately, this plan backfired. At the time people were looking to book their flights last summer, gas prices were still spiking and flights were as high as $1,500 a pop, which was quite steep for a four day weekend. People began begging off, saying they would prefer to come at a later time when tickets were cheaper and they had more time to spend with us. Though disappointing, I certainly understood. I was also admittedly worried about everyone coming at once and me being too busy to spend time with them sufficiently. Nonetheless, I also admit I grew tired of having to explain to people, when they learned no one from NJ was coming, that I was not an orphan with no friends from NJ. Happily, my friend Tim and his lovely wife Jennifer stepped up to represent NJ and prove I had a life there. They ended up solving the problem of the unfavorable plane fare to vacation time ratio by extending their stay in Mexico for almost two weeks, creating for themselves a sort of second honeymoon. It was really great having them there. As for the rest of the NJ contingency, let me tell you what a great time you missed…Having both already spent a ton of dough on previous (practice) weddings, and having recently blown all our savings on our apartment purchase and furniture, our focus this time was keeping it simple and inexpensive. We figured we’d get married on the beach in a barebones ceremony, go to dinner at this high end restaurant down the road, The Mezzanine, then party at their Friday night dance event. We’d simply tell people of our plans and those who wanted to/could join us would do so. Pretty cut and dry. Well, so we thought.
Getting married on the beach proved to be more difficult, and potentially expensive, than we expected. The cabana we were booked referred us to their wedding coordinator who talked about packages including tropical flowers for $500 and a “site fee” of $750. I was shocked that there would be a charge for use of the beach because it is a well known fact that all beaches in Mexico are all legally open to the public. I couldn’t understand why while staying in their hotel it was free for us to read, swim, walk, play Frisbee, sunbath or run naked on the beach, but the minute we stood with some friends on the beach to recite some words and sign some papers it was going to cost us $750. No thanks! We were pleased when the Mezzanine said they would allow us to do it on their beach for free. Unfortunately, trouble began brewing with those folks too. At first, we told them we were expecting 10-12 people. Ale didn’t think her parents were going to make it either, and so we thought it would be just us with a few friends. But, Thanksgiving in Tulum has a very nice ring to it, and many of my friends from work began letting us know they would indeed be joining us for the nuptials. Ale’s family confirmed. Then more of Ale’s friends joined the list late. Two weeks before the wedding we added all the recent confirmations up and discovered the total was pushing 35, including us. When we called the Mezzanine to let them know of the change, they began back peddling fast. They had seemed concerned when our total had crossed 20 weeks earlier and began emphasizing they would have trouble serving us all at once and seating us together. Fifteen days before the wedding, when they heard we had surpassed thirty, they simply let us know that they would not be able to accommodate us and wished us “good luck.” Yikes!
Ale and I were so freaked out at this latest turn of events that we went into denial and didn’t even talk about it for two days. Finally, Ale got into gear and began calling cabanas/restaurants on the Tulum beach strip. After many disappointments we finally found a place that we thought would work: Om. Om is a new cabana/restaurant in Tulum. We saw it being built there last year and knew that it looked pretty cool. We also had visited Club Om in Playa del Carmen and knew it was a well run establishment. All we needed to do was meet with the managers and sort out the details upon our arrival.
We flew into Cancun on Monday morning the week before the scheduled event. I rented a car—and after remembering the $2,500 deductible I had to pay after a rental car accident last Christmas—purchased the full insurance. We collected our friends, Walter, Martha and Vail, who had also arrived that afternoon as well and headed south to paradise. Martha and Vail were treating themselves to an all inclusive resort up the road from us and would be joining us for the wedding. Walter was staying with our main crew on the beach in Tulum and continued on with us to our first stop, the civil registry. Now this was a meeting I entered with great fear and trepidation. The reason was that despite many attempts, Ale and I had been unable to locate my apostilled (internationally certified) birth certificate. Most sites on the internet, including wedding planners in the Mayan Riviera said that this document was a requirement for marriage in Mexico. Ale had spoken with someone in the Tulum office who had assured her that it was not needed in the state of Quintana Roo, where Tulum is located. And even though (at my badgering) she had called and confirmed this 26 times, I was still afraid that we were not going to walk in there and have them say the person on the phone either didn’t say that, or unfortunately had given us the wrong information and of course you need it you idiots didn’t you read all the available information on the internet about getting married in Mexico?? To my utter joy (and Walter’s who was eager to get to the beach) we suffered no such bad news and were out of there with papers in order inside of 15 minutes! All that was needed was our blood tests and physicals, scheduled for the next day.
After checking into our sweet bungalow suite on the beach at La Nueva Vida, we grabbed Tim and Jennifer from cabana Lamar and headed to Om for dinner. After eating a delicious meal, which Tim was particularly satisfied with, Ale and I met with Manuel and Massimo, the managers to iron out the wedding/reception details. They offered to set us up on the beach as we requested, suggested we go with a buffet, including soup, salad, shrimp crevice, steak medallions, lemon chicken, and pasta for our vegetarian friends. They decided to close the restaurant for the evening, and even offered to let us use our IPod in their sound system, which we figured would not only be cheaper but allow us total control over the music. By the end of the evening, all the details were falling quickly into place and we could settle down and enjoy ourselves for our pre-wedding honeymoon. Our first order of business was to catch up with my posse back at the sand covered restaurant/bar at La Zebra, the cabana next to ours where Will, Tina, Jackie, Walter and (eventually) Jim Weathers were staying in an apartment cabana. We had left Walter there hours earlier as he was happily accepting his free welcome Margarita. By the time we arrived to introduce our NJ friends to my DF friends, all my DF pals at La Zebra were thoroughly “happily welcomed” and enjoying themselves immensely. Tina, in particular was in rare and hilarious (intoxicated) form. Not one to be dissuaded from a late night cocktail, we joined the fray, ending sometime later laying on the deck cushions in the ocean breeze under an amazingly clear jungle sky, many of us chatting arm in arm. It was a very pleasant end to the beginning of our wedding week.
Breakfast on the beach, followed by swimming, sunning, reading, chatting, walking, Frisbee, and afternoon cocktails and snacks were the orders of the day throughout the week. Dinners, drinks and after-hour parties at our suite balcony were the orders of the night. It was truly a relaxing and fun week in the paradise that is Tulum. Since I’ve already explained in detail the jungle, ruins and cenotes of the Tulum area in a previous blog, I won’t go into that sort of detail again. Suffice to say that we did many of the same activities again. One activity that we did not do was the “Hidden Worlds” cenote park which is apparently an all day affair that includes jungle canopy zip line tours and all sorts of other cool stuff. I’m glad in a way we didn’t get to it because it leaves me something to do next time we go—(hear that Steve!?). Some new twists included the discovery of a secluded bar at the end of the strip that featured darts, ping-pong and pool tables which we enjoyed twice. Another new experience was an expensive but delicious dinner at Posada Marguerita, where we had stayed, but not eaten at the year before. The food there comes from a set menu with limited choices described in person by the owner at each table. While many of us found this personal attention charming, Jackie, who is a finicky eater was annoyed and didn’t get why she just couldn’t see a menu. We all got a laugh when the Italian owner, not hurting for any business, responded curtly to her demand to select her meal from a menu by saying, “You want to eat here tonight?—YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME!” She did, and I imagine she was quite satisfied with her meal as were the rest of us, which was one of essentially four combination choices of fresh homemade pastas and freshly caught seafood. Since the restaurant could not accommodate a table of 10, Tim, Jennifer, Ale and I sat at a table away from the main group, which I thoroughly appreciated, having another chance to enjoy our friends who had traveled so far for our special occasion. Another notable event took place in town at an Argentinean restaurant in town where we congregated in our biggest group (besides the wedding, of course) for a “Thanksgiving” dinner. At this point, Ryan and Lydie, Jimmy Weathers, Tim Marlowe, Ashley, and Will’s visiting friends JT and Allison and had all arrived. I was filled with joy as I sat with my beautiful wife to be and so many good friends, old and new, stuffing myself with grilled Argentinean meat and vegetables AND watching the Eagles destroy the Cardinals. (Unfortunately, this sporting result would not be repeated in the NFC Championship game...) It was one of my favorite Thanksgivings ever!
Days before the wedding we headed back to Cancun airport to pick up Ale’s parents. We brought them each a special gift, a bottle of vodka for him and a bottle of whisky for her. We serendipitously ran into Tim Marlowe when we were there and threw him in our shuttle back to Tulum. While Tim and I talked, Ale’s mom grew concerned about my driving speed and lack of focus on the road. As she commented on this, Ale poked me in the shoulder from the back. “Knock it off!” I told her. When she explained the reason why, I responded that perhaps we should pull over and grab her bottle of whisky out of the back so she could take a shot and relax. When her mom heard the translation of this, she held up her plastic water bottle for me to see and said, “What do you think is in here?!” The sweet old couple had been drinking during the entire plane ride! Her father made a similar comment when we stopped by their bungalow on the beach later that night to check on them. It’s nice here, I told them in my lame Spanish, you can get up and read on the beach tomorrow. “Read?!” he responded indignantly, I’ve read enough over the last 40 years, I just drink now!” Gotta love this guy.
After a week of fun in the sun (the weather was great all week, unlike the year before) the big day arrived. The wedding was to begin at 5:15 on Friday evening so we could stand on the beach with the sun splashing some color in the sky. As luck would have it, this was the only day that was slightly cloudy and as the afternoon wore on it became increasingly cloudy and began to drizzle a little. As we debated whether or not to move the event indoors the decision was taken out of our hands when the judge and the two Mexican witnesses, our friends Sonia and Enrique, were late arriving. Ale had spoken to the judge earlier in the week, confirming the start time of the ceremony. He told us he would be there a half an hour early to go over the details and logistics. When Ale called to find out what the problem was, he defended himself by saying, “You told me the wedding would be at 5:15.” Ale said, “yes, but it’s now 5:30!” Typical Mexican time management. He and Sonia and Enrique were all there minutes later, but by this time darkness had descended and it was obvious the ceremony would take place in the restaurant. Still, we still consider ourselves to have gotten married on the beach as the restaurant was literally 20 yards from the edge of the water and the only thing separating us from the beach was the plastic window they roll down the edge of the deck to keep the ocean wind off the tables.
The ceremony was brief and simple, exactly as we had wanted. A brief reading of the responsibilities, love and respect of man and wife toward each other in the state of marriage, followed by some “I do’s” (or “Si, quieros” which Ale still makes fun of me for slightly mispronouncing) and the signatures and fingerprints of us and the witnesses. As it was all in Spanish, I couldn’t follow most of it very well. But, it didn’t matter much anyway. I was captivated by how absolutely gorgeous Ale looked in her beautiful 30 dollar dress, (she is so proud of herself for finding that steal!)with her hair done up with the extra hair extension added. Even though we had been planning this event for over six months, I was suddenly overcome with love and happiness as I gazed at her in the candle light. Then we sat down at our respective tables for the dinner, which was, honestly, impressively tasty. Afterwards, it was time for a speech or two. I went up and gave a thank you to all, and offered my sentiment that the wedding day was important and special, but what really mattered was the live we would build together. When I got to the part about having children, her father leapt up from his chair and gave a rousing “yeah!” The fact that I said all this in Spanish nearly brought Ale to tears.
Her father wasn’t the only one interjecting with comments and cheers. My good buddy Jim Weathers (aka Tim Walters) was about as fired up as I’ve ever seen him. I actually first noticed his elevated state hours earlier when I stopped in the apartment next door to pick up the flowers our friends Vic and Carolina had picked up for us. When I inquired about his altered state, I was told by those around him that he had purposely decided to get “beered-up.” (I can only guess this is some sort of British expression.) I told him to knock it off as the wedding was several hours away. He clearly didn’t listen to me. As we chatted in the restaurant having cocktails and waiting for the guests, judge and witnesses, Jimmy was already on a roll and raising eyebrows from those already there. “What’s the over-under on how long it takes him to start singing the old Scottish folksong “No Way Never?” I asked Tim and Vic as we eyed him from across the bar. (Usually this never ending round of a song starts very late in the evenings—or early in the mornings.) When he approached me singing this tune less than two minutes later, I knew we were in trouble. As I stood gazing at my beautiful bride a short time later I became momentarily distracted by the rumble of under breathed cursing from behind the table. There was Jim, struggling to balance himself on a chair and record the momentous event on video. Luckily, he managed not to fall. Later, during the meal he shouted out a toast, “Mike, I toast to your stupidity!” What!? People around him asked. “I mean, you’re the best one to make a choice I would regret as I see Ale is not a mistake…” Enough! People told him, you’re just making it worse! I’m still not sure exactly idea what he was trying to say, though I’m certain his intentions were well founded. Perhaps an expression of something he felt about marriage in general. Several people later told us that as he got himself “beered-up” all afternoon he kept saying that weddings made him extremely nervous. Everyone’s reminders that he was not the one getting married and thus needed not relieve any cold feet were offered without effect. He also tried to offer some commentary as I began my speech, but Will quickly interceded in no uncertain terms, “Tim, SHUT UP.” And he got the message long enough for Will and I to make our speeches. Amazingly, he remained on his feet for the remainder of the evening, even managing to dance and hold Sonia’s baby Mila without incident. And despite his extreme state of inebriation, he still managed to maintain enough of his roguish English charm well enough as to have one of Ale’s cute friends express interest. He, on the other hand, was too far gone to notice. He ended his night hours later, back on the deck of our bungalow, falling out of the hammock and then passing out in our wedding bed. He was in rare form, for sure, playing the role of the “drunken uncle at the wedding” to perfection. To thank him, I took my clippers and gave him nice 1x2 inch bald patch on the back of his head. We all got laughs out of that for a couple of weeks.
After I finished my remarks I turned the floor over to Will. I was glad to have him be the one to make the speech. He and I have become quite close over the past year and a half, and after many, many hours hanging out in our apartment, partying out on the town, chillin’ at the beach and elsewhere, he better than anyone had a window into Ale and my relationship. On the other hand, Will and I also enjoy busting each other’s chops, and I was bracing myself for what was sure to be a roasting of me in the midst of his wedding speech. My apprehension only increased the day of the wedding when I saw him in the La Zebra restaurant with JT working on the speech for the better part of the afternoon. He did not disappoint:
Love Lessons I’ve Learned From Mike and Ale
Lesson #1: How do I know she loves me? She shaves my back.
“Bebe, Bebe, it’s me. Are you listening? I need you to listen. This is important. Did the maid throw away my toenails? She did? BEBE, you know I was saving those! They were huge, I could have chewed on those for a week.!” This is and actual phone call from Mike to Ale. I know this because I was sitting in the car next to Mike dry heaving as it was happening. It was shocking. But, most shocking of all was that Ale was actually apologizing. She knew the importance of these toenails and she shared Mike’s loss. This, is love. There is no affection deeper than that of a woman who loves a man who chews on his own toenails. It wouldn’t be proper to discuss all of Mike’s jarring habits at dinner but what is important to note is that Ale puts up with all of them. She even encourages them. She knows that the man she loves is at times…very gross. She knows that he is not ever politically correct. She knows that she will spend the rest of her life avoiding the eye contact of strangers in fancy restaurants. And she knows that this is what also makes him honest and sincere and true to himself. She also knows that these qualities will make him an incredible husband and she knows that she is very lucky.
Lesson #2: She thinks I’m funny, even when no one else is laughing.
If anyone is in doubt of Ale’s love for Mike, all you need to do is watch her when Mike tells a joke. She starts to laugh even before he has finished his first sentence. She glows with pride at his wit even when no one else is sure if what he has just said is even a joke. And she doesn’t just offer a little laugh, but a hearty, throw back your head and roar laugh. Mike, as someone who enjoys the spotlight, be thankful that as of this day you have forever found a willing and captive audience.
Lesson #3: She loves my friends because they love me.
I love Mike. I myself have shaved his back (although I never planned on telling anyone about it). Ale knows that we all love Mike, that we think he IS funny, and that we have all been enchanted by the cult of Mike Hennessy. Our devotion to her husband means that we are all part of this new family being created today. We may all be a little rough around the edges, but don’t doubt for a minute our love for Mike. In return, we know we will always be welcomed into this new Hennessy home. And we should all feel lucky. There are very few places where you will feel as comfortable and as loved.
Lesson #4: She makes me a better person.
Mike and Ale have given me hope. Through them I have seen that maybe there is such a thing as being “soul mates.” There just might be someone out there who makes you a better person simply because you are with them. This is true for Mike and Ale. As individuals they are deep and thoughtful and full of love. But, as a couple these qualities are magnified. They bring out the best in each other, and they also tolerate the less desirable qualities. Chewing on toenails doesn’t really matter when your husband is the funniest man on the planet. I have been lucky enough to watch their relationship grow from the beginning at match.com to the caring and devoted relationship it has become. Thank you both for providing us all with a real life example of what love really is.
Tomorrow at the beach, take a close look. Not at the beauty of Tulum, but at Mike’s back. Examine the attention to detail. Examine how close Ale is willing to go to that southern point where back hair turns into something else entirely. This is the work of someone who loves her partner so deeply that she is willing to put herself at risk. For all of us looking for love, this is what it looks like.
Needless to say, this speech got its fair share of “ha-ha’s” “ews” and “ahhs.” Ale had a hard time translating it to her mother and others later, who couldn’t actually believe he had covered some of the topics he had. Afterwards, Marlowe and some others spoke a few kind words. Ale’s father stood to serenade us a cappella, which was a quite moving experience. Afterwards, we moved to the party portion of the night, with some bouquet tossing and cake cutting interspersed as you can imagine. Jackie had done a fine job of creating the wedding play list and along with Tina, Martha and Vail did kept the dance floor going for almost two hours after the restaurant had originally told us they would stay open. Ryan rapped the entire song, word for work, of “Ice-Ice Baby” while Walter took 87 pictures of a super hot friend of Ale’s who had shown up in some sort of Jazzercise outfit. A pair of unexpected guests generated quite a stir when they stumbled into the bar and proceeded to tell anyone who would listen that they were having an illicit Mexican vacation affair, he being married and the best friend of her father. The next day the manager told us she topped of the night by puking on the floor just after we all left.
The wedding all came to its final conclusion many hours later, with a rump of our crew drinking the wee hours away on our deck in the ocean air, laughing and joking and taking pictures of Ale’s hair extension placed in various places on their bodies, before stumbling off alone or in pairs, leaving us two newlyweds to pass out next to each other (no consummation that evening) and wait for the morning to begin the rest of our lives together.
PS. The next day, Vic and Carolina had breakfast in our hotel’s restaurant. All the other guests were abuzz about the crazy party that had been going on at the beach front suite until 4:30 am. “Yeah, we heard it, did you?” “Yes we did…and THE PROFANITY!!!” I could only laugh knowing that I was surely a prime offender. After two days of gentle recovery on the beach we headed back to the DF to our new life as a happily married couple, ready to begin our work on starting a family. To be contined…
You can also view LOTS of pictures of our really fun and exciting wedding (and some of our wedding week) at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/miguelito2066/sets/72157614928775445/ Use the slideshow feature for best viewing.
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