The Rest of the Story...

If you’ve been on Facebook recently, then you know our little secret; we got married on Thursday! So here’s the long version of the story and the rest of the information we happened to leave out of previous blog posts...

As you already read, we had to book new flights because or Florida trip got cancelled. We booked the trip to Las Vegas without the intention of getting married, but as we thought about it over the next couple of weeks, we figured with COVID, gathering restrictions, and the fact we already wanted something small, Vegas was a no-brainer. So in July, before we actually got engaged, we had started the searching and planning process. We eventually settled on a ceremony at The Venetian (more on that in a bit) on October, 15th. We thought the date of 10-15-20 was fun and easy to remember! On August 5th we officially got engaged. It was fairly easy to fend off questions about wedding dates with COVID still being a huge factor. When discussing our upcoming trip to Vegas, we chose to focus more on our plans to the Grand Canyon rather than our time in Vegas. I’m sure there were plenty of suspicions, but we tried our best to downplay it all. 

Once we finally arrived in Vegas, our first stop not was not actually the hotel, but rather the Marriage Bureau where we picked up our license. We had applied online about a month prior. We walked in, signed a few things, said a little oath, and walked out with our paperwork in under 15 minutes. Then we finally went to our hotel room. Everything else about the days leading up to Thursday were noted in previous blog posts.

Thursday morning was nice and relaxed. I once again couldn’t sleep very well after 3:45am. I paid my monthly derby dues and tried to go back to sleep. I was up and down for a few more hours until I gave up trying to sleep around 7. Ross had better luck and slept another hour or so. I ventured out for our morning coffee after a quick shower. We had time to grab breakfast before my salon appointments, so we headed to Truth and Tonic, an all vegan restaurant in the hotel. It was incredibly delicious! We had some tacos and a wrap. We should have visited this place sooner! With not a ton of time before my appointment, we went back to the room to relax. 

I ventured back downstairs to get my hair and nails done at the Canyon Ranch Salon. I had a great nail tech, Kimmie do my nails. We chatted about COVID, what she liked best about being in Vegas, the wedding, and a few other random things. Once that was done, I was scooped up by Eva to do my hair. We also chatted about COVID, what the strip was like during lockdown, stuff to do other than be on the strip, etc. Both ladies were fantastic, gave me exactly what I was hoping for, and were a joy to chat with for the 90 minutes I was in the salon. I got back to the room before 1, but had told Ross it might be 1:30 by the time I get back, so he wasn’t in the room when I arrived. Turns out he was enjoying happy hour at one of the restaurant bars downstairs - getting out all those pre-wedding nerves I guess! :D He was back in the room just a few minutes after I was. 

We again relaxed for about 30–45 minutes and then I started to put my makeup on. The photographer showed up at 2 for a few pre-wedding photos. Mary was fabulous! We had a lot of fun with her and she seemed to enjoy working with us too. We did the “first look” photos and I had to hold myself together already. I managed to keep my dress hidden from Ross for a few months. (Side note, I picked my dress out before we were officially engaged too! Charlotte helped me pick it out. It was really special to have her there to give her approval).

We had about 30 minutes of photos in the room before it was time to head down to St. Mark’s Square. Mary reminded us to grab everything we needed, including the license. Guess what we forgot in the room....yep, the license. Ross ran back up to get it. I hung out with the minister, the photographer, and our substitute wedding coordinator. Our actual coordinator, Heather, ended up being sick on the day of our wedding, but Joelle filled in perfectly. 

Remember that gondola ride I mentioned in the last post? Well, that was just a hint about our wedding. Our 3pm ceremony took place on the white wedding gondola in the Grand Canal of The Venetian. We walked over to the boarding spot and Ross handed the minister our rings. I got nervous because he had them precariously placed on his pinky and ring fingers. I had visions of them flying into the canal, but of course they were fine. I think he’s done this before. 

The ceremony itself was about 10 minutes. It was perfect. Ross and I got to say a few words to each other. I should have gone first as Ross’ words were so eloquent and I could, again, barely keep myself composed. Actually, for the entire gondola ride I was on the edge of unleashing a flood of happy tears. I managed to keep them to a minimum, but just barely. As we reached the end of the canal, the minister pronounced us husband and wife! Enzo our Gondolier let all of the folks walking the canal know and we received claps and cheers as we shared our first kiss. A violinist Gondolier played us a song before we turned around and headed back to our starting point. We had a little small talk with the minister, he took a few photos with Ross’ phone and we also posed for a few as the photographer chased us up and down the canal. 

Once our ceremony was complete, it was time to spend the next 90 minutes taking photos. I had made Cheeky a little bow tie for the occasion and Mary seemed to get a big kick out of it. She did a great job placing him subtly in many of our photos. If you look closely, he shows up quite often! We had so much fun during our photo session. It’s hard to beat the scenery on the Venetian property. Mary had all the best spots preplanned out - even snuck us into some closed-off areas of the hotel. It’s like she’s done this before. We finished our photo session around 5pm. Dinner was planned for 6, so we headed to the room to take a breather.

One of the reasons we kept the wedding a secret is because we really wanted to fake everyone out with a photo of us at a cheesy wedding chapel and an Elvis officiant. Unfortunately, a lot of those are closed due to COVID, or located really far away - further than our time allowed. While we were in our room, we looked to see if there was a wax Elvis at Madam Tussaud’s museum (which is attached to the Venetian) and struck gold - it has a duplicate of the cheesy chapel from the Hangover. It closed at 7, so we got a move on! We wanted to stop at the restaurant to push our reservation to 6:30, but right after we popped out of the elevators, there was an Elvis!! He was there for another wedding, but we stopped to grab a photo anyway. (That was posted on Facebook!). We still wanted to head over to the museum, so we stopped at the restaurant, changed our reservations and made it to the museum.

Just before we walked across the street to go in, I thought I saw a familiar face. I gave an unsure wave, they stared back, I gave a slightly more confident wave. As we approached each other, our suspicions were confirmed! It was Col Gaffney from the 128th and his daughter! We had a nice quick chat and he congratulated us on our wedding - he seemed to be in genuine shock, and offered genuine congrats.

Back to the museum...We asked for a military discount, and the gal at the counter asked if we had just gotten married (pretty good guess on the account of the suit and dress!). We said yes, just two hours ago! She was kind enough to let us in for FREE! We navigated the museum fairly quickly and came upon The Hangover bar and exhibit. The bartender stopped us and bought us each a shot - how great are the employees of the Wax Museum!! In the Hangover exhibit, there is a neon wedding chapel which we used to for the Facebook photo! We had asked someone to take our picture, and she immediately tilted the phone in some weird angles. Maybe our request didn’t translate well, as it was clear their first language was not English. We got some interesting photos out of it, just not the ones we were looking for. We took a few selfies while we waited for someone else to walk by. This time we got more of the shot we were looking for. With that, we finished wandering through the rest of the museum, which wasn’t much. We were extra happy that we didn’t have to pay about $45 for those tickets, though we were willing just to get those photos! With our joke photos all secured, and time to spare, we wandered into a few shops on the Canal back in the Venetian. By 6:15 we were ready to have dinner.

 

Our dinner was at Canaletto, and as we have learned from our previous meals, one entree for the both of us has been plenty. There were three vegan options that made for a nice 3 course meal, plus the bread and oil. We shared a bruschetta, minestrone, and a linguine. The meal was probably our overall favorite for the trip. Even splitting the meal we were pretty full! But wait! What’s a wedding without cake?!

We had ordered a cake from Caked Las Vegas a few weeks prior. We gave them some general ideas on what we wanted and specific flavors. We had no idea what it was actually going to look like. Our waiter brought it out and took some photos of us. After our first slice, he was kind enough to serve up our first pieces. The cake was beautiful and just what we had asked for. To top it off, it was so delicious! As far as we know, it was vegan too! It was a chocolate cake with a peanut butter ganache filling and a white frosting with some fall colors, gold flake, and fresh flowers on top. Great job Caked! We weren’t sure if we were going to be able to eat all of it, so we offered a piece to our waiter. He declined, but one of the staff in the kitchen took a piece when he went to box it up. We were happy to share! We figured we could eat a slice for breakfast too.

Before dinner was over a nice woman came up to us and said her and her husband were celebrating their 20th anniversary today and they had gotten engaged upstairs at this very place! We were also not the only bridal couple to be having their wedding dinner at Canaletto. And with that, our evening came to an end! When we showed back up to the room there was a bottle of champagne, two glasses, flowers, and a candy bento box waiting for us! We both suspected it was a gift from the hotel, but we were wrong! It was a lovely present from Ross’ mom! Thanks! We were too tired to pop the champagne that night, so we planned on having it at our Air BnB in a day or two.

I could not have asked for a better day. I am so thrilled to be Mrs. Baker and I’m already enjoying saying Husband! We also had fun setting up the surprise for everyone! 

Stats for the day:

Steps: Who knows, my Fitbit didn’t match my outfit

Times I almost cried: At least 50

Random congratulations: A few dozen

Money saved at the Wax museum: Approx $50-$60

Photos that Cheeky made it into: You’ll have to look!