The Wedding of the Century

Neither Kellan nor I have ever been married before, so this was a new experience for both of us. I vaguely remember going to a wedding or two when I was a child. I went to a cousin’s wedding when I was maybe 12. I just remember it was hot and in a big field. I remember missing my sister’s wedding, and being rushed during the reception to catch my return flight. I went to a friend’s wedding years ago, and it was just a… weird… wedding. So, I didn’t really know what to expect as a groom. I just knew I wanted it to be the best day of our lives.

I’m a planner. I do research. I compare options. I make charts. Kellan is a vibe…er. She focuses on the experience, while I focus on the mechanics. We are so perfect for each other. Anyway, it was time to plan our big day. We agreed to have the wedding on May 18th, because that was our dating anniversary. It was cute. It also allowed me to be lazy, and only have to remember one date. In 2026, that was a Monday, so hopefully the venue would be more affordable, as opposed to having it on a Saturday.

Originally, we had planned on doing a courthouse wedding, then a small 10ish people dinner. This would be my wedding, and then Kellan could have the traditional Kenyan wedding in a few years. I had $2500 in savings left over after purchasing the wedding ring. That seemed doable to me. Silly, sweet, naive summer child. After looking at places and getting quotes, we realized that for the money we were going to end up spending, there was absolutely no reason to NOT have the ceremony there, too.

Let’s step back. I am drawn to the sea. We live in Seattle, right by Puget Sound. Everything about Seattle is nautically themed. Kellan loves flowers. You know that scene in the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy and company fall asleep in that field? That’s Kellan’s dream. So I started reaching out to get quotes. Most of them I could ignore right off the bat. One place was on a boat, and had something like a 10k food minimum. Not including things like ceremony fees, and cake cutting fees, and whatever other fees. Nope. We had worked on a guest list already, and thought 40 plus the bridal party was doable. At 10k, that averages to $250 per person. One place came with a lot of extras, like a sunset sail, and a bridal suite and stuff, but it was still expensive. I mean, you get what you pay for, but we were doing everything we could to not go into debtor’s prison for this.

In the end, we had whittled it down to three options. One had an amazing view. But the actual event space seemed kind of run down. It was the most affordable option, but with the amount of flowers Kellan would have “had to” get, we’d end up spending more on both time and cost. The next option was like… it was a restaurant and it seemed like they found a storage space, so they decided to turn it into an event space. It wasn’t ugly, and the view was nice, but it seemed just… awkward. Plus everyone would have to pay for parking. In the end, we opted for Ray’s Boathouse. Right on the water. A dedicated event space for us. Free parking for our guests. The lowest food minimum we found. It was pretty. Did I mention it was right on the water?

Ray’s has the restaurant building, but then a separate building that is for events. It also has an L shaped “dock” that wraps around the event building, where we held the ceremony and the buffet. Inside, they had the tables, a dance floor, and they had a dedicated kitchen in that same building. The service was amazing, by the way. I’ve worked in the hospitality industry for almost 25 years. Most of the hotels at which I’ve worked had restaurants and event space. When you think about it, from the perspective of an event guest, you almost want the servers to be invisible, but also responsive. In a perfect world, it should seem like the event was run by magic. Gabe was our head server and he was great to work with. He anticipated our needs. Helped us when we weren’t sure what to do next. He and his team kept everyone hydrated and it was all smooth as butter. Everything from the planning to the execution was easy and perfect.

The ceremony was scheduled for 6:30. I was almost neurotically adamant that people should arrive at 6. Kellan and I got there at 5. We made sure the DJ and the floral person had everything they needed. We brought the cake and the wedding favors, the guest poster and the sign, and a bunch of other stuff. Kellan’s entourage arrived, and they went in the back to get ready. I greeted people. As we got closer to 6:30, I was surprised by how not nervous I was. Throughout this process, I never had cold feet. Kellan and I work so well together, that making this official just seemed like common sense. As I write this, months later, our marriage still just feels “right”.

Kellan’s hair was being difficult, but we were able to begin at 6:45. I’ve been told that in wedding terms, that’s “quite early”. The music started. Kellan wanted to walk down the aisle to A Thousand Years. She’s not even a Twilight nerd. The officiant walked first. Then the maid of honor and best man. Why isn’t the maid of honor called the best woman? Then me. During the rehearsal, the events coordinator advised me to think about how I wanted to walk. Not too fast. Not too slow. But that’s not really how my mind works. What do I do with my hands? Should I be silly? Should I high five people as I walk down the aisle? I tried googling it. That didn’t help. “Be confident.” “This is about you.” So I just walked like I was walking down the street.

Then came Kellan. Up until this moment, I hadn’t seen her in the wedding dress. I didn’t even know what the dress looked like. I just know that it was the first one she looked at, and it fit her like a glove. They didn’t need to adjust it or anything. She looked stunning. She was glowing. She was the dictionary image of “pure joy”.

The officiant had a genius system. He broke the ceremony down into sections. “Greeting”, “Vows”, “Prayer”, etc. Then in each section, he had 15 to 20 options. You could pick and choose which ones you wanted. You could create your own. You could skip sections. You could add your own sections. It was quite modular. So Kellan and I went through and picked our favorites. The we compared notes. I liked 1, 4, and 9. Kellan liked 2, 4, and 11. So we went with 4, which we both liked. I’m an atheist, so we skipped the religious parts. Though we did add a part from House of the Dragon. I found the translation from the Valyrian wedding between Rhaenyra and Daemon. I took out a few parts that didn’t make sense in our situation. I’m not sure anyone noticed. I’m sure it just seemed like poetry.

I went first with my vows. I had been rehearsing for a while now. I tried to keep it serious and genuine, but did include a tiny joke in there about vowing to “only half heartedly try to stop her from buying shoes”. Oh. By the way, she bought 5 pairs of shoes for the wedding. She didn’t wear them all. Just got them, to see which she liked best.

It was Kellan’s time for her vows. She was already happy crying. She talked about how I was always there for her. It was beautiful. We were pronounced husband and wife. It was time for the kiss.

We went into the back to sign the wedding license. Here’s where things kind of started going off the rails. In my head, the guests could begin eating and drinking. Apparently the bride and groom were supposed to do their first dance and eat first. Neither of us knew that. So we weren’t particularly in a rush, while our guests were kind of bored. Oops. Sorry about that.

After the signing part, we came back to do our first dance. I don’t know how to dance, and my music isn’t really danceable. Therefore, Kellan was in charge of the music. She chose a Kenyan song, Sasa Hivi.

It was time for the outfit change. Kellan wanted a “dancing dress”. She wanted it to “wow people”. She looked at a few different options, but nothing was really what she wanted. So she found someone in Kenya who would make one custom for her. She also had them make a somewhat matching shirt for me. So she went back to change. I waited. And waited. And waited. I had forgotten about MY shirt. So she was waiting for me to come back and change also. Oops.

We came back out. We tried to eat, but the dancing had begun. Kellan spent most of the evening dancing. I might be getting some of this out of order. At some point we cut the cake. It was red velvet, with raspberry filling, and, obviously, red roses on the outside. It was insanely good.

Instead of letting other people give speeches and toasts, we decided that I’d do that on behalf of us. This was my time to shine. Speeches and toasts are supposed to be funny. I started by welcoming everyone… in four different languages. Swahili, High Valyrian, Spanish, and English. My pronunciation wasn’t even terrible. I’d been practicing for months. We gave a toast to everyone who made the night possible. We gave a toast to Ian and Anita, the best man and best woman. We gave a toast to the people who couldn’t be there. Kellan’s family lives far away. Her dad died when she was a child. My fake dad died a few years ago. Plus, we wanted a small wedding, so we couldn’t invite everyone. I made a joke about not being able to invite my dog. We gave a toast to the people who WERE there.

And then I gave a toast to Kellan. See, here’s the thing. I’m a planner. I had asked Kellan to time how long my speech was. But I conveniently forgot to include the part where I talked about her. So she had no idea it was coming. “I don’t know why you agreed to marry me. Maybe you lost a bet. Maybe this is a Make a Wish type of thing. If you are a gold digger, you’ve made a terrible mistake.” Everyone laughed. Now let’s make them say “aww”. “Lots of people would use this time to say something cheesy, like ‘you make me want to be a better person’. But I’m not like normal people. So I’ll simply say this. Everyone who has known me for a long time has seen the dramatic change in my personality since I met you. I’m happier. I’m more optimistic. I’m more confident. That’s because of you. You don’t make me want to be a better person; you’ve already made me one.” Kellan was fighting back more tears of joy. I ended by saying “I love you”, again in Swahili, High Valyrian, Spanish, and English. All done from memory. No note cards. Just practice, and decent writing skills.

Kellan danced some more. Everyone seemed to have a great time. I got to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen in years. Sometimes the music got too loud for me. But all in all, it was just an amazing night. We had to leave by 10. So I asked the DJ to play the “Rains of Castemere” at 9:30. If you’re a Game of Thrones nerd, you get it. It turns out, most people had already started to trickle out by then. We asked everyone to sign the guest poster before they left.

Over the coming days, we were told by multiple people, how perfect the wedding was. It was “us”. Kellan got her flowers. I got my water view. It really gave us a chance to show off how perfect were were with each other.

For the curious, the wedding cost just under $15k, and that’s including taxes and everything. That’s including flowers, the DJ, the cake, the photographer, and everything. The buffet was only $85 per person.

Due to our schedules, we delayed our honeymoon until June. We went to Leavenworth. It’s a Bavarian themed town in central Washington. I’d never been there, and Kellan had wanted to go in winter to see the snow and Christmas lights. I don’t want to deal with driving in snow, so this was a good compromise. We are so perfect together. A friend agreed to watch the dog, so it was just us. We rented a cabin. We went ziplining. We ate great food. We enjoyed simply being together.

Also, now I have an excuse to use the phrase “the ol’ ball and chain”.