Start with the good - I am getting married on June 4th of next year, and in the place I wanted from the beginning; the bougie glamp desert compound in Yucca Valley that I emailed before we were engaged just to get rates. It’s such a relief to have this nailed down (deposit check and signed contract in the mail) so I can just focus on save the date invites and then forget about it for a while. On Sunday we got up early to see one place built on a ruin that was a nicely set up one-day venue; definitely my favorite of the cheaper one day options. Then we went to another one day place in a more suburban neighborhood - while the place itself was very nice, the fact that it wasn’t remote bothered both of us (the “Fuck Biden” flag on the house next door didn’t help...at all). I wanted to see a wacky artists’ compound that wasn’t really set up for weddings but was still a possibility, but they couldn’t meet us until too late, and we were all so cranky and tired at this point that I pushed our final venue meeting up two hours and we headed over. And of course, it was perfect. 40 acres in beautiful Yucca Valley with a gorgeous main house, various glamp sites all around for our compound, even a small lake...it’s just perfect. Of course, a full-weekend extravaganza with housing for 20 is no joke...and not cheap. I mentioned how I pay first and ask questions later, right? I also got the F to agree to my very non-traditional processional and first dance music (not surprisingly), so yay there. I’m going to have fun with this. We all need a little goddamn joy right now, dammit.
The not-great part of the weekend was the cabin visit. I intended to ask questions about the placement of the outhouse, windows, security, etc etc...and our whole visit got sidelined by a very awkward conversation in which the contractor asked if we would be willing to float him a loan he could pay back over the next year to help him get over some business debts. Um....no? I mean even if I hadn’t just canceled my event, I would never enter into an agreement like that. Not that I think he’s a bad guy - I really don’t think he is - I just think he’s kind of a mess and his situation doing this kind of work is so precarious, I absolutely don’t believe he would pay us back, not one bit. So we spent an agonizing hour and a half in the hot sun and wind awkwardly talking about this, while I kept trying to steer him back to the practicalities of the actual build, and the kids sat in the car with the AC running. Nothing was accomplished with that visit, and I was a bit put off by some executive decisions he’d made - moving the door to the other side of the house, making what should have been small sleeping lofts into an entire 6’ high extra story that makes the once small cabin look top heavy and awkward, and using this cheap vertical wood paneling on the outside that looks like some kind of 1970s barn...ugh. Nope, nope, nope. Then all of a sudden the idea to hire a water company to come out and fill our tank and maintain it was no longer a thing - people will steal your tank, the water will develop bacteria, the company won’t come out for a small job like ours. The F and this guy tried to hash out this extremely complicated gravity system in which we could lift five gallon tanks up to the sleeping lofts and fill a tank that would attach to the now attached bathroom...um, no. In about three seconds once we got home I found a battery charged portable water heater used by dog groomers that will work just fine for our 2-4 showers per month and occasional dishwashing. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s over-complication of things, and this weekend was rife with that. Between this guy stressing me out and then the F randomly saying to me in the middle of our venue tours, “you know, this is really too far for people to drive - you should really try to find something closer, like an hour outside of LA,” to which I answered, “so what you’re saying is I should completely scrap everything I’ve been doing for the past month and throw all that work down the toilet and start from scratch so people can drive an hour less...?” I was just about done with men for a while. They can be super annoying. And yet I’m marrying one, go figure.
The contractor has since retracted his ask for a loan and apologized for even asking and said it was wrong of him to ask (all true) which was a relief. In texts I’ve tried to move back to talk about the actual build. I definitely am losing confidence that this build will be completed, and even if it is, that it will be done the way we want. I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope that this place works out and we can one day enjoy it.
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