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A weekend in Virginia for Jamie & Gricel’s wedding

June 22, 2010 By: Judy Category: Travel

This past weekend, Kelvin and I flew to Virginia near DC to attend Jamie, one of my best friends from college, and Gricel’s wedding. Aside from the 5-hour airplane rides (I hate flying), it was overall a pretty decent trip.

Friday
I ended up booking round trip tickets for less than $300 a person, which is awesome. What’s not so awesome is that both the departing and return trips leave at 7AM in the morning. We woke up super-early, drove to the SFO long-term parking, and got to our gate right when boarding started. Thank goodness Virgin America has assigned seating; I was way too tired to think about it.

This was my first trip with Virgin America, and I loved TVs provided at every seat. You can buy services, food, and watch television through the little screen. Even though I was tired, I have a hard time sleeping on planes. However, instead of sleeping, I got to watch the US vs. Slovenia World Cup soccer game. I missed the first half, which turned out to be a good thing, since US was down 0-2 when the second half started. I got to watch US make their comeback and get robbed their winning goal with many other passengers on the plane. Everyone on the plane was made well-aware of when US scored goals, regardless of whether or not they were actually watching the game. Probably sucked for people trying to sleep… but GO USA!

These screens love to freeze. For most of the trip I kept
thinking we were stuck over Kansas. *shudder*

At IAD (which is a pretty nice airport, btw), we picked up our rental at Alamo. Rather than sticking to whatever cheap and practical sedan I had booked, Kelvin upgraded to a Camaro. I figured, okay, whatever, he’s driving anyway. But then they gave us this bright yellow thing. Great, we’re fricking driving Bumblebee!

Before checking in to our hotel, we drove a block past our hotel to grab a late lunch at KFC. I haven’t had KFC in a while, so I was happy to be indulging in cheap fried chicken. Because I’m a procrastinator, we went to the CVS next door after lunch to buy some water, face soap, and things to wrap Jamie’s wedding present so that it actually looks like a gift.

We checked into the Courtyard Dulles Airport Marriott, which is only three exits away from the airport. Jamie’s church is about 30 minutes away, but a hotel close to the airport would make it easier to hit our 7:50AM flight on Sunday. The room is small, but has all the amenities one would need, including a mini-fridge. The bed and pillows were very comfortable. So comfortable, I made the mistake of lying down and passing out for three hours. The only annoyance is the ancient A/C that was really noisy and lacking precise temperature control.

The last time I had been on the East Coast was when I finished my college education. That was… about five years ago? I basically wanted to eat all the chain restaurants I missed from being in California. Tonight we had Legal Sea Foods at the mall in Tysons Corner. I had a bowl of chowder and two crabcakes, while Kelvin had surf & turf. The food was as good as I remembered (always went to the one in Kendall Square), but it was more quantity and richer than I remembered. Way too much food. Our waiter was super nice, and he even gave me a free bowl of chowder to-go, even though I had just told him I was going to explode. At least our room has a mini-fridge so I can put it somewhere until I figure out what to do with it.

After dinner, we went straight back to the hotel, where we prepared our attire (and Jamie’s gift) for the next day. I also watched many episodes of the Dog Whisperer. I watch SO much TV when I stay at a hotel…

Saturday
We headed out to Jamie’s wedding right after getting up. Halfway to the church, I realized I left his wedding gift in the hotel room. Even after I had gone back to the room to grab my phone that I had forgotten… which was sitting next to the gift. I can’t believe I did this AGAIN. Heading back to get the gift at that point would mean we’d be late for the ceremony, so we decided to continue on our way.

At the church, I ran into Jamie and his best man, Bob (another college classmate), at the entrance to the church. Last time I saw Jamie was my wedding, and the last time I saw Bob was in college, but they both are about the same as always, which is nice. After a quick chat, we sat down in the church.

It’s a pretty big church, but the wedding itself was much more modest. For a religious wedding, it was surprisingly quick. Gricel looked beautiful. I think Jamie trapped himself a good one.

One minor complaint about the wedding: what an obnoxious photographer! She would always stand in the middle of everything. Most photographers I’ve seen, if they need to be in the way, they get out of the way ASAP. She was just standing there half the time, not even always taking pictures! Right in the middle of the aisle! Can’t she squat once in a while or something? And her camera had to be the noisiest camera I’ve ever heard. The beeping of camera and the constant buzzing of her flash… why is she even using her flash? She has a fancy camera and the couple is well lit. ARGH! (In contrast, the videographer was quite the ninja. I didn’t even notice him until Kelvin pointed him out in the shadows at the front of the church sitting on a ledge like a gargoyle.)

Also, Kelvin’s cellphone alarm went off during the ceremony. Thankfully, it was peaceful harp sounds instead of NOM NOM NOM or the Hawaii Five-O theme.

After the ceremony, we checked out where the reception was and decided to high-tail back to the hotel to get the wedding gift. Even though it took less than 30 minutes to get to the church, it took over 45 minutes each way just to get the present. Getting to the hotel, I thought it was my fault because I messed up the directions back. However, the return trip, which was the same route we took in the morning, was equally awful. I don’t know where the heck all these people came from or where they’re going on an early Saturday afternoon! And it’s hot and muggy. Don’t these people want to stay home with their A/C?

And we ran into the most random delays, the strangest being at the intersection right in front of the church. A Prius wouldn’t go on a green, so we (along with many other cars) honked and passed it, only to find an old man sitting at the wheel passed out. WEIRD.

By the time we made it back, we missed most of the reception (which appeared to be BBQ buffet) and made it just in time for the cake cutting and bouquet toss.

Nice cake toppers :D

I finally had a chance to talk to Jamie and Gricel, who were prominently featured at their sweetheart table.

Bride and groom on display

Jamie prepared to fight crime even during his own wedding.

A pic with my classmates (Rodney, where are you?!)

My favorite part of their wedding had to be the send-off. I’ve never been to a wedding with a send-off. We were given little bubbles to blow, and their groomsmen had decorated Jamie’s getaway (or escape, har har) car. They even had cans attached to their SUV! I’ve only seen that on TV!

(bleh squished video. Need to figure out a better way to do flv.)

After the wedding, we went to the next East Coast chain on my list for mini-lunch: Friendly’s! We shared a cheeseburger and potato wedges because we were going to have dinner in four hours. I don’t know what it is about Friendly’s, but I always like their food. I only went there a few times when I was in Boston because it was quite a walk to get there, but it was always worth it. In fact, I’m pretty sure I always went with Jamie. We finished lunch with a scoop of mint chip ice cream.

Instead of going back to the hotel, we went to the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly. It’s one exit away from our hotel because it’s on airport property, and it’s free after 4PM. It also closes at 5:30PM, which is good for Kelvin because he doesn’t particularly like spending a lot of time in museums.

The museum is basically a hangar crammed with all sorts of flying machines. You don’t have to be an aviation nerd to find the museum interesting. It was neat seeing all the different planes from different eras. Highlights were Enola Gay, the space shuttle, and the Blackbird (wth, ANOTHER Transformer?). Definitely a good way to kill an hour.

At Jamie’s wedding, we arranged to meet up with Bob for dinner. This time, we went to a restaurant to a chain restaurant Bob was missing: Uno Chicago Grill (AKA Pizzeria Uno). I caught up with Bob, who I haven’t seen in 5-6 years and is currently doing grad school in Taiwan. We’ll probably see him again whenever we go visit my grandparents sometime this year.

After dinner, we lounged in our hotel room for the rest of the night, watching Silent Library and finishing up my clam chowder.

Sunday
Another early morning flight, so we had to wake up early again, which was extra painful with the time difference. We returned Bumblebee, flew home, and I passed out on the couch from being unable to sleep on the plane.