My Big Fat Voodoo Wedding 0
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Scott and I are having some issues.
Commitment issues, to be exact.
On our trip to Vegas, we had decided it would be fun to celebrate four years of wedded bliss with the tackiest Elvis wedding we could get our hands on.
I refused to settle for anything less than A Little White Wedding Chapel, the exact spot where Britney wed Jason Alexander back in 2003. A girl’s gotta have standards, after all.
You think THIS is bad? Fast forward to her nuptials with K-Fed where the wedding party was forced to wear matching velour tracksuits to the reception. The horror.
Told you. To this day, I blame their divorce on this.
Unfortunately, tacky weddings are not cheap. Like, 300 dollars not cheap. We decided as a couple that this money could be more wisely spent at places like the Lacoste store.
Because polo shirts are a far better investment than something silly like, say, a lifelong commitment.
Priorities, people.
While visiting Portland over 4th of July weekend, we had a second chance at renewing our vows.
A visit to Voodoo Doughnut topped our list of things to do while in the Rose City. I had learned of the glorious establishment in one of my favorite Jen Lancaster books, and had vowed to make a pilgrimage on my next visit to P-town.
As I take fried pastries quite seriously, I visited their website to do some research.
I was thrilled when I discovered this little gem.
Fried dough with banana chunks and cinnamon sugar covered in a glaze with chocolate frosting, peanut butter, peanuts and chocolate chips on top!
I don’t do doughnuts half way.
But when I learned I could demolish this bad boy while also renewing my wedding vows? I was speechless. Paralyzed by joy. Overcome with delight at the idea of having five edible voodoo dolls instead of bridesmaids.
Nothing says love like a pretzel stake through the heart.
That’s right, Voodoo Doughnut performs wedding ceremonies. For a mere twenty-five dollars.
I immediately sent this email.
After a little bit of back and forth, we had nailed down a date. But the best part was finalizing the officiant. I didn’t think anything could top having my father perform our ceremony back in 2007.
I thought wrong.
Nothing says “wedding” quite like a feline officiant who only takes cash.
I take it back.
Renewing vows beneath a maple bacon doughnut stained glass window and a sign reading “The magic is in the hole” might take the cake.
I think we just out-trashed Britney.
But then, on the morning of our wedding day, things went horribly awry.
After taking a Zumba Class at the Diva Den with Kathy, I spilled half a bottle of water into my precious Louis Vuitton bag.
This of course meant that the wedding was off.
Scott completely understood. If I didn’t know any better, I would have actually described the look on his face as relief.
Free at last! Now iPhone and I can run off and get married after all....
This is why you should never shop for clothes at Powell's Bookstore
But back to the crisis at hand. What happened next is extremely difficult to talk about.
Yes, that is me airing my handbag out as Kathy drove 60 mph through Portland. What can I say? My maternal insticts kicked in and I did what it took to save him.
The good news is that Louis survived.
The bad news is that after cancelling our wedding, we had to actually wait in line for the doughnuts.
I may not be above getting married at the doughnut shop, but I am certainly not going to wait in line like the desperate, carb hungry fool that I truly am.
We decided to come back later that night.
Who would have guessed the line would be even longer at one in the morning?
Yet something about waiting like a desperate, carb hungry fool in the dark seemed less…disgustingly pathetic?
So wait we did.
We had some pretty good entertainment, too. Remember these guys from The People of Portland?
But most of the time in line was spent competing in a heated game of Words with Friends.
The game is my new obsession. It haunts me in my dreams. Wanna play? My username is KatrinaTaylor. Original, I know.
If only “LIGER” (Lion/Tiger a la Napoleon Dynamite) was recognized as a word, I would have totally smashed my friend Nathanael in an epic triple word score smack down.
Next time, Nathanael. Next time.
Oh, and I’m officially writing to the people at Webster’s about this. It just seems unfair that “OMG” gets added to the dictionary, while “Liger” is overlooked.
Before I could shed too many tears over my impending loss, it was finally time to eat some doughnuts.
My fantasy of an array of rainbow-colored pastries covered with every cereal, condiment and fried meat product imaginable was soon shattered.
Apparently, Voodoo had just been remodeled, and this was their soft opening. They weren’t back up to normal production speed quite yet, and would shut down for an hour or two whenever they ran out of doughnuts. I suppose we were lucky they didn’t run out before we got to the register (a crowd of drunken hackey sackers behind us was not so fortunate), but I was still pretty bummed out that I would not get my moment with the Memphis Mafia doughnut.
Instead, I had to settle for the No Name.
Yes, it’s actually called “No Name.”
It’s a raised yeast doughnut with chocolate frosting, Rice Krispies and peanut butter.
Let’s just say the flavor profile was about as underwhelming as the name.
But we had come this far…and so, I forced myself to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Don't you feel bad for me? This took a lot of courage.
The person we should all feel sorry for is Scott. His neck tendons had an allergic reaction to his Arnie Palmer doughnut.
In a complete act of selflessness, I ripped the doughnut from his clutches and ate it myself in order to save him. Sometimes, I don't know how I do it.
In all fairness, the doughnuts weren’t bad. They just weren’t the amazing culinary masterpieces I had been anticipating.
They were just regular old doughnuts.
Perhaps my loyalty to the Emerald city has made me biased, but I’ll take my Starbucks Apple Fritter (delivered fresh daily from Top Pot Doughnuts) any day of the week.
My beloved
Well…any day of the week that I’m not stuck here in Ballard.
That’s right, my neighborhood Starbucks has stopped carrying these nuggets of tastiness due to the fact that “There was only one girl who would ever order them.”
I’ll let you figure out who that one girl was.
Lucky for me, at the Starbucks near my office, Apple Fritters rain down like manna from heaven.
It has not been so lucky for my thighs, but that’s a whole different blog post.
So, the vows have yet to be renewed. With our fourth wedding anniversary coming up in just a few short weeks, I’m sure we’ll find some other way to celebrate that’s a little more us.
And renewal or not, my husband shows me he loves me every single day.
Like every time we go to Fred Meyer — he takes care of the grocery shopping so I’m free to go postal on the delightful spread of cheese samples.
Before you judge, when else am I going to have access to aged Roquefort that costs $22.95 a pound?
I even convinced Scott to go grab a sample of his own so he could bring it back to me.
What?
I wanted seconds.
If that’s not commitment, I don’t know what is.
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