Wedding of Wonders – The Blog

Hello friends!

In about 2 months we leave for our wedding around the world.  Two.  Months.  Can you believe it?!  With preparations well underway for both our trip and the celebration at home once we return, we have been working our way down our wedding “to do” list.  (Okay, okay!  I’ll admit it.  I am the compulsive list-maker, so it’s really MY “to do” list that I have thrust upon Mike.)  To give you an idea of items on our my list:

1)  Find and Book Wedding Venue.  Check.

2)  Book Around-the-World Tickets.  Check.

3)  Book Awesome Musicians to Play at Celebration.  Check.

4)  Annoy Mike With Menial Tasks As Often As Humanly Possible.  Check.

Seems simple enough, right?  So, after checking a ton of stuff off of the list over the past few months, the time finally came to sit down and discuss the most difficult task at hand.  I know you’re asking yourself, “What could it possibly be?”  Applying for a marriage license?  Nope.  Finding a place to stay at multiple locations all around the world?  Nope.  Making the decision to spend the rest of your life with one person?  Nope.    Securing a reservation at THE FRENCH LAUNDRY?  Ding ding ding!!!

Now, for those of you who are not familiar with The French Laundry, let me tell you a little bit about this fine dining establishment.  Located in Yountville, CA (in beautiful wine country), The French Laundry serves contemporary American food with French influences dreamt up by chef/owner, Thomas Keller.  Each and every day, The French Laundry presents two nine-course tasting menus where “no single ingredient is ever repeated throughout the meal.”  It is one of the few restaurants in the United States to receive 3 Michelin Stars for its “exceptional cuisine” (Thomas Keller’s New York City restaurant, Per Se has also received 3 Stars) and it is consistently found in the top-5 of Restaurant Magazine’s list of the “Top 50 Restaurants in the World.” And oh, did I mention that it is nearly impossible to get a reservation?!

So, with that in mind we embarked on the most difficult task we have yet to encounter:  Get a Reservation at The French Laundry.  A few Google searches made it clear that getting a reservation would not be a simple task.  Reservations can only be made “two months in advance to the calendar day” via telephone beginning at 10:00am Pacific Time or via OpenTable.com where they release only two reservations for each desired day.  If that doesn’t sound challenging enough, I read numerous blogs where people tried to call at 10:00am on the correct day only to find themselves getting a busy tone for an hour and then finding out that all reservations were taken once they got through.  I was beginning to get a little nervous.

We decided to enlist as many people as possible in order to get the job done.  My brother and his lovely girlfriend were given the task of attempting to secure an OpenTable reservation once the reservations became available at 12:00am PST (3:00am our time) two months before our desired reservation day of May 19th.  At 12:00am on the dot, the reservations were already gone.  Reservation FAIL.  Luckily, there was still hope.  Mike enlisted a few of his friends from work to man the phones the following morning and press redial as much as they possibly could until someone got through on The French Laundry reservation line once it opened at 10:00am PST.  So, there we were.  Six of us calling as quickly as our fingers could hit the buttons.  Five simultaneous busy signals.  What?  What’s that?!  A ring?!  Did someone get through?!  Yes, ladies and gentlemen.  My future husband, the show-off, got through ON THE FIRST TRY.  We got ourselves a reservation at The French Laundry.  So, on May 19th at 5:30pm, exactly 3 years to the day since we got engaged, Mike and I will sit down to enjoy what I am sure will be one of the most memorable meals of our lives.

This will officially be the trip of a lifetime.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 21st, 2009 at 10:57 and is filed under California, Dining, Katie, Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.