The last couple of months have been engulfed by the flames of my eternal pressure to find a tropical hotel where we could get married again, but this time with my family there.
With some of us demanding the Philippines and others standing firm on their desire to not get bludgeoned in Mexico, we compromised on the Dominican Republic, and I began my search for a five star hotel. I watched YouTube videos, read reviews, cried, and finally settled on one that depicted the least bit of pink hamburger meat in its Tripadvisor photos. Then, it was time to make our wedding arrangements. I sent an email to the hotel’s wedding department and just two weeks later received a response from a man named Fredely Ferrero*.
“I am so very enjoy that you are coming”, the email said. “Let us please you with the following.” He had attached a password-protected wedding pamphlet and when we followed the link we were taken to a page where we were welcomed to request access to..the page. Having requested access, I then proceeded to do what I often do in these situations, which normally leads to a complete loss of an entire afternoon: I looked Fredely up on Facebook. There, I learned that our wedding planner’s nickname was The Pimp, and that he had recently purchased a 2005 Toyota Corolla to which he spoke on several occasions throughout his Facebook timeline. “You’re mine now Baby” marked the beginning of their relationship and were followed by a variety of photos taken from a variety of angles, with its owner’s leg sometimes hiked unceremoniously over its hood or trunk. Friends commented on every photo, with words of encouragement such as “Money makes the pimp” and “The King”, and he, with the dedication expressed in his emails, gave each of them a thumbs up.
It was difficult to imagine the divide between The Pimp, with his explicitly torn jeans and his purple car, and the man who provided such elegant customer service as our Wedding Coordinator. I hoped that some of his pimpness would reveal itself in our conversations, but he remained diplomatic throughout every highly anticipated and infrequent response. As we explored our wedding theme options including flowers, colours and whether or not we wanted our celebrant to speak English, The Pimp only replied to us in the evenings. “Bitches love Class” he would post on his Facebook page one afternoon. “May I present to you the options for a Day you will not Forget” would be written to us that evening.
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| The Pimp, redacted |
Unfortunately, we were soon presented with the quote for our extravagant choice, having erroneously opted for an English speaking celebrant and two chairs. It was ten times what we were expecting to pay, and when I inquired about the reason for such a high cost, we were told it’s because we were getting a separate dining area at the restaurant - the restaurant that we were already paying for at the all-inclusive resort. When I mentioned that last detail to him, he responded another week later, saying “My excuses, this is romantic time for you. It cost extra”.
Because we had already booked our hotel by that point and there was no going back, we decided to inquire about lower cost options, and it was then that we were presented with The Pergola at Dusk. The Pergola comprised of four metal poles with a set of wires stretched across the top. I had seen something similar at a Cuban resort a few years ago and had assumed it was the remnants of a communist television station. It stood on the beach night and day and people walked around it with care and apprehension on account of it looking like a radioactive antenna. “You can be marry there but must happen before 8am”, The Pimp explained. Before sunrise, to be exact. My mom suggested that we could maybe decorate this pergola, maybe cover up the spikes and rust stains, but The Pimp quickly warned us that this would also incur additional fees, despite us bringing our own decorations. We asked why but were simply told that this, too, was cost extra.
Defeated, I resolved to accept The Pergola at Dusk, preparing to gather my family in the middle of the night, envisioning my mother curling my hair by the light of a candle as my father crawled out of bed clutching his prosthetic hip, and asked to see photos of what a decorated version of this Pergola might look like. To that, another two weeks later, The Pimp replied: “We do not have photos because too dark”. This was when reality became too much to brush off: Here we were, about to put down a deposit for the chance to gather by a piece of structural debris that had no photographic evidence on account of being unsafe for the human eye. We were handing over an arbitrary amount of money for the receptionist to read from a hotel print-out, in a language none of us spoke, with no bouquet, no cake, no music, and no chairs. All of this was going to take place before the sun had risen, so that no one could bear witness to the charade we would have voluntarily taken part in.
Luckily, we snapped out of it, brushed off our desperation, and thanked our wedding coordinator for his time, but said we would be opting for an external venue instead, no matter what the cost may be. “This is so bad,” he replied a few weeks later. We’ll see.
*Name slightly altered to respect privacy
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