Staying Close to Home

So I had my first truly negative experience (not just annoying, but negative) as part of this wedding planning thing today. We walked all the from our house to the this place, which is located in a very white, very affluent city named Piedmont, in the middle (yes, I'm not kidding) of Oakland. I won't go into great detail about the experience, but suffice it to say that I refuse to have my wedding reception in a place where my very multi-racial, multicultural wedding guests may deal with condescending, possibly racist attitudes from staff who think they're too good to answer your questions.

H. told me that he was surprised that I even wanted to do the reception in Piedmont in the first place, but he didn't say anything until today. I was like, "Um, okay, that's something I would've liked to hear a couple months ago when we first looked at this place." Would've saved me some grief.

So now we're going to be looking pretty much exclusively in Oakland, so that we can be near where the ceremony is going to be and so we can stay closer to home. I'd rather give my hard-earned money to a private business or to the local government in my own city than give it to snobby Piedmont folks who think their time is more important than mine.

So, yay Oakland! Having both the ceremony and the reception (and probably the rehearsal dinner too) in Oakland was always my frist choice, and it seems that the universe agrees with me.