Vegas Wedding

Click here to view these pictures larger

As many of you may know, we took a trip to Vegas last week to renew our vows. Yes, a very popular renewal year is six years. My parents (Frank and Di as they are known), celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary this year, and we teamed up with them to step our Vegas trip up a notch. Thankfully, the wedding was great, and the night a huge success, because some of the events at the Paris spa leading up to it, were pretty bad.

We've stayed at Paris before. Probably about seven or so years ago, but we often go there to eat at Mon Ami Gabi, a great restaurant in the lobby with an outdoor patio. So, in finding some great rates, Paris came up pretty low, and was easy for us all to book. We flip flopped about ten times thinking of going to Venetian, since my parents stayed there last, and loved it. I had fond memories of the small but quaint Parisian rooms, so we said let's do it, we're not in the room that much anyway.

The trip started out swimmingly as I started getting the royal treatment from everyone thinking I was getting married. Girls, carry a white garment bag on a plane, and I guarantee, everyone will hold your door, move their luggage, and be overly pleasant to you. Three things that rarely occur in an airport, and certainly never an airplane. I find a pregnant belly also helps. Even the counter people are nice, and again, that happens maybe once every 100 flights for me.

Well, we arrive at Paris, and get upgraded to a corner room, which isn't a suite, but is much bigger than a regular room there. It's large, which was nice, since our luggage took up half the room. I had seven pairs of shoes alone. Funny thing about the shoes...the night before we left I had a half asleep Trent trying to weigh in on what shoes to wear for our "wedding" and the two pairs he liked I decided to take, thinking I would have my Mom or Leslie (lovely lady friend who came with us) decide which to wear. When I unpacked, I realized I had only packed one of each shoe. So, I could wear neither with the dress. Classic Jen. (Classic Peeeeg--for those that watch SNL). I had to wear black patent leather shoes in a pinch. Luckily, you couldn't really see them, so it was ok, but geez, could I be any dumber?

Which reminds me of another funny aside. I took a tennis lesson this past Saturday, and halfway through the lesson realized I was wearing two different pairs of shoes. One of my tennis shoe, and one of my running shoe. This is not a joke. I will have to take a picture of them both to prove how much alike they look, but I laughed at myself for a good five minutes after that. My tennis coach thinks I'm a complete kook anyway, so this was just more icing.

Ok, back to Paris. The room was a bit dated. The carpet was indigo, one of my least favorite colors. The furniture was trying to be French provincial but in the tacky old school hotel furniture way. Hotel furniture has come so far, and this looked like a creepy B&B where the owners listen to your conversations at the door, and serve you wet eggs for breakfast.

We go down to the pool, where Trent proceeds to get shit canned on Bud Limes, and lemonade and whiskey slushies. The drinks are served in 32 oz. jugs, and you could say the boys were over served. Ryan tends to hold his alcohol a little better, whereby you never ever know if he's drunk. I've never met anyone who could drink six 32 oz. gin and tonics, and behave exactly the same as if he were drinking Smart Water (I am now brand dropping on this site to boost my SEO rankings). Actually, I didn't even know Trent was that bad until he fell head first into all the lounge chairs, pretty much busting up his whole elbow. He had two huge round circular cuts on his elbow. It looked like a bite from Edward.

After an hour-long nap, we had to go to dinner, where my soon-to-be renewed husband had to re-group for the night's gambling and hijinks. He pulled himself together quite well, but the road back to drunksville was a pretty short distance the second time around. I'll skip the details of wobbly walking, cross eyes, and snoring, and FF to the morning after.

Thinking we'd be up early from the time change, we booked 8:30 and 9:00 appts. for nails for me and massage for Trent. Someone was struggling, and smelling of hopps.
While one of us sweated it out in the spa, I went to get my mani/pedi. I don't get my nails done very often, so when I do, I want it to be really great.

It all starts out with this woman, who I really liked, but who I quickly found out must work on product commission the way she was pushing services and product. She tried to talk me into this upgraded manicure that cost $160. I had already booked the regular one ahead of time for $100, which I think is already outrageous for a pedicure. So, instead of getting soaked in the nice tub, with the leather massagers, I am in a hair chair, with my feet in a portable pedicure tub plugged into the wall with about 15 curling irons. I thought my number was up that day. I kept thinking I'm gonna get electrocuted here because I didn't upgrade to the damn cucumber pedi.

Well, I'm still here, so that didn't happen. During the pedi, I get talked into buying an OPI dead skin foot scraper thing. Fine. I've always wanted one. Instead of $8.99 which is the price at Harmon in NJ, I got mine for $30.

Then, I make the mistake of talking about hand cream, and my Mom's trouble with dry hands. Another $15.00 for a hand cream for my Mom.

We get to the manicure, and I see a pile of products at her station. I'm thinking these needed to be shelved or used for me. Who knows. She started playing jedi mind tricks with me and steering the whole conversation to skin, and how the product right there was a miracle worker, and it saved her skin. Now, this woman was about 40, and looked 21, was it was hard to resist her. We would be talking about the pool, and what a nice time we had, and she would counter with how the dry air is destroying my skin minute by minute. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker, and soon, I have a pile of product I can only get there in my hands. I managed to talk my way out of a few of them, but ended up with two hand creams, two eye creams, an eye serum, and the foot scraper. I thought we'd go broke just with my salon bill.

I felt betrayed by Paris on my way up to my room. I pay all this money, then I get hoodwinked into buying all this stuff as well. I was surprised that a place like that pushes their employees to do that.

Well, despite my better judgment I return to get my hair and make-up done for the big night.

I already moved the appointment later, to have more time to play Craps, and I literally run from the car into the hotel to the salon. The one and only hair stylist is an approximately 80 year old woman, with a huge red hairsprayed hairdo. I have nothing against older woman, but with my recently chopped bob and big bangs, I was worried. Worry affirmed.

She decides she wants to experiment with curls. Anyone ever see me in curls? Right.
I told her if she wanted to try it, to do something Carrie Bradshaw/SJP so I'm cute. She didn't know who either of them were. More trouble.
So, she starts curling and pinning, and I know it's going to end badly. Not to mention I had one hour for all this to go down before we had to leave the hotel.

She takes the curls out, and starts trying to put a hairdo together. I looked like George Washington on the one dollar bill. It was so, so bad. It was big on top, curled on the bottom. Then, she said I had to wear my bangs bigger with curls. To quote Rachel Zoe, "I died."

Leslie came down so thoughtfully to serve me wine and toast our night, and the look on her face was priceless. It really said it all.

We swiftly washed it all out, and started over. She did not know how to blow out hair, and then she tried to straighten it with an iron, which was equally terrible. I just dealt with it knowing I would fix it when I got back to the room.

Luckily the make-up chick was great and a doll. She even put false eyelashes on (which I found later were extra of course), which took some getting used to, but were so fun. I think I look a lot like a tranny with a lot of make-up on, and that night was no different, but at least it wasn't our real wedding.

Trent called half way through the make-up asking me where I was. When I finally finished I literally ran up to the room to change. I had no time to put any jewelry on, fuss with my hair, or button the 20 button in the back of the dress. I shoved a pink belt on, and ran out. I was up there maybe five minutes.

My hair was big all night. I felt like Mary Hart. After losing eight pounds prior to the trip, I still photographed looking like a chunk with no waist and flabby arms. A friend emailed me saying "Tracey is so skinny! and your dress is lovely." This pretty much sums it up the two-year fat phase I'm in. She thought Leslie was my sister, and that she was skinny as hell, and that my dress was nice.

Can I possibly take another Master Cleanse?