5.22.2007

This is the week of poop

...and it's only Tuesday.

I just found out that I can't have my wedding at Addison's Oktoberfest. Apparently, they don't feel that a wedding is "appropriate programming" for a festival. Ahem.

What's more festive than a wedding? It's a big party. It's supposed to be about the whole community coming together to say "We approve of this!". That's why, no matter how intimate and private your wedding is, you still have to have witnesses. It's a public affair. Weddings are also pretty family-friendly. You might say it's the most family-friendly major event in a person's life. You probably wouldn't want your 7-year-old watching childbirth, and you might not bring the little tyke to great-aunt Bessie's wake and funeral, but weddings are okay. Plus, they are actually the creation of a new family, so it's hard to get more "family friendly" than that. As an aside, we're talking about a beer festival, here. Why are you bringing your kiddos, anyway?

Also, if one were to cast back in the mind regarding the history of Oktoberfest, one might recall that it was actually a wedding celebration to begin with. The first Oktoberfest took place in 1810, as a party to commemorate the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. They held horse races. It was cool, everyone liked it, and thus a tradition was born.

And yet, on this, the 20th anniversary of Addison Oktoberfest, a wedding is " just inappropriate".

It could've been handled better, as well. The woman I was dealing with, Barbara Kavasavich, managed to convey the feeling of looking down her nose at me over the phone. It must take years of rigorous training to cultivate such snobbery.