By now you should have received your save the date card for our upcoming wedding to be held on August 11, 2012 in San Francisco, California.
We had a local artist create the save the date illustration for us and we love it. However, you’ll note that it is a bit light on details, so we wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with information about the various events, accommodations and other logistics. This email is primarily geared to our guests who will be traveling to San Francisco this summer; locals—feel free to stop reading after the description of the main events!
WEDDING AND WEDDING-RELATED EVENTS:
Thursday, August 9th
·
Pizza night at our house for anyone who is in town/available
o Location: [house #] Franklin Street, San Francisco
o Attire: VERY casual
o Time: 5:30pm—whenever
o RSVP: We won’t be sending out a separate invitation for this gathering. Please reply to this email by August 8th to let us know if you’ll be joining us so we can make sure to order enough food!
Friday, August 10th
·
Mexican feast at Guaymas restaurant in Tiburon
o Location: 5 Main Street, Tiburon
o Attire: Casual, but you will want a jacket/wrap as we’ll be dining outdoors
o Time: 6pm-9pm (we will be traveling to/from Guaymas via ferry; additional details to follow via email)
o RSVP: You will receive a formal invitation along with the wedding invitation; kindly use the enclosed response card to RSVP.
Saturday, August 11th
·
WEDDING!
o Address: The Penthouse Suite of the Fairmont Hotel in Nob Hill, San Francisco
o Attire: Coat and tie for gentlemen; cocktail for ladies
o Time: Cocktail hour begins at 6pm; ceremony and reception to follow
o RSVP: You will receive a formal wedding invitation via mail; kindly use the enclosed response card to RSVP.
o Note: As with the entire weekend, the wedding is kid-friendly. There will be a dedicated area of the suite where kids will be able to watch movies, play games, eat, etc, with adult supervision provided.
Sunday, August 12th
Farewell brunch
o Location: St. Francis Yacht Club
o Attire: Collared shirts for men (polo shirts are fine); thematic boating attire encouraged, and you can expect Rob to be wearing brightly colored pants.
o Time: approx. 11:00am-1:00pm
o RSVP: Our hosts for this event will be sending out separate invitations; please RSVP as indicated. To aid in their planning, kindly reply to this email and let us know if your travel plans will permit you to join us for brunch on Sunday.
ACCOMMODATIONS, LOGISTICS AND OTHER INFORMATION:
· Hotels:
o The Fairmont. We have secured a small block of rooms at the Fairmont Hotel. These rooms are offered at the discounted rates listed below and are available for check-in as early as August 6, 2012. You can access our room block and book online here or by calling 1-800-441-1414 and referencing the [wedding party] wedding. You may want to also check out room availability through the regular Fairmont booking website, as prices can fluctuate and you may find something at a lower rate than our room block! Additional information about specific rooms is available here. If you have difficulty obtaining a discounted room rate through the website, let us know right away. The Fairmont will increase the size of the room block, if necessary. Note: if you have a United Mileage Plus credit card, consider using it to book your room as you will be upgraded to a higher room class on check in, if available.
ROOM CATEGORY SINGLE/DOUBLE RATE
§ Fairmont Queen $299.00
§ Exterior Fairmont King $329.00
§ Fairmont Exterior Double Bedded Room $339.00
§ Deluxe Tower (King) $359.00
§ Deluxe Tower (Double Double) $369.00
§ Signature Tower (King) $409.00
§ Signature Tower (Double Double) $419.00
§ Main Building Suite $479.00
§ Tower Suite $579.00
o Other Options.
§ Nob Hill. The Nob Hill area is full of great hotels, and all of the following are within a 3 block radius of The Fairmont. We do not have room blocks at any of these, but you may be able to find favorable pricing through hotels.com or similar:
· Huntington Hotel
· InterContinental Hotel Mark Hopkins
· The Stanford Court, A Renaissance Hotel
· The Ritz-Carlton
§ Union Square. Union Square is another very popular and heavily trafficked area of the city and is full of great shopping, restaurants and attractions. The Fairmont is only five blocks from Union Square, but those five blocks are among the steepest in San Francisco. Although romantic, the cable car that runs up Powell Street, with stops at the Westin and the Fairmont, is likely to be packed like a Tokyo subway. If you do choose Union Square, all of the following are good options and may offer more competitive rates than the rooms in our room block:
· The Westin St. Francis
· Four Seasons Hotel
· Hotel Palomar, A Kimpton Hotel
· Transportation: We don’t recommend renting a car while in San Francisco if you are planning to stay at a hotel as parking is extremely expensive and scarce. Parking at the Fairmont is $56 per night! Cabs and public transportation are often readily available and a much easier way of getting around the city. If you anticipate using taxis frequently, we recommend signing up for UBER via your phone—it’s free and once you create an account, you can easily access town cars at rates that are 30-50% higher than regular taxis but well worth it, especially during peak times. We will be arranging transportation to/from Guaymas on Friday night via ferry.
· Weather: It may be summer but it most likely won’t feel like it! Average August temperatures for San Francisco are in the high 50s and low 60s, often with heavy fog and winds. Please pack/plan accordingly!
· Registries: Your presence at our wedding is gift enough! However, if you would like to give a gift, it is our preference that you consider a gift to one of the following charities, each of which has personal and deep significance for us:
o Alzheimer's Association: the leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer's care and support and the largest private, nonprofit funder of Alzheimer's research.
o Freedom to Marry: American coalition committed to winning and keeping the freedom to marry for same-gender couples.
o Del Mar Schools Education Foundation: provides resources to support and enhance educational programs and opportunities for students in the Del Mar Union School District.
o Pets Unlimited: a 24x7 veterinary clinic in San Francisco (our kitties go here) where a portion of all dollars spent goes to support its onsite animal shelter and adoption center.
Phew! Thanks for staying with us (assuming you’re still reading). That should be it for now. For those of you traveling, you will receive welcome packets in your hotel rooms with additional information about things to do, see and eat in San Francisco and surrounding areas. To that end, once you’ve made your travel arrangements, kindly let us know where you’ll be staying by replying to this email.
) University job, we are still on a really, really tight budget these days. I'm trying to use some Delta SkyMiles left over from my consulting days to take care of our airfare, but that might present some scheduling dilemmas, as my time off (three weeks after starting a new job) is probably going to be fairly limited. So we may have to suck it up and pay for airfare, which will likely be ~$800-950 for the two of us.Which brings me to lodging. I know SF is a really expensive city, but does any of you know of a decent and reasonably priced place to stay in the areas she's mentioned above? In order to make flying cross-country worthwhile, we are going to be there for at least 3 nights, possibly 4 (depending on my time off of work). I'd rather not add another ~$1k to this trip for lodging alone if I don't have to do so.
I like to complain about air travel - especially of late as it's just brutal - but drive just once across the nation and you'll gather a new appreciation for flight. But it's still pretty damn cool to see what's out there. I never need to live in Wyoming, for instance.
The things we do for love.
h yeah, you can use that one. It's cool. 
