Willow and Juanjo

Thank you for celebrating and sharing our wedding day with us! We could not have asked for a more beautiful wedding!

Gracias por compartir y celebrar con nosotros el día de nuestra boda. ¡Ni en sueños podríamos haber imaginado un enlace tan espectacular!

The weekend schedule page has been updated with final details, please take a look and carry a printout with you to study during your trip. There will be a quick test upon your arrival that will determine seating arrangement at the church so please take this seriously, people! 🙂

Today we welcome not just Willow’s family to Toledo, but extend that welcome to all cyber-lurkers that are reading our pages in preparation for the big trip in a few days.

Marisa, Tina and Willow found strength in celebrating the new couple’s dream of hosting a beautiful wedding and came up to the Cigarral el Pinar to fill the kitchen with yummy foods and the rooms with all their love.

We look forward to welcoming you here soon, too!

It’s been unseasonably rainy and cool (high 60s, low 70s during the day, cooler at night) since we got here 10 days ago. The weather is finally turning this week, getting warm and sunny (thus the squinting in this picture from our errands in Toledo this morning), and even hot (it’s going to be in the 80s this weekend). You won’t need a lot of warm clothes, but do bring a few long sleeve shirts and a summer jacket in case the evenings or mornings or cold. I’m guessing it will turn quickly though, and it will be hot late into the evening.

We’ll have a schedule up on the website this week of the whole weekend’s events (including locations of dinners, etc), and will also have a copy of it for you when you get here.

The day is getting close, and we’re so excited to see you all here in Toledo soon!

You’re dealing with geeks here (Willow has already been “certified” by her classmates at Berkeley as the techie in her crowd) so we wanted to give you options regarding cellphone service in Spain.

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Someone asked me about going to Valencia and it reminded me of this festival. People staying after the wedding might be interested in going to Alicante for the “Hogueras de San Juan” Festival. Here’s what a Spanish culture website in English has to say about it:

• Hogueras de San Juan
  June 20 to June 29. Alicante, Valencia.
  A series of ancient rituals which were followed on this, the shortest night of the year, when light triumphs over darkness, have been studied in minute detail in the work of Baroja. In these rituals, the essential features are the sun, fire and water. Around the feast of San Juan the streets are often decorated with branches and leaves, especially the balconies of young girls in love, who are serenaded; pines and poplars are planted; pilgrimages (‘romerias’) are undertaken; straw effiges are burnt; the herb thyme is blessed; and ‘sanjuanera’ songs are sung.

I would guess there will be plenty of late night drinking, dancing and fun, as there is at most Spanish festivals. Book a hotel room ahead of time though–in my experience it gets hard to find one with festivals, they’re really popular with tourists as well as people from other parts of Spain.

Time is passing as quickly as ever and we’re getting close to the big day. We were in Spain two weeks ago for Juanjo’s cousin’s wedding (more pictures to be added to the wedding styles post soon), chose the food for the wedding, planned some more events, did a ton of errands, and generally got really excited about it all! I hadn’t realized that the planning part could be so much fun.

A few reminders:

• The wedding is not the only event going on on the weekend of the wedding. Since we have all of you in the same place we want to spend time with you! Check the wedding schedule page for a rough sketch of the weekend. We’re hoping people will join us when they can and feel like it for these other fun things. Details to follow.
• If you need help with hotels, let us know. We’re more than happy to help people coordinate, make a phone call in Spanish, or otherwise lend a hand to make planning easier for you. We’ve been enjoying it in fact!
• As you purchase tickets, reserve hotels, and plan how to get to and from Toledo, be sure and check out our “Getting to and From Toledo” page. A friend of Juanjo’s who lives in Madrid added a lot of useful information in a comment on the post (Thank You Vicente!). Also, email us your itinerary, or post it on the blog. We’re trying to help people coordinate, and will do what we can to help make the transportation easier.

By popular demand, I’ve uploaded a set of pictures from other Spanish weddings to give a sense of what to wear (in case you can’t tell from the topic matter, it’s Willow writing!). Not that we’re telling you what to wear at all! Just want to give those of you who’ve asked as sense of styles there. (The first time I went to a wedding in Spain, Juanjo’s mom helped me put the outfit together. 🙂 )

Basically, our wedding will be very formal, in the evening. It’s not outdoors, but may get cold, so women probably need something for their shoulders. Most men will be wearing suits.

See our album on Flickr with pictures from weddings we’ve been to. We’re going to another later this month, and we’ll take more pictures.

A few people have asked about getting to and from Madrid-Barajas airport either late at night or early in the morning, which prompted me to do a bit of research into the matter. Here’s information about getting to and from Toledo:

TRAIN: There’s a high speed train (30 minutes) that runs between Madrid-Atocha station and Toledo. Renfe is the Spanish train company. I checked the schedule and it looks like there are trains until 10pm on weekdays, and 12am on weekends.

BUS: My first trip to Toledo back when I was a student in Spain (little did I know the connection I’d end up having with the place!) was on a bus. The bus station is walking distance from the old town, it’s cheaper than the train, and there are a lot of times all day long (5 or 6 am ’til midnight). The bus station in Madrid is “Estación Sur”, just south of Atocha. To get there take the subway from the airport (Line 8) until it ends at NUEVOS MINISTERIOS. Change to line 6. Take it so that the first station is REPÚBLICA ARGENTINA, and exit on the ninth stop (MENDEZ ALVARO). (Don’t worry if you take it the wrong way, since line 6 is a circular one and will also get to PAC͍FICO, only after 19 stops). (Thanks to Tino and Vicente for this information-see the comment to this post). Try this website or this one for bus schedules.

TAXI: I read that a taxi costs about 90 Euros, so it’s expensive. But if you’re getting in late and can find someone else who is too, perhaps you could share a taxi? Otherwise, if you don’t have hotel arrangements yet, and have a really late or early flight, consider staying at a hotel near the airport (we’re going to ask our friend whose wife is a flight attendant there for a recommendation).

RENTAL CAR: Parking’s really hard in Toledo, and it’s easy to get around without a car, so we don’t recommend renting a car if you can help it. But if you’ve got bigger plans and want a car, we recommend trying the company we’re renting my family’s car from–they’ve got good prices (my family is staying outside the city of Toledo)

More info? We’ll put it here as we think of it, but feel free to post comments and give each other tips. Also, see this travel site with handy information (in English) compiled from a conference that took place in Toledo.

And most recently–look at Vicente de Prada’s comment, an old friend of Juanjo’s. Thank you Vicente! This information is much more detailed and helpful than what I put in this post!