More on hotels and lodging

So we actually went and checked out some of the hotels last weekend, along with my parents. Carolyn and I stayed in the Rodeway Inn. While convenient in location, the hotel was a bit loud. The rooms were clean, although there was an odor that Carolyn thought was ladies perfume. There was free breakfast. Overall, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't that nice either. If you can get another hotel from our list for a comparable price, you'll probably be better off.

On the other hand, my parents Ed and Pat stayed at the Doubletree at the Marina. This is a big hotel that has somewhat bad reviews. However, their room was very nice and the Marina is a beautiful setting. There is a fog chime that goes off to ward away boats, but it wasn't particularly loud. The hallways are kinda grungy, but it seemed like a pretty nice deal with its pool and the very walkable park right next door. It isn't close to much, but there is transit to the Marina and the hotel shuttle will drop you off anywhere within 3 miles, which should get you to transit. We'd recommend this hotel if you can get a decent price on the rooms. My parents were saying rooms were available on the weekend of the wedding for $99, so get them while you can!

Airports and Transportation

There are three main Bay Area airports, of which we recommend two.

• San Francisco International
  
• Oakland International
  
• San Jose - Note this is the worst of the three choices due to distance.

San Francisco International has the most flights, especially for those coming internationally. Additionally, it has the convenience of a BART terminal directly in the airport which will take you very close to where you want to go. If this is your cheapest or easiest option, please go for it.

Oakland International is primarily a domestic airport. It has the advantage of being smaller and less likely to be affected by weather delays than San Francisco. Additionally, it is the primary hub of low-cost airline Southwest. If you are traveling within the U.S. or are getting connecting flights on different airlines, Oakland may be substantially cheaper than San Francisco. If you are planning on flying within the U.S. for additional travel to Las Vegas or other vacation destinations, check Oakland as an optional route because one-way Southwest flights are much cheaper than most of the other carriers. Oakland has a bus called the AirBART which costs three dollars to take you to the nearest Oakland Coliseum BART station.

There are many rental car options available at both airports. The Bay Area highways are a bit confusing and there are tolls on all the bridges. In addition, there can be pretty bad traffic on bridges during rush-hours and on weekends. Finally, driving the streets of Berkeley can be very annoying because of very bold pedestrians and bad traffic. If you don't need a car, it may save you some headache and be cheaper to take public transportation such as the BART or local bus systems. We are looking to provide a bus to the wedding and reception itself and will do our best to make any other events such as the rehearsal dinner transit accessible.

Hotels and lodging

Berkeley and the surrounding cities of Oakland, Emeryville, Albany, El Cerrito, and even San Francisco all have a plethora of hotel options. We haven't stayed in many of them ourselves, but will be testing a couple of them prior to the wedding and will be passing along any positive or negative reviews. Expect to pay around $100 a night for relatively cheap motels and $250+ a night for very nice resort hotels. We have links to the options that are close to the Brazilian room listed on the right side of the blog.

Location wise, the Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville, El Cerrito, and North Oakland areas are your best bet for the quickest access to the wedding location. We plan on providing a 50 seat wedding bus with a pick-up and drop-off location near one of the local BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) stations. The BART is relatively quick at getting to any of the nearby areas and can take you across the bay to San Francisco if you prefer to stay there. Most hotels will be a short cab ride or walk from a BART station. We'll be posting further details here so that people can get too and from the wedding with a minimum of fuss and problems.

Wedding Gift Alternatives

We would be honored if you would consider donating to Mercy Corps or your favorite charity instead of buying us a serving bowl, towel, or food processor.   

Overseas Invitations

For those guests from outside the US, we discovered a problem that in retrospect should have been obvious: we don't have foreign postage. We planned to send self-addressed postcards to everyone, so that responding to the wedding invitations would be a model of ease. However, we don't have foreign postage for postcards, so the folks living abroad have the indignity of a postcard with no stamps!

Possible solutions that don't require you to pay for postage to tell us whether you are planning on coming to the wedding:

• e-mail (cheap and effective!)
  
• call us
  
• text message
• smoke signals
  

Alternatively, you can pay for the postage and we'll take you out to the reception dinner and buy you a cocktail beverage of your choice.

Wedding Registry

I'm signing up on Amazon.com right now. The link for the registry is here:
amazon.com