Episode 2: The Pergola

Thursday

Four days before the wedding Jen got a call from the Wadsworth. The wedding planned for the night before ours had purchased a pergola for use.

Pergola: noun An archway in a garden or park consisting of a framework covered with trained climbing or trailing plants.

As the structure would take some time to deconstruct, and they really didn’t want to have to take it apart Sunday morning, they asked us if we’d like to use it. It was a good looking structure.

The picture sent to us, showing the pergola.
The picture sent to us, showing the pergola.

Jen and I agreed that it’d be nice to use, though the offer came with a warning. The structure was setup about 100 feet further away from the mansion than we wanted. That means we’d have to move it.

Saturday

Once the pergola was set up by the preceding wedding, Pat, T, and I went to the mansion to check out the structure and see how hard it would be to move. That pergola? 12 feet tall, ~8feet long. i.e. HUGE. I admitted that this would be too challenging to move, but Theresa, perhaps enamored by its beauty, encouraged us to reconsider. After a brief discussion, we agreed to give it a go.

I didn’t want to take any chances, so I asked that our Pergola team report to the Mansion at 9am on the day of the wedding.

The Pergola Team:
Mike D
Steve
Tree
Pat
Dad D
Jay

Sunday

Sunday morning, after an episode of star trek, I loaded up the car with some tools. Steve stopped by and we headed to the mansion. T brought coffee and doughnuts.

Tree ready for action
Tree ready for action
Steve, analyzing the construction.
Steve, analyzing the construction.

First task: remove the ornamentation

Pergola3

Second task: we had no idea.

We had two guesses for moving this thing. The columns were hollow, so the first idea was to lift the columns up and carry the structure as a whole. This didn’t work as there were significant stakes in the ground beneath the columns.

Our second idea was to lift the top structure off the columns, and then move the columns individually. We had four ladders, and at their highest A frame height we were able to just barely lift the structure. The problem here was that we were extremely unstable on the ladders. There was high risk for disfigurement.

Steve directing we, the peons, in our top off method
Steve directing we, the peons, in our top off method

We struggled with this for about an hour before Dad D recommended we remove the top cross members to lighten the burden. The annoying part, and why we didn’t try this out of the gate, was that the pieces were secured with torx head screws and we didn’t have the right tools.

After discussion, we agreed with Dad D and Steve and I went off to Home Depot to buy the a set of Torx head screw drivers. This was much quicker than driving home.

Pergola5

Once we’d decided on this method, the deconstruction went pretty quick.

Pergola6

Lifting off a column
Lifting off a column
Measure!
Measure!

Please note the extremely large stakes that were used to secure the pergola columns.

Repositioning and Rebuilding begins

Pergola9

Dad D and Jay, hammering in the stakes
Dad D and Jay, hammering in the stakes
Columns up! Top cross sections going on!
Columns up! Top cross sections going on!

Final Construction

Yes, once we figured out what to do it was a quick process but with so many failed attempts, the process ended up taking 4 hours for 6 people. What an endeavor!

We were extremely glad to have taken on the task. The Pergola was a beautiful structure and in retrospect was a very fun distraction from pre-wedding stresses.

Episode 1: The Weather

Jen and I chose October 20th for little reason other than venue availability. We knew we wanted the event at the Wadsworth in Middletown, and with our late booking there were only two options:

Sunday, October 20
Sunday, October 27

Jen chose the 20th because she likes even numbers and she didn’t want our holiday too close to Halloween. Because we were looking at a Sunday, we wanted to make sure that our guests could make it home and still have a pleasant sleep before work on Monday. With the 9 hours of open venue time, we opted for a 12:30pm – 9:30pm window, with a start time of 3pm.

Let’s talk weather! The following charts show the historical averages for temperature in Connecticut for the date of October 20th. We’ll start with a look at Hartford.

Hartford (close enough)
Hartford

Tempbands

3pm start time was right in the prime of the day! Perfect!

And now for Middletown specifically:

Averages

In retrospect, we made a great statistical choice! But the last few years in Connecticut certainly gave us reason for concern.

October 2011: The Great October Snowstorm
18.6 inches of snowfall, 10 deaths, 830,000 power outages, $160M in damages

October 2012: Hurricane Sandy
Winds at 85mph, 4 deaths, 625,000 power outages, $360M in damages

Granted both these events were pushing the tail end of October, but the significance of their devastation made us more than mildly worried. As the day approached we kept a close eye on the forecast. Ten days out? Uninspiring, but not horrific. Rain with temperature in the mid-fifties. Thankfully, the news continuously improved. Come our wedding eve the predictions were were a mostly sunny day with highs around 63°F – looking good!

Not too shabby!
Not too shabby!

As the day dawned, we realized we couldn’t have asked for anything better. Further, the foliage was near peak!

Folliage

It was warm enough in the sun that the ladies didn’t need shawls and the men didn’t burn up in their suit jackets. Truly an epic day for a party.