There is a lot of pressure on an engaged couple to choose a nice place to spend their honeymoon. I (Mr. Handsome) have been told that the groom usually makes the plans, presumably because the bride is busy with the all-consuming task of planning a wedding. Ellie really enjoys planning trips, so she offered to organize our honeymoon. I think she also secretly knew that if she left the task to me, our trip would likely end up in disarray. Either that or we would “accidentally” find ourselves on a five-day fishing excursion. Just kidding. Even I don’t enjoy fishing enough to put Ellie through that on her honeymoon.
So to give credit where credit is due, I must admit that my wife put together our romantic getaway to Grand Cayman. I wanted to be of some assistance, so I told her I would find accommodations for the night of the wedding.
Hoping to impress my wife of exactly six hours, I chose a sweet little bed and breakfast that was close enough to our wedding location that we wouldn’t have a terribly long drive, but far enough that we wouldn’t have to worry about pranksters. The website advertised it as a “quaint, historic home” with a “seven course breakfast.” Perfect, I thought.
By the time we arrived, it was about 11:00pm. If by “quaint, historic home” the owners meant “dilapidated haunted house,” they were right on the money. Perhaps the description was wishful thinking. The bed and breakfast was complete with turrets, eerie archways, and windows that looked like frowning eyes staring at you. The only light was a small lantern hanging above the entryway, so we warily climbed the stairs and knocked. An elderly lady opened the door, squinted, and informed us that the guest entrance was around back. We made our way through the dark and somehow managed to locate the door.
We were greeted by the same woman, who had found an apron and mustered up a smile since we had last seen her. She welcomed us and showed us to our room.
“Don’t forget, breakfast starts at 7:00am sharp,” she announced.
“Umm, this is our wedding night, and we are exhausted from a busy day,” I told her gently. “Do you think we could come down a little later?”
“Certainly,” she replied, “lets plan on 7:15.” It wasn’t the type of response that invited a counter offer.
Thankful for the generous extra 15 minutes, we commenced to inspecting our room. It turns out that all the rooms had themes. With a collection of very interesting rag dolls (all with beady little eyes) lining the dressers and walls, my guess is that the honeymoon suite was the “demon-possessed doll room.” And I’m not talking about those sweet Precious Moments figurines. I’m talking about the dolls in horror movies that come alive after dark.
We surprisingly survived the night without being attacked, only to be woken at 6:30am by the breakfast bell. We pulled ourselves out of bed, wiped the sleep out of our eyes, and made our way to breakfast. “I am sure that this seven-course breakfast will be worth the lack of sleep,” I told Ellie, trying to put a positive spin on the situation.
Well the first course of the seven-course breakfast was peas. I kid you not, it was literally green vegetables. The second course was Kix cereal. “Good to start the day off with a kick,” our host stated. The third course was Life cereal, so our day could be “full of life.” The fourth course was a banana, and it was pretty small at that.
The fifth course was toast that was somehow both burnt and soggy. The jelly was good, which helped. The sixth course was a glass of milk or orange juice, but not both, and the final course was a bowl of scrambled eggs. Or maybe I should say scrambled egg–there definitely was only one per person. In the end, our seven-course breakfast contained less food than the average Super 8 continental breakfast.
There was another couple staying there, and during breakfast we tried to make conversation. It’s a tad awkward meeting someone for the first time on the morning after your wedding and trying to strike up a conversation. Thankfully they didn’t ask us if we had slept well.
Later that day, we found ourselves at my parents’ house for lunch. (That’s a long story, but I assure you that it wasn’t in the plans.) It ended up being a meal full of laughs, as we swapped stories with my sister and her husband, who had apparently stayed at the same bed and breakfast the night of their wedding two years earlier. They remembered the peas and demon-possessed dolls very well.
About a month later, we read in the newspaper that the bed and breakfast was going out of business. Can’t imagine why. They ended up converting it into a Halloween haunted house, which has apparently been doing marvelously.
