(Mis)communication

I'm big on communication. I'm originally from St. Louis, MO, and if you've ever met or known anyone from St. Louis, you'll know that we're big talkers. The comedian Jeff Foxworthy once said "if you have a 20 minute phone conversation and it was a wrong number, you might be in St. Louis." It's true. We'll talk to you about anything. And in depth too. Traffic; man, we can go on for hours about the ineptitude of MODoT (every single highway in St. Louis has been under major construction since the day I was born, and I'm not even close to exaggerating). Weather; we got that covered too. Since we can basically have every single season in one day in St. Louis, we know a lot about weather. It's the only place where you can see a tornado and snow in the same weekend. And if you have a couple hours to burn, go ahead and ask us about baseball, I dare you. Baseball is ingrained in you from the day you're born in St. Louis. Cardinals fans are known as some of the most respectful, passionate, and knowledgeable fans in baseball, and I'm proud to call myself a Cards fan (no matter how embarrassing this last playoff trip was). My fiancee hates watching baseball games with me on TV because we have TiVO, which means I can pause the game and explain, with incredible detail, every single situation during the game. For me this is exciting and entertaining. I feel like I'm sharing my passion and knowledge with her, which will only make her baseball experiences more enjoyable in the future. She feels like she's watching the game with an encyclopedia of useless facts and trivia. I can't understand why she gets so annoyed. So what if it takes 9 hours to watch a game! At least she understands the importance of not throwing a strike when you have a batter 0-2. I think I've proven my point even if I've forgotten what that point was.

Being so big on communication makes planning a destination wedding in a foreign culture that much more frustrating for me. We're getting married in Mexico. We fell in love there and it will always hold a special place in our memories and our hearts, and we want to share that with our guests. But one thing is for certain; they have a much different perspective on the importance of communication there. If we were having our wedding here in the states and we made a call to a restaurant or a wedding planner, I'm sure that we would be able to talk to someone immediately, either that or our call or email would be returned within 24 hours. This is not the case in Mexico. Our wedding planner routinely takes a week to return phone calls and emails. The resort that is hosting our wedding does the same. I not so recently sent emails to 3 restaurants inquiring about the rehearsal dinner. We'll have about 30 guests and spend upwards of $3,000. The first round got no responses. I sent a second round. I finally got my first email response 22 days after I sent the first round of emails. A response from the second restaurant came in 26 days. And the third finally came yesterday, a brisk 31 days after the original email was sent. The best part, none of the responses contained even the slightest trace of an apology or any remorse or guilt whatsoever; just a simple "will you be to liking the international open bar for 3 or 4 hours senor?"

At first I was angry. This is a region that depends HEAVILY on tourism for revenue. Swine flu has decimated the tourism industry. Hotels are lowering rates left and right. The beaches are empty and so are the wallets of the locals. You would think they would be clamoring over a nice fat chunk of cash, right? But then I considered two things:

1) I live in a tourist town, and I hate tourists. Some of them are great; most of them are obnoxious. While my industry does not depend on the tourist dollar, many of the places I frequent could not survive without tourists. Yet the proprietors all hate the tourists too. When you live in a tourist town it becomes a love/hate relationship. You feel like you have a little slice or paradise that is being invaded, but then you remember that without the invaders you could never afford to live in your little slice of paradise. So, I thought, maybe I'm just being incredibly arrogant and they could care less about my large wedding party full of obnoxiously loud Americans.

2) The laid back culture is a huge part of the reason why my fiancee and I love this region. We have chosen this location partly because it is so relaxing and laid back. We have to take both the good and the bad aspects of that part of the culture. If that means waiting a couple extra days (or weeks) for a return email, then so be it, right?

The conclusion I came to is that I need to quit being so uptight and embrace the cultural differences at play in this whole destination wedding planning process. The year I spend dealing with all kinds of people from a completely foreign way of life is not only a great learning experience, but it's a great character builder. The world is getting smaller, whether we Americans like it or not. The time of insulation and isolation has ended. In order to be better members of an ever growing global society we need to embrace the differences of those around us. Hell, I might even take a Spanish class or two. Vaya con Dios.