Our ceremony will be held at the Palace Ballroom in Seattle at 5:22pm on May 22, 2010 (get it? 5:22 on 5/22…)  Guests will be admitted starting at 4:45pm, and we kindly ask that you arrive early to ensure we start on time.  (For those of you familiar with “Betz time”, it will NOT be in effect on our big day, even if Ben has to wear 3 watches set hours ahead to make sure we’re on time).

For directions to Palace Ballroom, please see The Wedding page.

A reception will immediately follow the ceremony at the same location, beginning with cocktails and hours d’vours in the front lounge at Palace Ballroom.

The Officiant

We thought long and hard about how we wanted to be married and realized there was only one man on this earth who could properly seal the marriage – our good friend Mike Nollen.  And true to form, we’ve got some info about him:

Mike Nollen

Mike Nollen

Seattle, WA

Mike has a long and storied history of attempting to convince Ben that he should propose to Alexa, dating back to the 2007 when he first uttered "Betz, you need to lock that up." Not one to give up, particularly when he knows he’s right, Mike continued to urge Ben to pop the question in a variety of locales (indoor soccer games, random IM conversations, Seahawks games, nights out in Seatle, Sounders games, etc etc) until Ben finally succumbed to the pressure this past April. Though Mike is thrilled that Ben and Alexa are FINALLY tying the knot and deeply honored that they asked him to perform the ceremony, Mike would have certainly preferred that Ben did not raise the engagement story bar to such stratospheric levels – on behalf of single men everywhere, thanks a lot buddy.

Mike met Ben on the initial EJKVT (Everybody Joe Knows Vegas Trip) in 2005 and got to know him after moving to Seattle in 2006 to join the evil empire. Mike met AP shortly after she and Ben started dating and has been good friends with the both of them since.