Diane and Rowan's Wedding

This is our web page for our friends and family.  Hopefully all the information that you need will be available here; if not, you can e-mail Rowan or Diane.  Now that the wedding is over, the most interesting thing here is the following:
 

WEDDING PHOTOS

 

The Bride and Groom

Rowan is from Australia and is completing his Ph.D. in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh (check out his home page, and his resume if you'd like to give him a job!).  Diane is originally from Scotland but has spent most of her life in the Phoenix area. She teaches biology at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, PA. We met in October 1996 at a bar, of all places and have been blissfully happy ever since! We got engaged on March 14, 1998 in Phoenix. We live halfway between Washington and Pittsburgh.

Here's a picture of us. 

When and Where and How to Get There

We are getting married on Saturday, March 20th, 1999 at the Sheraton San Marcos Resort in Chandler, Arizona. The ceremony will be held in the courtyard and the reception will be outside at the pool. According to Emily Post, we are having a semiformal evening wedding- we think. Wear what you want; no jeans!  :-)   Phoenix is generally warm year-round.  In March it will probably be about 80F (27C) during the day and maybe down to 60-65 (16C) at night.  Click here for more weather information.

If you intend to fly to Phoenix for the wedding, we have found good deals in the past from ETN, an Internet source for discount tickets.  If there are ten or so people flying from Pittsburgh you may be able to get a group discount from USAirways, but only if you all take the same flights. USAirways also has an online booking service that has cheaper prices than what you'd get by calling the airline. You also get 1000 FREE frequent flier miles if you use this service to book online, which accesses the same database as Travelocity.  Diane got her flight for $315, about $100 less than she has paid in the past. For those in Australia, apparently STA travel is selling round the world tickets starting at AUS$1550. Expedia is also a good place to look for cheap fares and car rentals - Rowan used it to find a very cheap one way National Car Rental to New York City and a cheap multi-destination plane ticket from there to Phoenix and back to Pittsburgh.

There may also be a road trip from Pittsburgh to Phoenix and back, in a rented mini-van with unlimited miles.  The van takes 7 people, and will cost around $50/day, plus gas.  It is about 30 hours driving time from Pittsburgh to Phoenix.  This will certainly be the cheapest way to get to Phoenix, and while not the quickest, it could turn out to be fun.  We've already booked the mini-van, and the Groom may even be heading to Phoenix this way, but exactly who will be taking this option is still highly uncertain, so please contact us  ASAP if this is the way you want to go.  Depending on exactly who takes this option, the return to Pittsburgh may be via a scenic route past the Grand Canyon and various amazing landscapes in southern Utah and the Rocky Mountains.

We suggest that you arrive in Phoenix on the Wednesday or Thursday before the wedding as there is a lot to do in the area and there will be planned and "organized" hiking trips as well as trips to other cool places and of course wedding-type activities. We will leave Phoenix on the Monday after the wedding and we plan to spend the Sunday hanging out with friends and family, like YOU.

We will be going on our honeymoon three weeks later (April 10th-17th). We will be basking in the sun in Grenada, and staying at the Calabash Hotel where our maid will bring us breakfast on our patio overlooking the ocean! But we'll be thinking about you . . . .
 

Hotel Information

We have found a fantastic hotel at a great price.  It is called Country Inns and Suites and we have reserved a rate of $101 a night for up to four people in a room. (Hotel rates in Phoenix at this time of year are very expensive due to the nice weather and baseball's spring training; you could try to find something else but we practically guarantee that you won't find anything better!) The Country Inn and Suites has the following amenities which we think you'll appreciate: We love this place and it's in a great area. We would really like to have everyone stay here, as it will make things much easier for us (we'll have some method of picking people up for wedding-related events). However, if your main goal is to save as much money as possible, there is a Motel 6 at about $55- $60 a night. It is in a residential area with nothing of interest within walking distance, so you would have to rent a car. It has, to the best of our knowledge, none of the amenities listed above that the Country Inn and Suites has. But it is cheaper! Their toll-free phone number is 1-800-4- MOTEL-6.  There are several Motel 6's in the area but we suggest the one on Priest Road in Tempe. The Motel 6's in Mesa aren't very nice and are in somewhat seedy areas. If you choose the Motel 6 option, you should book soon as we don't have any rooms blocked there and the motel may fill up.

If you would like to stay at the Country Inn and Suites, you can call them at (602) 858-9898.  We have ten rooms blocked at a rate of $101 a night; tell them that you are with the Arnott/Davies wedding and make sure you get the right rate!  These rooms are blocked until March 1st; if you don't book by then you will not get this rate and the hotel may fill up. If you want to stay there but would like us to find you a roommate(s), e-mail Rowan and he'll set this up. You can have up to four people in each room. If you don't need us to set something up for you, you can call the hotel directly, but please e-mail Rowan anyway so that we know where everyone will be staying. If you live in a country other than the US and calling the hotel will cost you lots of money, just e-mail one of us and we'll take care of reserving a room for you.

If you want to rent a car, you can do so through USAirways online booking service (link above).  You can get a Geo Metro from Enterprise for $126.95 a week. E-mail Diane for more info/advice.
 

Playing Tourist

If you would like to make a holiday of this, there are many wonderful places close to Phoenix.  Las Vegas is about a 6-7 hour drive, San Diego is about 5 hours away, skiing is available about 3 hours away, Mexico is about a four hour drive, and the Grand Canyon is also about four hours. Southwest Airlines flies cheaply to many places in the southwest (hence the name!). Southwest Airlines currently has an awesome "friends fly free" deal where you get 2-for-the-price-of-1 tickets, but you have to book by Dec. 9th (and fly by April 2nd).

Some more tourist links:

Additional Links

Our gift registry is at JCPenneys. This is entirely optional- if you have an idea for a gift already, that's fine. But if you need guidance then check the registry. As far as we can tell, if you purchase something online from the registry, there is no charge to ship it to us at our home address (212 Twin Ponds Lane, Bridgeville PA 15017).  If you are outside the USA, then you may have trouble entering your address and phone number with this site - just do the best you can and it should work okay.  Because we may be living in England, Australia, or the US after the wedding, please don't get us anything that has to be plugged in!

Some of the people associated with our wedding have web pages too- check out our photographer's (Steve Schaefer) web page. More links will be added later!