A local bridal magazine, Seattle Bride, did an interview with me in October of 2004. It’s all about Nick and my wedding (which is still hanging in the balance!) and quite a bit about Nick as well. I thought that you might find it interesting to get a better idea of our life together and our plans for the future.

The Ever Wedding
by Priscilla Baines for Seattle Bride, October 2004

Editor’s Note: It’s not often we profile a wedding steeped in tragedy. But when noted author Allison O’Sullivan agreed to talk to us about her on-hold nuptials with fiancé Nick Hardaway, who went missing in Rose Red in 2001, we simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity. We hope that you take away from this interview not a sense of sadness or wistfulness, but the infectious hope and optimism with which Allison still approaches her wedding.

October of 2001 was the month Ally O’Sullivan was to become Ally Hardaway, or for those who prefer formality, Mrs. Nicolas Hardaway. But in May of 2001 her husband-to-be vanished into thin air in famed haunted house Rose Red, which used to reside in the heart of downtown Seattle.

The house itself was a wedding present from John Rimbauer to his young wife Ellen Rimbauer, and one would think the romantic gesture would fill the place with love. But instead, unknown forces Ally continues to relentlessly study twisted it into a psychic black hole, devouring any who crossed its path. And on that now infamous Memorial Day weekend, 4 of the party of 9 who set out to explore the mansion met an unpleasant, if rather unresolved fate.

Ally now lives in a condo on the site of what once was the Rimbauer estate. Determined to somehow solve the mystery of her fiancé’s disappearance, she prefers to think of her wedding as pending, rather than called off. Specially for our October issue, she spoke to us about her life, her love, and her “ever” wedding.

SB: Before we get started Ally, I think I should ask you to explain to concept of an “ever wedding”, as I’ve already told you that will be the title of this piece. What’s the significance of the word “ever”?

Ally: (laughs quietly) Well, it’s a bit silly and sounds like something out of the movie Ghost when I explain it, but “ever” was a code word Nick and I developed over the course of our relationship. It started out as a joke, you know. You have this stereotype of doting couples going back and forth with things like “I love you”, “I love you more”, “I love you even more than more”, whatever. Instead of simply “I love you” we’d often go over the top. “I love you forever,” “I love you longer than forever”, “I love you forever and ever”, back and forth. The game got old but the concept of loving each other forever and beyond never tired. So it was truncated to “ever”, and if we randomly said the word “ever” to each other it meant “I’ll love you forever”. Like we’d be waiting at the Chinese takeaway counter for our order and he’d nudge me and say “Ever”, and I understood.

And I like the word “ever”. As in “Forever”, “if ever”; it suggests simultaneous permanence and ephemeralness, even though that’s contradictory. “If ever” he comes back, we’ll get married. “Forever” is how long I’ll love him, how long I’ll wait. The one has a duration, it’s temporary; the other is permanent, it’s for good. As long as Nick’s gone I’ll have, as you’ve poetically termed it, the “ever wedding”. A wedding on pause but never totally done.

SB: I think it goes without saying you don’t mean that literally, in the sense that the venue’s not booked for some vague date, or the bakery on call for a cake…

Ally: No, of course not. For all I know the venue could be gone by the time Nick resurfaces, and the baker could, God forbid, be dead. But all the plans are still clearly laid out and I can put them into motion at any time. And I’ve got the dress. As long as I can fit into the damned thing forever, I’ll be fine. (laughs again) You know, Ellen Rimbauer wore her anniversary gown every year until she was seventy, that’s 50 years without altering a single stitch. If she could manage it, I think I can.

SB: Tell us about your wonderful dress, then.

Ally: You may run out of room, I never get tired of talking about it! It’s an original dress by a wedding dress designer and a costumer. I wanted a sort of…a sort of medieval fantasy feeling, without being contrived or cheesy. I wanted a Tolkienian romantic feel without being gimmicky. I wanted to look graceful and historic, but not like I rented my gown from a costume shop. It’s not a theme wedding, it’s only my aesthetic. We plan to have normal bridesmaids’ dresses and tuxedos, for example.

The basic pattern: Ally’s gown borrowed graceful lines from history.

I went first to LaRouche Bridal Salon here in Seattle, which has a great reputation for sophistication and selection, and sat down with the designer who does their custom gowns and major alterations. We were actually able to pick a pattern off the rack as a starting point, something we could build on. Then I brought in a professional costumer who’s worked on Broadway, who’s a friend of my family’s. The designer, costumer, and myself collaborated on a final design that fell somewhere between The Lord of the Rings and the Renaissance.

The basic pattern: Ally elected to include the lace-up corset front, but stepped it up a notch
with brocade and deeper angles in her design.

Nick and I had been engaged for a long time before we decided on the October 2001 date, and I thought there was no reason not to get my dress even before the date was set. I never had any doubt we’d go the distance. I still don’t doubt it. So I had the gown a full year before we were to be married, and in 2000 a photographer friend of mine took some great photos of me in the dress with piles of autumn leaves. I had originally published these online but when my web site crashed, I thought twice about it. The web site was constructed after the Rose Red expedition and Nick never saw the hard copies of photos when he was around, I made sure of that. But now I can’t very well hide them in my shoe boxes and be sure he won’t see them, can I? (laughs) He could be anywhere at any time. My photographer friend has the pictures and I’ve decided not to put them back up on the web.

SB: Why autumn, besides the crisp days and the foliage?

Ally: Would it be too terse of me to say “crisp days and foliage”? (laughs again) We love autumn. It’s a great season. The sun’s still warm enough for days outside, but the nights are cold enough for a cuddle by the fire. The earth gives us her last grand, beautiful hurrah before the dead of winter, and it’s a very powerful time, spiritually speaking.

SB: Does spirituality play a big role in your wedding, then?

Ally: Not traditionally. Not in the sense of a wedding mass. But Nick and I are both profoundly spiritual in our own unique ways, Nick especially. He was practically raised in the Spiritualist tradition, which is infused with mediumship and the occult. The wedding service itself doesn’t include a séance, don’t get me wrong. It borrows a lot of little elements from various cultures and religions, though. Nick is an encyclopedia when it comes to world religions and superstitions. So we picked and chose what resonated with us, and hadn’t completely finished planning the ceremony before he disappeared. It’s a work in progress.

SB: Our readers always love to hear about the little details and personal touches brides and grooms stamp on their special days. Do you have any quirky bits and pieces in your plans?

Ally: I like to think the whole shebang is quirky bits and pieces! (laughs) But yes, there are loads. I’m meticulous and Nick knows what he likes too, so every detail has been chosen with utmost care and thought.

In terms of specific quirks… Because it will be, eventually, a late October wedding, those little white pumpkins they call “ghost” pumpkins will be in our décor and centerpieces. I want to split the stems of the tiny ones and put the place cards in them. So every place card is held in the stem of a tiny white pumpkin that guests can carry back to their tables.

Another idea we had that ties in both a spooky Halloween theme and one of Nick’s puzzling fascinations is crystal spider webs. We plan to have clear crystals of various types arranged into elegant spider web shapes and include them in the reception décor. I don’t want so many that it’s overbearing or creepy, but one of Nick’s favorite things in nature is the way spider webs look at dawn when first light hits the dew on them and makes them all glittery. Plus we can’t have a late October wedding and not give a nod to Halloween, particularly with Nick being a psychic with lots of experience with ghosts and goblins and all other Halloween standards.

SB: Have you made any changes or new decisions for your wedding plans since Nick’s disappearance?

Ally: No major ones. It wouldn’t really be fair, would it? I mean, I waffle when it comes to the color of our chair covers, something Nick didn’t really care about in the first place. There were aspects of wedding planning it was like pulling teeth to get him to participate in, and those aspects I think it’s okay for me to reconsider. Silverware, napkin rings, and so forth. Some things he really got into, like our menu…which I know may have to change depending on when he reappears. Come to think of it he was very partial to the cake tasting as well. I think it may have more to do with free food than marrying me! (laughs again)

And wine, heaven forbid I change our choice of wine. We’ve got an open bar, but very careful wine selection to be served at the tables to allow people a choice of white or red based on which entrée they ordered, or based on what they feel like drinking. Nick’s hugely into wine, and I enjoy it too. We’re not complete connoisseurs, though he’d like to be. He’s always said someday when he retires from the psychic hub-bub we’ll travel the world searching for vineyards rather than searching for the paranormal, which is why he’s done most of his travel to this point. In fact, our honeymoon will be in Napa Valley.

SB: You mentioned the cake. What did you decide after all the free samples?

Ally: (laughs) Chocolate, and lots of it. The cake’s one layer of marble and one layer of dark chocolate with a mocha filling. It’s four tiers and white fondant icing with a cascade of colorful fondant autumn leaves spiraling around the layers from the top to the bottom. I think it’s a design that’ll be great for the season, but simple enough that any good cake decorator could pull it off. So I’m not locked into any one bakery if Nick’s gone too long.

We’d also like to do a groom’s cake that’s a more traditional spiced cake, very English. It was Nick’s idea, a sort of homage to the cake his late grandmother Maureen had at her wedding. His grandparents brought him up.

SB: Memorial Day weekend was four months from the date of your wedding, and you’d already made so many decisions. Was there any particular reason for the promptness?

Ally: Nick had a busy summer planned. After Rose Red, depending on the outcome of the investigation, he was going to participate in a documentary about Haitian Vodou, a religion he spent a long time studying. He’s such a charismatic fellow that he’s always perfect in front of a camera. He also had it in the back of his mind that if something happened in Rose Red, some proof or awakening, he might have to put aside part of the summer for the inevitable circus. I know that on some level he went there hoping to help the people trapped on the estate even at his own peril, but I don’t think even in his wildest precognitions he could have imagined what would come from that weekend. Had he been one of the survivors he would have been swept away in the global news coverage and the miniseries, like the rest. Anyway, we had a feeling it was better to get as much done as early as we could, and that’s why it’s possible for me to simply pick up where we left off and marry him in whatever October comes after he returns. I’m quite set on October now – I want those pumpkins! (laughs)

SB: I have to tell you I admire your optimism and faithfulness. You really believe that you’ll figure out a way to bring Nick back and carry on with your life together. But if I may be so bold, are there ever times that you imagine life without him, maybe even marrying someone else someday?

Ally: Nick wouldn’t want me to dwell and wait around, but that’s precisely what I’m doing. And anyway, that sort of presumes he’s dead. I don’t believe he is. Steven Rimbauer once described a part of the house that nobody else can see, a parallel dimension if you will. I think that’s where Nick and the rest are, in that hidden place that still exists even though the mansion’s been pulled down. I don’t have any intention of giving up on Nick. He’s trying to help free them all from within. I’m trying to help free them all from without. Maybe together we can manage it, someday, somehow.

Ally and local designer Karl Green try to select a harmonious hue for the den in Ally’s “Rose Suite”
TechStar condo, where she’s making a home for herself and for Nick, whenever he may resurface.

Once in a while someone will tell me that Nick’s gone, it’s time to move on. I don’t feel it in my bones, and until I can honestly say that I think he’s truly gone, I’ll keep looking for him. That said, I’m not the only person with say in the matter. His parents are still alive, even though they abandoned him as a child. He has an aunt and an uncle with whom he was fairly close. They tend to view things more like Nick’s dead…so I often wonder if I can cross them off the guest list? (laughs quietly) I have a headstone for him on an empty burial plot, to give them a place for closure. For me, Nick’s “grave” site is nothing more than the place that he and I both will occupy someday when he’s free and we’ve lived out the rest of our years together. For the inscription I chose the Dylan Thomas lines “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” That’s how I look at what Nick and I are doing now to free Rose Red’s captives, and how I’m approaching our wedding. I’m raging against any suggestion that it won’t happen someday.

As long as there is hope to be had, Nick seizes hope and would want me to seize it, too. If he was definitely gone, buried in that grave and offering me closure, then he’d be the first person to tell me to put the wedding plans away. Thankfully, he’s not.

SB: I hardly know how to follow that, what question could possibly top your honesty? I guess I should look to the old standards for this type of feature and ask you one final question. I always feel like this is a rather pushy thing to ask, but it’s something we ask anyway. Who’ll be paying for your wedding – is it a more traditional family arrangement, or something else?

Ally: I’d say it’s a group effort. My parents want to chip in as much as possible, but Nick and I have always planned on footing the majority of the bills ourselves. We’re not rolling in cash, and it’s not a very lavish event. We have some expensive elements, and no wedding is cheap these days…but for the most part we want things simple. My parents paid for my dress, which was so meaningful to me. As for the rest, like with everything else…we’ll have to wait and see.

Priscilla Baines is a lifelong Seattle resident and wedding industry expert with 15 years wedding and event planning experience. Interested readers can contact her through her web site www.thebainesevent.com

1 Comment »

1. [...] explained in the “Ever Wedding” article that I do have a plot with headstone for Nick, but it is obviously empty. In fact, I don’t [...]

   Pingback by Unraveling Rose Red » Our Someday Resting Place — April 11, 2009 @ 12:48 pm

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