Rick & Amy Pollock
Rick Pollock is a member of Plan-B Theatre Company’s board of trustees. He and Amy Clements Pollock are donors.
Amy and I first met on April 16, 1998 at the Salt Lake International Airport. She’d won a trip for two to Hawaii and I was the Promotions & Marketing Director at the radio station she’d won it from. She was one of 20 lucky winners and I was one of 5 lucky staff members going to Honolulu for 5 days/4 nights. She was taking her cousin Kindra, I was taking my girlfriend of two years.
Right away we hit it off, the four of us spent a lot of time together, but soon it was back to Salt Lake and our normal lives. I didn’t see Amy again until another radio station event in June, this time we exchanged numbers and promised that we all needed to hang out again soon. Little did Amy know that in those six weeks my girlfriend and I had been having some “issues.” She was adamant about my converting to her LDS faith and I was not religious, but I told her that maybe I’d look into it. I’m not sure why I thought stalling would work, finally I just told her that I wasn’t going to convert. Long story, short: I was single again!
Amy and I just clicked. She’s funny, outgoing, beautiful and one of the smartest women I’ve ever met. WAAAYYYYY out of my league.
I must’ve done something right, because we started dating in late June and by the end of the year we were married.
Hmm. I skipped over a little part there, a part that I probably need to address. Ok, we started dating in late June, we moved in together in September and we were married by the end of the year. It was a whirlwind courtship, and to this day I don’t regret a second of it.
Funny thing is, I don’t remember asking her to marry me. I do remember asking her to “shack up.” It only made sense, we were spending every waking second together and both of our leases were soon going to be up.
Rick & Amy Pollock with their son, Stone
The day we signed our lease on our cute two-bedroom apartment, kitty-corner from the state capitol, she had a little panic attack. Her family was (and still is) conservative and LDS. (Think Mitt Romney and BYU conservative.) I’m sure her moving in with some liberal, agnostic Ute fan was not something she was eager to share with her family. So she didn’t. I wasn’t on the answering machine and if her family came, I would have to leave and then come in like I was visiting. It’s hilarious looking back and I’m sure they weren’t fooled.
We’d decided that we’d get married in February. It’d be the big to-do with friends and family. I was looking forward to it, she wasn’t. She’d been through the hoopla before and wasn’t looking forward to all of the work it would entail. So, for Christmas, I surprised her with a surprise trip to Las Vegas for our wedding at the Chapel of Love. We’d be leaving the next day.
December 26th came and I had to setup some radio station broadcast at RC Willey and then we’d be leaving. My Mom gave me $100, lent us her huge Cadillac, filled it with snacks and gas and we were off!
We almost ran out of gas around Cedar City, but finally rolled into Las Vegas at about 11pm. We checked into our hotel room and woke up the next morning, ready to get our marriage license and see exactly where the Chapel of Love is. I’d done a little research on the internet and put a down payment with the Chapel of Love – it was a cheesy name and I thought it would be perfect for a Vegas wedding.
First, we drove to the Clark County Courthouse and got our marriage license, (at 10:30am on a Sunday, thank you, Las Vegas.) Then, we were off to see where we were going to tie the knot. It wasn’t the most glamorous location in Las Vegas to get married. If you’ve been to Las Vegas during the day, in December, you know everything looks pretty bleak. Amy had a horrible cold, and maybe it was the sight of that dreary looking, renovated real estate office/wedding chapel, or maybe she missed her family, or maybe she just had a horrible night’s sleep in a crappy Las Vegas hotel room . . . she started to cry. I felt horrible. What had I done? I told her not to worry we didn’t have to get married, it could just be a fun couple of days in Las Vegas. She needed to call her Mom, who must’ve said something to make her feel better. (Moms just kind of do that.) After her call, she felt great and was getting excited for our wedding that night. So we went over to the mall and I picked up a nice sweater, she wore her favorite black dress, and we waited for our limo driver to pick us up.
Right on time, we got the call and went down to see a 10-year-old limosine waiting for us. We climbed into the back and listened to this horrible screeching, whining noise all the way to the chapel. At the chapel, as we were filling out our paper work, the “coordinator” asked us if we wanted God mentioned, Amy and I looked at each other and the coordinator suggested that a little “God” never hurt anyone. So a little God it was. We chose the “Rainbow Chapel” I believe, because it wasn’t some horrible shade of peach or pink.
The ceremony was hilarious. Amy was led through the door and I grabbed her arm the wrong way, she was supposed to hook on to my arm, but I hooked onto hers. It was so awkward. Our pastor/preacher/guy-that-was-marrying-us controlled the music through a little dial on this lectern. with a “tip envelope” he’d be sure to hand me at the end of the ceremony. There we were, she in her favorite black dress, me in my new black sweater and jeans getting married with a little bit of God. I was so nervous and maybe I was taking the whole thing too seriously, we were getting married after all. Amy starts to laugh, she does a horrible job of trying to cover it, but it happened and I knew that I was going to be in for a fun ride.
Twelve-and-a-half years later, we have an awesome little boy and a great dog, and I think, “Really? A guy and girl can get married, on a whim, in a converted office space, after knowing each other six months, and a same-sex couple can’t get married after being in a loving, committed relationship for decades?”
Oh well, gotta protect the sanctity of marriage I guess.
Plan-B Theatre Company’s Script-In-Hand Series reading of “8″ takes the stage August 4-5. A fundraiser for both Plan-B and the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the event boasts a cast of 20 and a post-show discussion with the playwright, Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black, and Congressman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts). Tickets and more info available here.