Austin City Lovefest

Iconic Austin music venue vows to host the big day during Weekend of Weddings

A couple stands smiling at each other in a wedding dress and tuxedo, in front of red curtains and the recognizable skyline backdrop at Austin City Limits Live.

Maria and Marlena celebrate their union in front of the recognizable backdrop of the longest-running music TV series in American history.

Photo by Alison Narro

For many people in 2021, weddings don’t mean what they used to. The spectacle has been toned down. After all the postponing and the making it work, the many wedding celebrations have been pared down to the core essentials. Couples, families, and friends have gotten creative, and they learned to act fast.

Couples waiting for just the right opportunity to pivot from their old dream wedding ideals without losing flair now have a chance thanks to an Austin icon.

This July 30 and 31, Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater will host its recurring Weekend of Weddings, offering completely self-contained wedding packages at a discount, and knocking out those waiting lists for a spectacular venue. There is still space for couples to sign up for the Friday date, and there’s no cutoff; wedding slots will go until the last one sells. And don’t worry about logistics; each booking includes the services of a wedding planner.

Last year, ACL Live was facing a different kind of problem. The organization had an iconic space sitting empty in the heart of Austin. The team saw an opportunity to invite small groups in for 45-minute socially distanced weddings that included a 20-minute ceremony and a 20-minute reception. This new offering, the Shotgun Willie Wedding, solved a pandemic problem while creating a lasting loophole for couples working with a modest budget but wanting the ACL Live experience.

“We just wanted to offer something that was really turnkey, stress-free, and still gave everybody a really memorable experience,” says Michaelyne Escobar Long, director of private events and special projects.

Whether a couple chooses the Shotgun Willie package, the longer ACL Live Headliner Experience, or the 3TEN Roadie Experience downstairs, they get married under professional stage lighting, either onstage in front of the famous Austin City Limits skyline backdrop or in front of 3TEN’s 20-foot LCD wall.

To document the unique visuals, the venue offers complimentary photography by Alison Narro, who often photographs shows during regular operations. Every wedding includes a livestream, in case the couple would like to include people at home (the venue currently allows between four and 40 guests, depending on the package). Even if the in-person guest list is complete, the recording can be downloaded as a memento.

One groom was able to invite family from New Zealand via livestream, making creative use of another pandemic restriction to solve a regular-life problem. Both Escobar Long and her colleague, director of media and communications Kaitlin Bouzek, say even they’ve been immersed in the streams while making sure an event is going as planned.

“So I’m just sitting in my office, crying about how they’ve waited 20 years, they have two kids, they’ve built a life together and this is just a nice celebration of everything that they’ve worked for,” Bouzek says.

Another couple the staff remembers had their first dance to a Devo song, complete with props and the full confidence that their wedding was living up to their music-nerd dreams.

While the goal of Weekend of Weddings was to make every event complete in as little as 45 minutes, ACL Live offers add-ons to be sure couples aren’t making sacrifices just to squeeze in the schedule. In fact, there are already four Headliner events scheduled for the weekend at three hours each. A partnership with W Austin takes the party elsewhere to make room for the next event, offering a cake cutting, rehearsal, accommodations, and after-party at the pool, all in separate increments to keep it customizable.

Most of these options are available all the time, but Shotgun Willie Weddings are just for the weekend promotion, which ACL Live plans to keep available as an annual event.

There are plenty of reasons to keep things small, even outside of public health measures. The bite-sized option creates especially useful flexibility for those who want to save money or have a great but simpler time.

Bouzek says the venue sees “a lot of couples that this isn’t, maybe, their first marriage, or they are a little bit older ... or having a destination wedding and just want to have the ceremony component done here.”

The lasting impact of an ACL Live wedding, for most of the guests, is simply that it happened at the iconic venue. It’s trademark Austin behavior for a cultural cornerstone venue to open its doors to the public for an unpretentious, good time.

For more info about the packages ($1,500 to $5,000 before add-ons), watch a video, or to schedule an event anytime, visit weddings.acl-live.com.

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Austinite who kayaked 86 miles with one arm has Texas Book Fest debut

Photo by Daniel Cavazos

Avrel Seale is discussing his post-stroke kayaking expedition at the festival on November 16.

This year’s Texas Book Festival features more than 275 authors who have accomplished amazing things. But only one of them rowed nearly 90 miles down the Nueces River with one arm. (We think.)

Author of The River Nuts Avrel Seale is making his Texas Book Festival debut on November 16, and participating in the 4 pm panel "Memoirs of Adventure & Adversity Exploring Nature" in the Capitol Auditorium. He’ll talk about his feat of physical and mental endurance in a session alongside author Kevin Fadarko (A Walk in the Park) and moderated by outdoor journalist Pamela LeBlanc.

For all intents and purposes, January 19, 2018, was just another ordinary Friday for 50-year old author Seale. The writer and editor for the University of Texas' Marketing and Communications team was in his office on The Drag when he was hit with a devastating hemorrhagic stroke.

"My coworkers called an ambulance, which took me to Seton Main," says Seale. "I had emergency brain surgery that night that probably saved my life."

Avrel Seale Austin author Thankfully, Seale's story includes help from friends along the way.Photo by Daniel Cavazos

The stroke left Seale partially paralyzed on the right side of his body, with his right arm completely immobile. After two years of rehab and physical therapy — and still with just one working arm — Seale decided to undergo one of his biggest self-made challenges: attempting to kayak an 86-mile stretch of the Nueces River with lifelong friend Wade Walker in tow.

Seale's extensive journaling of the adventure would later become his 11th book, The River Nuts. The 182-page story didn’t just chronicle Seale and Walker's voyage down the South Texas river, but also covered the preparation for the journey in great detail.

"I had always wanted to. I thought it would be fun," explains Seale. "The stroke just forced me to find a different way."

Seale and Walker accomplished something that many others have in the past. Kayaking a river to the sea was not a groundbreaking idea, but few people — if any — had done it facing the same challenges as Seale did.

Avrel Seale Austin author with Wade Walker Avrel Seale and his rowing partner Wade Walker.Photo by Kirstin Seale

Someone who has had a dominant hand in a cast can understand how the immediate shift could test one’s patience. Even though most of the journey was spent cruising downstream — not to mention having someone else in the kayak doing the lion’s share of the work — there was quite a bit more to the experience than a spectator might expect.

From pulling up rudders to adjusting foot pedals that help propel the craft, using his functioning arm to man an oar, and helping set up camp each night, Seale started facing difficulties shortly after their launch. Sometimes he was his own worst enemy.

"I had mistakenly reversed the left and right pedal arms for both pedal drives when we first assembled the kayak months earlier,” he explains. “This led to us stripping the threads and losing one pedal completely."

In addition to the rigorous physical demand on the writer, he also faced mental roadblocks.

"The biggest mental challenge was the lead-up to the trip, both the painstaking planning and the very real fear of dying,” he says “By the time we got on the water, that stress and fear lifted, and it was all about making the most of a beautiful experience."

Avrel Seale Austin author Seale's stroke couldn't keep him from nature.Photo by Daniel Cavazos

Published by TCU press in the fall of 2023, The River Nuts came out after that year's submission deadline for the Texas Book Festival. Since then he’s also written The Hewetts: An American Saga in the Age of Vaudeville, Circuses, and Bands, a wild historical account spanning four generations of a family of self-made entertainers.

"I've written 12 books over the last 25 years, and this is definitely the highlight of my career so far," he points out. "Hopefully it will open even more doors for me. I'm tickled to death."

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