Why didn't we think of this before!?

Screwing around with airfares I just realized you can get something cheaper by booking two separate one-way tickets w/ different airlines.

You can find all this on a site like kayak.com   Be sure to check off "include nearby airports"

What I found:

You can fly from Long Beach to Boston on Delta with a 40 minute stop in Salt Lake City on Friday afternoon for a friday night arrival in Boston for only $169. (flights 3811 and 894)

You can fly back direct on Jet Blue on flight 485 departing Boston at 1130 AM with a 235PM arrival in Long Beach for $229 all in.  

That comes to $398 total which is by far the best rate we've seen for travel times that aren't horrible.

If you don't mind leaving at 6AM on sunday morning, you can save another $20 on jetblue to bring it to $378.  

If you would prefer to not rush out the morning after the wedding and would rather wait until monday morning, you can save $40 on jetblue by flying out on a 6AM flight that gets you back to Long Beach early at 9:25AM.  That brings the cost down to $358--which is *gasp* normal.

These specific flights might not stick around, but it leaves hope for more options than the $500+ tickets we had been seeing. So I highly recommend playing around with combining one-way offers.