Wedding Recap - Rehearsal Dinner

As I stated in my first wedding recap, I loved the rehearsal dinner just as much as I loved the actual wedding.  I don't know if I've ever been so happy or smiled so much. 

The rehearsal dinner was a casual affair.  My fiance (errrr....husband) bought all the men Detroit Tiger shirts to wear and we served ballpark foods.  We had hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, pretzels, cheese and crackers and cookies.

The rehearsal itself went off without a hitch so we quickly headed straight for the food/drinks.  I can still hear all the laughter emulating throughout the tent from our family and friends.  I will never forget the moment that I stepped back and "took it all in".  I've never been in one place with so much love in the air.

Don and I smiled the night away as we drank, talked and toasted with our loved ones.

Everyone knows that the Rehearsal Dinner is where the real party starts....so here are some pictures from ours

Leaving the hotel heading to Rehearsal

Holding my "leaf" bouquet since we forgot to use the bouquet we made at the bridal shower

Matron of Honor - my sister Rachel with her "leaf" bouquet

Mom and Dad practicing the walk down the aisle

Dad shaking Don's hand and cracking a joke of some sort, I'm sure!

Nephew and Brother in Law cooking the food

Bridal Party

Bride & Groom

Detroit Tigers

It was a perfect, warm summer evening.  I had a great time and I know that all of our family and friends did too!

Wedding Recap #1

It's so funny because I've been following wedding blogs for almost 2 years now and after each bride got married I read their posts explaining how difficult they found it to start their wedding recaps.  I never quite understood why they were having a problem.  Start with the beginning and move forward...seemed pretty simple at the time.

And yet, here I am 13 days after my wedding and I don't have a clue how to begin putting into words the sheer magnitude of what took place and how I felt (and still feel).  So my apologies if my wedding recaps seem a little scattered, out of order, and filled with a ton of pictures.  I will also apologize right now for the sheer amount of posts that will soon follow.  There are SO many things I want to talk about (and so many pictures to post).

So, as I patiently wait for our professional pictures to come back, I will start with the days leading up to the wedding and will then move onto our rehearsal.

Our wedding took place outdoors at my mom and step dad's house so I spent nearly every waking hour in the weeks leading up to the wedding working in their yard.  And when I wasn't spreading mulch or laying down flooring under the tents I was finishing centerpieces and the other gazillion little details that needed to be done.

Besides all the "physical" work and the sore muscles I encountered, I would honestly say that the most difficult part of the entire process was when I finally had to open myself up to the idea that I needed help from family and friends in order to pull off this shindig.    It was terrifying planning this huge party by myself, but for some reason in my mind I found it "more" terrifying to have to ask for help in doing it.  And to my surprise, the moments in the days before the wedding where I recognized and accepted this as a necessity, will remain some of the most important and most memorable moments of the whole wedding process.

On the Friday before the wedding, my family, wedding party and close friends pulled together as a team.  We had people hanging paper lanterns, stringing lights, ironing the linens, setting up centerpieces, folding napkins, putting final touches on our photo wall, pulling weeds and blowing leaves, and so much more!  It was such beautiful chaos and it brings tears just thinking about it.

Centerpieces waiting to be distributed

200+ Paper lanterns

Brother in Law working on the photo wall

Grandma ironing the table linens

Best Friend Kevin blowing leaves off the "wedding aisle"

Bride to be with Mother in Law hanging Lanterns

As soon as everyone arrived and we started setting up and I could really see things coming together, it was as if someone waved a magic wand over me and all the pre-wedding anxiety was gone.  I absolutely, without a doubt, loved this day just as much as my actual wedding day.  Totally AMAZING!!!

Failure turned Success

I'm 37 days away from the wedding and it seems like everything that "can" go wrong, IS!!

In the past week we had to "let go" of our current pastor and find someone else, the hotel that we are using to block rooms is not being cooperative and has changed the pricing on me (dramatically), my DIY bouquets for the bridal party were a complete failure and I failed to make the final payment to our photographer by the due date because I have somehow LOST our contract and didn't know it was due!

I'm emotionally drained. I have never wanted to give up on something so badly as I do this wedding! Why didn't we go to the courthouse or elope?

But, I can see light at the end of the tunnel.....

Our new officiant is so totally cool. She understands our "vision" and hasn't tried to push us to do something we are uncomfortable with. Not to mention that she has such a great personality. She is funny and a bit of a wise-ass just like my fiance! What a perfect fit!

Yes, the hotel has raised their prices but they are at least working with me on other areas. Originally, as most hotels do, I had to block rooms and whatever rooms were not used I was responsible for payment. They are now letting me block rooms and whatever rooms are not booked they will just open back up to the public a couple weeks before the wedding and I will not be responsible for the cost. The downside is still the fact that I have to make sure my guests book their rooms in the next couple weeks as the blocked rooms are only good up until a certain date.

After giving up on the idea that I would make all the bouquets, I finally broke down and went to a florist. I'm in L-O-V-E with the bridesmaid bouquets that we picked out.

Inspiration picture:

And here is the inspiration picture for my bouquet:

And lastly, I spoke to our photographer yesterday and explained how sorry I was about missing the payment and she was totally cool. A check went in the mail and all is right with the world again!

Now if only I could make some progress on our rehearsal dinner.......

85 days

So we are 85 days from the wedding and to be honest....This is the most stress I think I've ever endured!

One minute I feel like I'm right on track and the next minute I'm fighting severe anxiety knowing that I'm knee deep in shit (pardon my language). I'm in the final stages of the wedding planning process and I can honestly say that this stage IS NOT MY FAVORITE!

A few months back I had that revelation that I think all brides eventually have, where you start to "scale back" and only concentrate on the things that actually matter. But, I still feel like there is so much stuff (and truly I think of it as "stuff") that I'm so worried about.

Whenever I start to question myself I step back, take a deep breath and try to find the "sane" bride that I know is hiding somewhere deep inside.

• What if no one likes the music I picked for the DJ to play? To be honest, my fiance and I like the music and I know my friends like the music so even if we are the only ones on the dance floor it will still be a blast
• What if my dress doesn't fit after alterations? I've lost 30 lbs in the past year, I think if I need to lose 3-5 lbs the last 1.5 months before the wedding I will be fine. I've got the resources and knowledge to do this so calm the F down already
• Are we giving our guests enough choices in the booze department? People like free booze and after enough time passes they will be too loaded to even care
• Are guests going to be upset that there are no chairs for the ceremony? Young people can stand and the older guests get a chair with the family. If you don't like it, plop your butt down on the ground
• What if any of our relatives/guests start "acting up"? We are going to ignore them or ask them to leave
• What if the guests don't like our casual buffet? We are serving food that fiance and I both like and it tastes amazing. Everyone else can swing through McDonald's when they leave.

These are only a few of the items that I battle everyday. In the end, the "sane" bride always pulls through and makes sense of it all, but it's those few moments when I feel like the earth is slowly giving away under my feet that I could do without.

Did any of you "graduate" brides go through this the last few months before the wedding or am I really going insane?

Ceremony Issue

I finally took the time last night to work on our ceremony. I had tried doing this a couple weeks ago, but my mind wasn't in the right place so I decided it would be better to put it off....until now!

I am happy with what we came up with, but I am a little worried that it may be longer than what I had anticipated. Since the ceremony is in my parent's yard, we are only seating our family members (and the elderly) and everyone else will be standing around us. I'm just afraid that maybe this is too long for them to stand. I wouldn't be happy as a guest standing in the heat for 20-30 minutes, would you? I don't know what to do.......I guess I will wait and discuss this with our officiant when we meet with him in a couple weeks. I think where I went wrong was thinking that the ceremony would only be about 10 minutes long. What I didn't take into consideration was the time it would take for the processional. I have 5 bridemaids so it will take another 4-5 minutes for the bridal party to make their entrance. Plus, I added a small "family" portion to our ceremony that I hadn't been planning on before.

What to do.......I really don't want to have to rent 100+ more chairs in order to seat everyone, but I guess if I need to then I will. Not to mention that the space where we plan to have the ceremony just isn't quite big enough for that many "seated" guests.

Uurrrggghhhh.......I hate when I don't take all the little details into consideration when I'm planning.