Weddingbee Blog

I wish I had the pictures of the morning before the wedding and the actual rehearsal, but unfortunately they are somewhere far, far away, with all the documents on my old hard drive. Instead, you’ll have to use your imagination.

The morning was hectic. Really hectic. I had to get all the flowers done (I won’t go into details but you can read about them here), take the rest of the booze to the reception site, pack a bag, and get myself ready to be married in the morning.

I pretty much failed miserably on the 3rd and 4th tasks on my to do list. Originally, I begrudgingly agreed to spend the night before the wedding at my parents’ house. Under normal circumstances, staying there would have been fine, but because of the wedding, my parents had 7 out-of-town relatives staying with them. Their house is hot in the summer, but with the heat wave, I knew it would be unbearable. After some effective guilt tripping from Mama Joey, I agreed. I had planned to pack a bag after the rehearsal dinner and head over to my parents house.

So my plans changed when Mama Joey called 3 hours before we left for the rehearsal and said they had booked a room 5 minutes from the chapel and that we’d just stay there.

Awesome! Air-conditioning. Packing for the wedding? Not so awesome. With 2 hours left before the rehearsal, Mr. Joey and I were racing back to our apartment from the reception site. We both still needed to shower and change. I needed to pack for 3 nights (1 before the wedding and 2 after). I showered quickly and tried to throw my dress on. No go. It was hot, and I was slightly bloated from all the heat. I threw on another dress (not very flattering), put some stuff in a bag, and we ran out the door. Half-way to the rehearsal site, I realized I left my makeup bag at home, along with my toothbrush.

Great. I was so upset. I almost made Mr. Joey stop at a department store for a quick counter makeover, or at least a drugstore, but there was no time. We got to the rehearsal, and I forgot all about the stuff I forgot.

We were tempted not to do a rehearsal, but I’m really glad we did. Half of our readers are teachers, so they were really comfortable reading out loud. The other two aren’t, and I think they felt more comfortable after rehearsal.

After walking through the ceremony a few times, we all packed ourselves into cars and drove out to the rehearsal dinner site. If you don’t remember, I got the rehearsal dinner caterer off Craigslist. I was having a horrible time finding a restaurant willing to host our group on a Friday night. Thankfully, we found the most AMAZING caterer, Lynn at Lake Street Catering, and she even found us a place to hold the dinner for FREE! The house belongs to a friend of hers and is empty most of the year.

Once we got to the rehearsal dinner, I was the picture of calm. What was done was done. I couldn’t fix or change anything; it was too late, and the wedding was 15 hours away. We all grabbed a drink and enjoyed the house, the pool and the view.

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