Weddingbee Blog

Screeeech - My recaps are a bit out of order! Before we get to the wedding I want to share our rehearsal and a gathering at my folks’ house! I hope you’ll hang in there with me just a bit longer!

It was the day before our wedding. I woke up with 101 things to do, as you may have guessed from my previous post. One thing that wasn’t mentioned was that among my already scheduled appointments and to-dos, I found out I had to completely redo our seating chart. With no time to do this, I ended up fixing our seating chart in the car on the way to our rehearsal dinner, which was scheduled for 4:30PM.

We opted for an early dinner before our rehearsal because cost prevented us from being able to invite anyone beyond the wedding party. Having it early allowed us to host dessert for all guests later that evening.

At 4:30, our wedding party, parents, and a few close relatives had arrived at a Combine Brother’s, a restaurant from our high school dating days. Mr. Sunbeam and I had decided a month before that we would need to limit the menu to a few appetizer and main course choices to keep within the estimated cost we had given his family. Before the dinner, we printed the limited menus on regular paper and gave them to the waitstaff to pass out. Few of our guests even noticed we had made the menus ourselves!

It was a nice casual meal without the toasts and speeches I imagine rehearsal dinners having. Though we had intended on Mr. Sunbeam giving a thank you toast, he decided to save it for the wedding day. To my knowledge, everyone enjoyed themselves and didn’t mind, or maybe didn’t even notice, the limited menu one bit.

Num!

Mr. Sunbeam and My now FIL/MIL!

Sunbeam Grandparents! Stuffed and ready to rehearse!

After dinner we all drove back into town and met our pastor and the wedding coordinator affiliated with the college at the Chapel. I had hired a Day of Coordinator who offered to be present, but I didn’t see the need since the Chapel’s coordinator would be the one sending us down the aisle.

One of our bridesmaids couldn’t make it - the same one that was having problems with her dress, so we had our best man’s wife, in purple, bring a red dress and stand in for the rehearsal.. just in case!

I only got more excitable.

We went through the ceremony once and the pastor was nice enough to save us from hearing the ’good stuff’ until our actual wedding day. Then we practiced coming up and down the aisle twice so everyone could get used to finding their places. The music started, and the bridesmaids found their rhythm. My father was incredibly nervous! I couldn’t believe it! Then we rounded the corner and started down the aisle. Wouldn’t you know it - Mr. Sunbeam got emotional! The face I wanted the photographers to capture was making an early appearance and I didn’t even think to look for it! Ahhk. If I could do it over, I would NOT have practiced coming down the aisle… at least not in front of Mr. Sunbeam.

After about 45 minutes of rehearsing we were feeling good and I was definitely getting giddy. It was time to head on down the hill for dessert at my family’s house and to ignore the to-dos just a little longer!

*All photos were taken by one of our talented friends*

Up next: Dessert and Mrs. Sunbeam becomes queen of delegation/crazy person.

Did your fiance or father get emotional during your rehearsal?