Weddingbee Blog

I’ve been really nervous about writing recaps of our wedding because I don’t want to break it. The whole thing was so magical and important and special that part of me has been afraid some of that will be lost if I let it out in to the world. But then two things happened: first, we had some friends over and played a slide show of our wedding, and it was so moving for everyone that I just felt better afterward. Nothing was lost. And second, I started really following some of the other bees’ recaps, and I am just loving following their weddings. Really, it is kind of amazing (/weird?) how warm and fuzzy reading some of those recaps makes me. So, with the hope that putting all of this out into the world increases the general warm fuzziness, I’m going for it.

We had lots of big plans a month or two before our wedding about how things would go. You guys, things did not go remotely the way Seahorse-in-May thought they would. We were going to have a nice rehearsal the day before, a big group dinner with all of our out of town guests, and then go home to our apartment and get ready there in the morning. Did I already mention that’s not what happened?

We spent the day before the wedding running around and finishing last minute stuff, with friends and family also swarming around finishing last minute stuff. Awesome Friend Laurie drove to a printer half an hour away to pick up our Ketubah, which I had printed at 3PM the day before our wedding. Seriously. That is some quality last minute planning, folks.

Somehow, we all ended up at the Inn in Littleton where Fancee and I were spending the night before and the night of our wedding. From there, we piled into a car and went to dinner at one restaurant, realized we had juggled cars all wrong, argued over (delicious) dinner, made up in the women’s bathroom, and then I went to my second (also delicious) dinner with my extended family, and then Fancee appeared, met everyone she hadn’t met yet, and we finally got back to the inn. That sentence was probably almost as exhausting for you to read as the whole thing was for us to experience.

Dancing at the inn the night before: thumbs up to this whole shebang!

But you know what? As crazy as all of that was—and dude, it was crazy—it is one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend. Everyone was arriving, everyone was so happy to see us, and we were all so excited! The inn was beautiful, everyone who was staying there loved it as much as we did, and it was amazing to settle in and realize that this whole wedding thing was really happening, and that we were ready for it. Really, realizing that it really was all coming together was such an amazing feeling.

Fancee and I did end up staying together the night before the wedding, but I promise we were chaste. We figured that we were both already going to sleep badly because of nerves, and we didn’t want to go it alone. I honestly don’t remember how I slept, or even waking up the next morning, but I do remember the sudden influx of people at the inn, because—crazy and last-minute as we are—we had decided to have the rehearsal at the inn an hour and a half before the wedding. Fun!

DELICIOUS breakfast at the inn! (That lovely lady on the left is the famous E. Leonardsmith, our amazing photog!)

Guys, I cannot recommend doing a rehearsal highly enough, even if you do it less than two hours before your wedding. We had to practice processing and recessing several times, and I forgot where I was supposed to start almost every time. Also, we determined only through rehearsing that we were going to dance up the aisle, which made for some amazing pictures.

Plus! The rehearsal was so fun! Our minister was awesome, and didn’t mind the giggling, the funny faces, and how hilarious we found all the mistakes to be. I think it helped us shake a lot of our nerves. Plus, there were chickens.

wedding rehearsal on the lawn at the inn

Chickens! Photos by E. Leonardsmith

I’m really glad that we had a morning wedding, because I would not have been able to wait much longer to get the whole thing started. It was such a wonderful feeling to have everyone showing up, ready to go—at this point, I felt like I was just being carried along on this wonderful adventure.

Did you have a rehearsal? Was it similarly awesome?