Weddingbee Blog

Sorry for the wordy post. I want to capture the whole experience, so bear with me. I promise there will be many wonderful photos to come!

The week before the wedding, I was a mix of emotion. Part of me was excited the day had finally come, the other part of me was in total disbelief. We had a two year engagement and it was so surreal that after all of those hours of DIY projects, planning and vendor appointments….the wedding week was finally here!

I went back and forth on whether or not to take a full week off before the wedding, but ended up going to work on Monday to tie up loose strings. On Tuesday I finished packing everything up and organized it for our trip the following day. I ran last minute errands and purchased the last few gifts for our wedding party—I was on top of everything, but this ended up being left to the week before the wedding. After a day of running around, I was ready to get to Newport.

On Wednesday Starfish Mom and I dropped Sky (Starfish Pup) off at a pet-nanny (I didn’t have the heart to put him in a kennel, so we splurged on this). Then we picked up Sister S and were on our way to Newport…which meant our wedding was swiftly approaching!

We drove to Newport and drove up to the hotel that we had visited many times during the planning stages and it was time to check in. The concierge greeted me like we were old friends, as we had chatted many many times before. I may have visited a handful of times, too.

We spent the day unpacking, packaging favors and putting together the OOT bags. We ended up being pretty efficient and headed to a nice dinner at the Spiced Pear in Newport. Then it was back to the hotel to pass out, since I was falling asleep at dinner.

The next day we woke up and got back to packaging favors and prepping for our meeting with the venue coordinator. Bridesmaid M showed up at some point and we continued our work and turned on 27 Dresses.

The meeting went great. We planned to do a little setting up ourselves, but our venue coordinator Elaine said she would take care of everything—she was amazing! We also learned during this meeting that guests under 21 were cheaper than guests over 21…by a significant amount. I had no clue prior to this, so it was an awesome surprise for our budget. (Note to brides: it may be a good idea to ask in advance if guests under the age of 21 get a discount.)

After the meeting, the four of us grabbed lunch. After more relaxing and wedding movies, Starfish Mom headed to the train station to pick up my brother and his family. So Sister S, Bridesmaid M, and I headed out for cocktails at OceanCliff in Newport. I have to say, being organized makes the week of the wedding so much more fun. We were expecting lots of last minute things to do, and we ended up with lots of down time to relax and enjoy Newport.

Later, Starfish Mom returned with Brother S and family, the Starfish Bridesmaids showed up, and Mr. Starfish and BIL Starfish showed up as well. Most people were tired and hung out at the hotel for the night. They relaxed, went in the hot tub and swam at the hotel pool.

Despite my exhaustion, I wanted to spend time with te Starfish Girls, so we headed to a favorite college bar. We had a great time catching up and sharing our excitement for the weekend to come. Then we hit the dance floor, and…I fell asleep. Yes. I fell asleep on the dance floor. At this point we knew it was time to go, but not before grabbing a couple slices of pizza from Via Via (a Salve Regina late night staple). We lured Mr. Starfish into picking us up with the promise of buffalo chicken pizza. After a relaxing couple days, it was time to head to bed, as we had a busy few days coming up.

Did you have a lot of last minute projects, or were you able to relax before the big day?