Weddingbee Blog

The rehearsal dinner was a special time for family and friends. In addition to our wedding party and immediate families we invited all of our out of town guests to the dinner. In many cases this was our first opportunity to see them and catch up.

*All photos by Jason Tang, friend and rocktographer, unless otherwise noted.

Guest Photo with Aunt S and Cousin S

In addition, it was time for many of our families to catch up with each other. My parents are divorced and Papa Pretzel had a wonderful time catching up with my cousins on my Mom’s side.

Guest Photo: Cousin M, Papa Pretzel, Cousin R, Aunt A, and Cousin K

Brother Pretzel and his family also hadn’t seen many of our East coast family in a while. Some of the family had never met my nephew. In short, it was one big Pretzel family love fest!

Guest Photo: Cousin R, Cousin K, and Cousin S with Pretzel Niece and Pretzel Nephew (“the girl” and “the boy”)

Guest Photo: Mama Pretzel, Mr Pretzel, Mrs Pretzel, Aunt J, Uncle J, Uncle C, Uncle R

For me, one of the most special things about our wedding weekend was having almost all of my Mom’s immediate family with us. With the exception of two cousins, all of my mom’s siblings and their families came to celebrate with us from Maine, Massachusetts, and Colorado. I know that this meant the world to my mom. I have never seen her smile so much and I know that being surrounded by her brothers and sister meant the world to her.

Mr P and I made the rounds, catching up with family and friends alike.

I spent some time catching up with Bridesmaid R who had just arrived. I have no idea what we are talking about, but I love our animated expressions.

For most of the evening we use the divide and conquer method, but in this instance we both managed to be in the same place.

We also used this opportunity to deliver gifts to the many people we wanted to thank for participating in our wedding.

Our groomsmen and ushers received custom dyed Chuck Taylor All Stars (Green, Pink, Orange, and Aqua) and matching lego cufflinks.

My bridesmaids and junior bridesmaid received handmade hair fascinators, matching earrings, flip flops, and monogram note cards.

Best Man M models his wife’s (Bridesmaid S’s) fascinator

Our liturgical ministers (my Aunt S and Mr P’s Aunt S) received flattened wine bottle cheese trays from Pike Place Market

My nephew was excited to get an Air Force One play set.

We also thanked our parents with gifts we knew that they could use but wouldn’t buy it themselves. My favorite moment of the evening came when we gave my dad his gifts. He received Chucks and lego cufflinks like the groomsmen in his requested color of pink. My dad’s mom passed away from ovarian cancer (after battling breast cancer twice) and his niece/my cousin has victoriously fought breast cancer twice. When given the chance to pick a color of chucks to wear my dad proudly asked to wear pink in honor of them.

Papa Pretzel paid for a most of the wedding and I knew just the way to thank him—an Amazon Kindle.

The look on his face is disbelief. ”How did you know that I have been wanting one of these?” he asked. I smiled smugly and told him “I listened to you.” Ha! all those years he said I didn’t listen! Repeatedly he told us how awesome it was that given him the perfect gift and couldn’t wipe the grin off his face.

We had planned to do a couple of things at the rehearsal dinner that ended up getting nixed. The first to go was the bonfire. Logistically I didn’t want to figure out how to snag one of the coveted fire pits. It is a good thing that I let go of that one too because the beach was packed that day and Mr P and I were tired—no way we would have stayed up for a bonfire, too.

Guest photo: Nephew M would have had a hard time staying awake for a bonfire, too!

The second thing that we planned to do at the rehearsal dinner was best man/matron of honor speeches. I didn’t think through the logistics and we would have needed some sort of sound system to do them effectively at the RD. Thankfully our best man was flexible and did his speech at the reception.

As we said goodbye to our guests and got ready to head home Mr P and I realized that in less than 16 hours we were going to be husband and wife! Eeep!

Up next in Pretzel recaps: Mr P and I exchange gifts privately and my brain kicks into hyper-drive.

Need to catch up?

Twisted Together, aka Pretzel recaps:

• In the last week we got a little help from our friends
• Take a closer look at our favors
• Take a closer look at our programs
• We welcomed our guests to Seattle
• We took in a ball game
• Sipping tea and bridal party pampering
• We rehearse, I stress
• Nom, Nom, Rehearsal Dinner on the beach Pt 1