Weddingbee Blog

After a lovely week leading up to the wedding (you know, after that whole dry-heaving incident), it was finally the day before. Um. What? How did time go by so quickly?? But I was ready. Let the wedding activities commence!

That morning, I dragged the moms, bridesmaids, junior bridesmaid, and several aunties to one of my favorite salons (Spa Scotta, which has apparently since closed?! sad times) to get our nails done. I emailed all of the ladies that were coming ahead of time to make sure I knew which services would be required, and made reservations for everyone. Since there were so many of us, we essentially booked out the little nail part of the salon. My mom and I brought some food and some champagne (OK, really my mom brought those things) and we all just chilled, ate, and got our nails done. It was such a wonderful, relaxing time with my favorite ladies! No stress allowed.

Auntie, BMs G and M

My beautiful mom and sister/MOH

I can’t for the life of me remember what OPI color went on my toes. It was bright red. An amazing OPI red that I have since found, though, is OPI’s Big Apple Red. Also, I apologize for this foot shot, in case you don’t like feet.

Beautiful bridesmaids!

After getting our nails done, we had time to go home/back to hotels/wherever and change, take a chill pill (No? Just me? OK…), take a shower. Whatever. Then, it was time to rehearse! I fail at blogging and forgot to designate someone to take pictures at the rehearsal, but it was pretty straightforward.

I must say, thank God for Catholic weddings. Fr. John took the helm and basically went through the entire ceremony with us, directing everyone at each step. I was very grateful that he had done many weddings before; he made me feel much calmer, like I could just sit back and let him run the show. It is also really nice that the Catholic Nuptial Mass is, well, almost the exact same thing as a regular Mass, so I was pretty familiar with what happened when. It definitely helped to settle my nerves.

The only picture anyone took of the rehearsal. Groomsmen! Some were more attentive than others.

We did a basic run-through of everything—everyone practiced where and when to stand/kneel/whatever. We processed in and processed out. Easy-peasy!

Next up was the rehearsal dinner, which was at Bastille in Ballard. We booked out the back bar, which was PERFECT. My mom and I always end up eating at Bastille when I’m in Seattle, so I knew the food and atmosphere would be amazing. I was not disappointed. The staff there was so attentive to us—they kept the drinks flowing, the food coming, and knew when to leave us all alone when toasts were happening, etc. Overall, a really amazing experience. It was also really nice to have the back room to ourselves so we weren’t surrounded by a ton of ambient restaurant noise.

Oh, and the decor is pretty freaking fabulous too.

Our little junior BM and ring bearer. He clearly did not want me in the picture.

The food was amazing—lots of mussels and fries, salads, fresh local ingredients that really pulled together well. And there was so. much. food. They kept bringing platters and platters of it! Delicious.

We had asked a groomsman and a bridesmaid to say toasts at the rehearsal dinner, and there was a nice little balcony that they found that made the perfect little stage. I loved that they went up together!

My mom and aunt

I believe at this point Fr. John was telling me “There’s still time to back out!”

We only invited a select few to the rehearsal dinner (immediate family, bridal party, and some close relatives), but we wanted to be able to spend time with all of our guests outside of wedding-day craziness. So we sent out a Facebook invite/email to everyone ahead of time letting them know that we would be at Bastille that night, and would love for everyone to come by for drinks, socializing, etc. after a certain time. I was a little worried that people would be offended that they weren’t invited to the dinner, but so many of our family members and friends came and they all told me how much they LOVED the idea. It was so fun! We hadn’t planned on covering booze for people, but the amazing bartenders at Bastille kept the drinks coming as part of the open bar. I will be forever grateful to them for being so awesome.

Anyway, I was ecstatic that so many people showed up. It was great being able to spend time with people we hadn’t seen in a while in a setting slightly more relaxed than the wedding itself. It’s hard when you live on the East Coast, and most of your family/friends are on the West Coast!

The groomsmen made my dad take a shot with them. He is most certainly not a shot person.

Crazy boys

Group of college peeps

Random family shot

All right, enough with the pictures of people that you don’t know drinking. It is making me thirsty.

Seriously, though, it was a blast. The dinner was wonderful, and the company was just divine. I could not have asked for a better time the day before our wedding. I left Bastille a little early—I can’t remember the exact time, but there were quite a few people still there when I peaced out. I had a wedding to get up early for, after all!

I went to sleep with butterflies in my stomach, happy and content. If the day before the wedding was so amazing, what would the next day bring??

What did you do the day before your wedding? Anyone else have a post-rehearsal-dinner bash?

• Recaps commenced. Sort of.
• I got over my dress regret.
• We made it official. Legally.
• I stressed out big time.
• We did some last-minute prep.

All photos are personal or guest photos.