10.23.2012

Family, Friends, Toasts & Champagne! {Rehearsal Dinner}

First things first: I apologize for disappearing. As soon as we returned from the honeymoon, my theatre company opened our second production (of which I was the production manager), and then Patrick, myself and a few other friends went into rehearsals, and opened a run of the musical Next to Normal, followed by me immediately going into rehearsals for Evil Dead: the Musical (yes, that's right...Evil. Dead. The Musical.). Needless to say, our life as newlyweds began and continues to be super busy!

I want to begin re-caping our wedding, if only for the joy of re-living it. It was the best week of our lives thus far. Let's start at the very beginning, The Rehearsal & Rehearsal Dinner!

Our rehearsal was at 11:00am on the Friday before our wedding (there was another wedding happening that day in our venue), so we woke, got ready and headed out immediately to the Towers. I wore my white strapless BCBG I told you about, with my DIY beaded necklace!

My Soon-to-be Husband wore a matching shirt! Love.
I admit I was getting nervy and stressed on the way to the Towers for our rehearsal. We had spent the night before assembling the favors (which, of course, I'll tell you all about), and there were a few things that still needed to fall into place. I hadn't seen Patrick for a few days (I had left work early to be able to finish up last minute errands/projects before the wedding, and had headed down to RI), but as soon as I saw him, I felt the nerves calm and excitement grow!

To tell the truth, as soon as our Officiant arrived and took charge, things went relatively smoothly! Our groomsmen and bridesmaids stepped up to the plate! With our friends looking on, my dad and I preceded to practice our walk down the aisle to Patrick who was waiting for me. During the rehearsal of the Ceremony, both Patrick and I suddenly became very emotional. I believe it started really to sink in that the following day would be our wedding day. We could barely make it through the vows! I looked around at my friends; some from when I was in elementary school, some new friends; and to my family, the smiles shining from their faces. I started to really feel the love and support around us that would continue to grow through the rest of the day and continue past our wedding day that still goes on today. We completed the rehearsal and finally got a clear picture of what our ceremony would be like. It was just as we hoped for, but until then, couldn't fully picture. We were so excited!

After that, we parted ways again; the girls and I to mani/pedis and the boys for lunch and maybe a game or two of disc-golf. I opted to drive with Bridesmaid Joelle, who sweetly offered to cart me around. But when we got back to the place where she had parked her car, we noticed that her driver's side rear-view mirror was hanging by a thread! Someone had swiped the car, and knocked it almost off! We headed to the police station to report it (all the while, my stress levels slowly rising). When we got there, a nice family was reporting that they had swiped a car a few moments before! We found that it was the same accident, and cheer was restored to both Joelle's and my own faces as the report was filed and apologies were accepted.

We arrived late to the nail salon, and I made a few changes to my original plan for my nails (opaque white heart on the ring finger and bright blue toes). But I went with a soft pink for fingers and toes and outlines of hearts on the ring fingers --- I think they came out really well!

Final pic of my sparkly without the wedding band!
After all the ladies were properly pampered and polished, we headed home. I gathered up the peacock fingerprint guestbook and headed with my parents to the Tower House, the beautiful bed & breakfast where we stayed the night we got engaged!

My handsome little brother and beautiful MOH sister!
Guys, I can't sing enough praise for this place. Not only was the rehearsal dinner delicious and full of family, friends and love, but they decorated for us and made the place into (seriously) an enchanted garden. The weather was perfect, everyone was outside, there were lights and lanterns in the trees, and delicious nomblies around every corner.

But the best part of that night was the toasts. It's actually quite hard to capture with words the amount of love, honesty, friendship and family that were poured into each toast; and almost all of our friends and a lot of family members stood up and said something. P and I were overwhelmed with happiness! Our best friends made us all teary with their sentiments. Patrick's cousins made us laugh and cry and our ring-bearer and my little cousin stole the show with some fantastic lines ("I remember when you two started marrying each other..."). The toasts were such a gift to us. My grandfather came up to me at the end of the night and said "You know, you have amazing friends." And I do know that. I couldn't be more grateful.

 

With a beautiful rehearsal dinner where we re-connected with far away family and old friends, laughed and cried happy tears with our dearest and toasted and ate delicious treats, Patrick and I got ready to spend our last nights as an unmarried couple. He drove me home, just like he did when we met and carpooled to rehearsal in that fateful production of Birds of Paradise. We kissed goodnight. And turned in, dreaming of our wedding day!

More to come!

Love,

Micah