Here Comes the Bride!

I know that there’s not a lot of originality to the title...but I couldn’t resist! =)

Here we are...the bride’s BIG moment...walking down the aisle. Towards a new life. Towards her future and the man of her dreams. For me, even with it not being my first trip down the aisle, this moment was no less special and amazing. The last time that I had made this momentous walk, I was making it for many reasons...but none of them were for love. People marry in the world everyday for many, many reasons...and love isn’t always the main one.

I had a small round of tears/fears earlier during the afternoon...but felt nothing at this moment but pure happiness. 100% joy. A million times different than I had felt at this moment the last time that I had made this walk. An encore bride tries hard (at least I did) to make this trip completely different than the last time that she made this walk...and you try really hard not to think about the last time that you said vows...and all of the reasons that you ended up not fulfilling those vows...but it’s really unavoidable. Maybe it was just me, but it was really hard not to compare the two days in my mind.

And this day? Well, like I said earlier, it was a million times better. I was completely, 100% in love with my groom, and wanted nothing more in my life at that moment than to marry this man. To forge our future together for better or for worse. And for someone who’s already seen what the worst could be like...it takes a lot of courage to do this again. You know that you might be hurt. You know that you might let others down. Worse yet, you might let yourself down. But I firmly believe, with all that I have, that making this journey with the right person makes all the difference. It makes a world of difference.

So there I was...peeking out from around the corner of the building, trying my hardest to stay behind the trees and shrubs so that my groom wouldn’t see me until the last minute...and my dad came to get my hand. I smiled a humongous smile...and got ready to get this show on the road. I heard all of the music starting and everything was going great. But you know, don’t you that something typically goes a little bit wrong, right? Hopefully it’s not too wrong, and if you’re lucky no one else but you even notices that it was wrong. That’s the best case. That’s not the case that I got.

Unfortunately, my wedding “moment” for lack of a better word, was totally and completely noticeable...and embarrassingly hilarious. I mean, like the whole crowd was laughing. Let me back up and explain...

You see, it all started because I had forgotten to plan one teensy, tiny detail that would make a HUGE difference during our wedding ceremony. Maybe you can remember back far enough to recall that I had waited until the last minute to decide on my wedding music...and something that I had never really thought about was who was going to run my wedding music. I think that it hit me like three days before the wedding that the DJ that we’d hired only covered the reception.

So what about the ceremony music? Yeah...it would have been nice to have thought about it earlier, but I didn’t. Hmmm...when the chips are down, and you’re in a bind, who comes through the best? Family. Right? Right.

You see, I have a cousin in college here in Austin that is a wizard when it comes to electronics. And I’m not exaggerating, either. When he was in high school, he started an ebay business where he bought broken iPods and fixed them and resold them for profit. Smart kid. And when you have someone in the family like that...obviously, that’s the person that you want to operate some sound equipment and handle your pre-made (and in order) CD on your wedding day, right? Right.

Except that I forgot to tell him about this plan. I meant to call him, I really did. I thought about it three days before the wedding...then again two days before the wedding...and again the day before the wedding. But when do you think that I actually asked him? If you guessed right before the ceremony started...then you’d be right!

I actually talked to my aunt (his mom) the day before the wedding when I ran into her at the hotel. She said that it was fine and he could handle it easily...but I didn’t talk to HIM specifically, or place the CD into his hot little hands with instructions, until the hour before the ceremony. Ok, maybe it was 30 minutes prior to the start of the ceremony. And maybe it was really my Mom who passed on the message, and not me exactly. But whatever.

In all honesty, it shouldn’t have caused any problems. There was a CD with before ceremony music that we had picked out that was set to play already. And then the ceremony music was on a separate CD with only four songs on it...in the right order...only needing to be sped up to the next song when we had extra time left. Easy, breezy.

But what happens when you need MORE time? Yeah. A really good question that maybe I should have thought about ahead of time...but honestly it just never crossed my mind. The song that I had selected to walk down the aisle to was a live version of Martina McBride singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” If you’re familiar with Martina, she’s known for holding out a note long and hard...and she’s one of the most talented country music singers there is, in my opinion. This song is no different. And there was this ONE part that I had in my head that would be perfect for me to arrive at the end of the aisle at...for B’s first moment of seeing me. The music builds and swells and she holds this fantastic note...it was just perfect.

The day before, when we practiced, I realized that my Maids were going to get to the front WAY before that moment in the song. So when we got to the back of the aisle (still hidden in the bushes and shrubs), I instructed them at the last minute to wait there while the prelude music played and not make an entrance until Martina actually started singing. Thinking in my head that this would buy the extra time that I needed, right?

Well, it worked. My Dad and I walked out at just the right moment. There was my groom and his handsome men standing at his side...
The music swelled...I stepped out...
And B got his first look at his bride...I love that the photographer caught our minister watching B's reaction to seeing me...The look on his face said it all. And then Martina paused to recover from her long note. You can see where this is going right?

My cousin, who is in NO WAY to blame for this mistake, thought that the song was over. And doing what anyone else would do in this situation, he hit fast forward to get to the next song. That’s what anyone in their right mind would do, right? Only if you had listened to the song before would you have known that Martina went on to actually finish the song for another 30-45 seconds after her pause. Which would have been the exact time that I needed to walk down the aisle. Or close enough.

But bless his heart, he hit the fast forward button just as I made my “dramatic bride pause” at the end of the aisle and waited for everyone to stand and turn to look at me. (Yes, it was MY day...I looked great...and was proud of the fact that I felt like a princess...I wanted to revel in it a little bit!) Just as they stood and turned, this is what the crowd heard...

“OW! I feel good...nah nah nah nah nah nah nah...” I think that you can finish the rest, right?

The look on B’s face was priceless...check it out!It's that frozen-smile-in-place, "OMG what is happening?" look...perfect!

You see, there was no music during the actual ceremony. So the next song on the CD was the song that we were going to use to make our exit. Except that the song that we were exiting to was a surprise to B. He didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell. I just thought that it would be so cute when at the end of the ceremony, after we were announced as husband and wife to have James Brown sing “I Feel Good!” It would sum up everything that we both felt in that moment.

Except that it came at the wrong moment. I was shocked. Didn’t know what to do. My Dad looked at me and I think he actually asked me if they were playing the right music? Which I found funny. As in totally hilarious. I started laughing. And looked up front at my groom to find him and his guys laughing. And that’s when the crowd lost it and THEY started laughing.

And poor Z, my cousin...he was frantically trying to rewind the CD as fast as he could. But in his haste, he just hit rewind once...which only went back to “OW! I feel good...nah nah nah nah nah nah nah...”

Which only made our wedding guests laugh THAT much harder! It was by far the funniest moment of our wedding. And the best news? Since I thought that it was funny...I refrained from being a Bridezilla (which I had been accused of being earlier in the week) and went with the moment and just relaxed about it all. I mean, who could I really blame? Only myself, if I’m honest.

Luckily, my cousin corrected his mistake very quickly, and restarted Martina’s song...and after settling down our giggles, my Dad and I started down the aisle. Still kind of giggling over the James Brown incident...But totally happy to be where I was...I only stumbled once or twice on the uneven ground...And finally arrived at my destination. My Dad stood there proudly and did his part in passing my hand to B when our preacher asked who gave this woman to this man...answered my favorite response “Her Mother and I do.” His part done, my hand was given over, and I stepped onto the stage, holding tightly to my soon-to-be husband’s hand. More ready than ever to make this incredible journey. I was here again...but for the right reasons this time. I couldn’t wait to say “I Do!”

**All photos courtesy of Christina Carroll Photography

Need to catch up? Here’s some links:
Girls’ Spa Day
Bachelor/Bachelorette Party
Setting Up the Venue…
Practice Makes Perfect…
Rehearsal Dinner
5 Minutes is All that I Need
A “Quick” Stop at the Hair Salon
A Sneak Peek at the Venue...
Arriving at the Venue...to Stay!
Getting Dressed
The Maids Pose for the Camera...
Oops - I’m Out of Order!
The Boys Smile and Say “Cheese!”
It’s Show Time!

Rehearsal Dinner

So I’m a really bad bride. I have not ONE single picture from our rehearsal dinner...yeah, I’m flogging myself you don’t have to do it for me. I’m sure that there are pictures out there from family and friends, but I don’t have any of them that I know of...so we’ll do the best that we can.
Since the rehearsal itself went off without even the slightest of problems, you had to know something was coming sooner or later, right? Getting to the rehearsal dinner is where we ran into problems.

And here’s some words of advice that I can offer future brides: Don’t trust the map that you pull off of a restaurant’s website. Look at it closely, if you’re familiar with the area, and make sure that everything is right. My new map was NOT correct, and two cars ended up getting “lost” in San Marcos.

I went to the Johnny Carino’s website and pulled directions that they gave me, so I didn’t think to double check anything. Unfortunately, their directions had people exiting two exits too soon, and from there the rest of the directions led them nowhere. Luckily, most of the guests lived in or around the San Marcos area and were at least a little familiar with where the restaurant was in town. Unluckily, it was my Mom that got the most lost! They found their way eventually, but I felt SO bad about the map being wrong.

So double check, even triple check, directions that you get from someone else for accuracy, especially if you pull them off of the internet!

After that little snafu, the dinner went off without a hitch. The food was great, the drinks flowed, and conversation filled the room. We laughed and joked and just relaxed together on our last night before getting married. Right at the end of dinner, B’s dad got up and made a toast to us...I wish that I could remember exactly what he said because it was so sweet! He actually got a little choked up on it, and ended up shortening it quite a bit from what he intended to say...we didn’t care though, it felt so good to be surrounded by so much love! After that toast, we got up and thanked everyone for being there and being in our lives supporting us in our marriage and we proceeded to pass out some gifts.

My girls got their gifts and ooohed and aaahed appropriately, and B passed out his gifts to the guys. We only had one parent gift to give out, and that was to B’s parents for hosting the rehearsal dinner. If you remember from here, we had intended to pay half of the cost ourselves, but in the end they wouldn’t hear of it. So in return, we got them tickets to the last home UT football game against Kansas. They were thrilled and so touched by our thoughtfulness and they really appreciated our gift. (I know because we watched the game that they were at and B’s dad texted us every 5 minutes to see if we could see them on TV!) They had a blast at the game, and we were glad to give them something that they enjoyed SO much!

After the gifts were given, it was time to go. B and I took a few moments alone to say our goodbyes...it was the last time that I would see him until the ceremony the next day...and I’m really glad that we took the time to have a moment with just us. The whole day had been spent running around and being in a big group, so it was nice to have 5 minutes alone.

Once back at the hotel, the girls and I had some more work to do, but with all three Maids helping and my wonderful Mom pitching in as well, it all got done within the hour and we headed off to bed. After the stress of the day, I needed a bubble bath to help me relax (and to help with those cramps!) so I made sure to take advantage of the time that I had and relaxed for a bit. I fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of how tomorrow would unfold...

Need to catch up? See how I got here...

Girls’ Spa Day
Bachelorette/Bachelor Party
Setting up the Venue
Practice Makes Perfect

Practice Makes Perfect...

Where were we? Oh yeah, the hall was decorated as much as we could get it done, my mom and step-dad had gone to pick up plates and little J, B had left to get ready and then meet his brother to pick up the rental chairs that I had to have, and I was off to the hotel to get cleaned up and try to relax for a few minutes before the rehearsal started.

The girls and I were good about staying on time and got back to the venue about 5-10 minutes before rehearsal was set to start. Already there were people there waiting on us, and B and his brother were hard at work putting the chairs into rows and sections like I wanted. I tried to get people to help them out, but they had a good system going, so I let them work their magic. In the end, this is what I saw...
Once the chair rows were established, we went ahead and put up the shepherd’s hooks (minus the flower balls) so that all we had to do to the ceremony site the next day was to hang the small pomanders on the hooks, line the aisle with rose petals and hang the large pomanders under the pavilion. It was beautiful, and exactly what I had pictured in my head! I was SO excited.

We had some introductions to make as neither set of parents had met the other one and introductions went all around. Our minister and good friend was already there and he and I spoke for a few minutes before getting the show on the road. Rehearsal was short and sweet. We placed everyone up under the pavilion and then we worked out the logistics of who would walk in and from where and when. D (our minister) didn’t read through the whole thing since he wanted to keep some surprises for the big day, but he skimmed through it to get to the end so that we could practice our exits. He didn’t let us practice kissing. Boo...

After going through it the first time, everyone said that they would like to run through it again real quick, so we did. After the second time, everyone felt comfortable and was ready to go eat. We stayed behind for a few minutes with our minister and our best man to practice the handfasting...since there were cords and wrapping and all, BM really wanted to practice that part in more detail, but B and I didn’t want everyone seeing it all ahead of time. In order to do this in semi-privacy, I “released” everyone from the rehearsal and told them to make their way down to Johnny Carino’s. I made sure and passed out the new maps since I had this snafu with the Rehearsal Dinner venue changing places on me at the last minute, and we practiced in quiet for a minute.

When we left the venue, there were still people milling about, so we herded everyone into their cars and go on the road. I was starving by this time since I really hadn’t eaten much of a lunch since I was running around like crazy trying to decorate and I couldn’t wait for some good food! I hopped into B's truck and away we went...

I think that the rehearsal was a success. I've tried to think of tips to give other brides out there, but I don't know that I have any. I didn't have it all mapped out on paper with a clipboard to keep everyone in line and moving along...I didn't have to continue to gather people up so that I knew that they would know what to do the next day...I don't have any horror stories that you sometimes hear about rehearsals. Sorry.

I guess that the best advice that I can give you would be to have great friends like we did! Our friends and family were there for US...doing whatever needed to be done to make sure that our special day was perfect, making suggestions to improve the process along the way. I can't be more appreciative of them if I tried. They all worked so hard on our wedding...and they were perfect angels during the rehearsal. They went where we said, made adjustments when needed, and probably because they could tell that I wanted them to do it again, they ran through it all a second time for me (without complaints) when they probably didn't need to do it again at all! So that's my adivce: pick great friends to be in your wedding party!

Need to catch up? See how I got here...

Girls’ Spa Day
Bachelorette/Bachelor Party
Setting up the Venue

Rehearsal Dinner Dilemmas...

Since even well-oiled machines don’t always run smoothly, I need to tell you about a little “snafu” that we ran into about a week and a half before our wedding. From the title of the post, you can probably guess that it had to do with our Rehearsal Dinner. I wrote about the triumphant booking of our rehearsal dinner here, and here I showed you the super cute invitations that I made to invite our family and friends to the dinner.

Well, all was going along well...until October 13th or so. You see, we were supposed to call the Johnny Carino’s that we booked to have our RD at two weeks before the event to secure the date. And then we were supposed to call them back the week of the event and place our order for food. Knowing the time line that I was working with, I mailed the invites and had an RSVP date on there of October 16th...a week out from the RD. But one little thing happened. I should have called Johnny Carino’s on the 9th to secure everything. But I was busy on the 9th. So I didn’t think about it again until the 12th, and I was busy again, so I asked B to make the call for me.

He forgot to do it, but remembered on the 13th...and then called me in a panic. Never fear, Johnny Carino’s had not taken us off of their schedule, but somehow it never came up when B was booking the room there that the room only holds 30 people. Hmmm...there were 45 on our guest list for the RD. Bad news, huh? Oh, just wait, it gets worse. On further conversation with the guy at Carino’s, B was told that the guy that had promised that this would be no problem to secure and hold was no longer there and they had no record of our event. Not that big of a deal, since the room wasn’t booked for anything else and we could just re-book the room. But the seating capacity WAS a problem...

We were getting RSVPs in the mail for the RD, but hadn’t heard from half of our guests yet. So we didn’t know for sure that we needed space for 45 people. And to my recollection, the room wasn’t a separate room with doors or anything, there were just low half-walls separating that area from the general dining area. So how hard could it be to seat the remaining “overflow” guests at tables right on the other side of those low walls? I would think not that hard.

That’s what I get for thinking. The guy from Carino’s that was slowly destroying my carefully laid out plans further informed B that since this was a Friday evening at 7pm, he was not included to “hold” seats for our party in general seating. Pretty much, they just weren’t working with us.

I tried to calm B down, a pretty hard task let me tell you! I saw several options:

1 – verify our guest list – maybe we wouldn’t even have 30 guests say yes
2 – if there were just a few more than 30, a table for 6 might be easier to “hold” next to our low walls than a table for 15
3 – change venue – either pick another restaurant in the same shopping center (there are several) or change to the Carino’s in San Marcos all together. Most of the guests were local, but the others could be given a map at the rehearsal.
4 – last, but not least, have Carino’s cater the event and hold the dinner at the venue. Which wasn’t the best option, because at this point we didn’t even know if we could rehearse, let alone dine, at the venue.

I quickly listed those options, but B was being stubborn and he didn’t like any of them. We finally settled on option 1 and started calling our respective family and friends. After an hour of phone calls, we were down to 36 guests...YEA!...but no real solution on the seating problem. Carino’s was being firm on not holding tables and not putting more than 30 in the room.

So I took matters into my own hands. I called the Johnny Carino’s in San Marcos and surprisingly got the catering manager, Casey on the first try. She was MORE than accommodating, being quick to assure me that their private room was an actual room by itself and held up to 50 people. We worked on the menu while I had her and within 10 minutes she sent me an invoice for an estimated cost. Whew! That was WAY easier. I quickly re-worked the maps that I had made for the RD, and felt settled by the time that B called me back. He wasn’t really thrilled that I handled the situation that way, but what could we do? There were several guests that we couldn’t reach and I saw no other alternative.

By the time that I got home that night, he was fine with my “executive decision” and the world was at peace again. Now I just needed to change my maps...and spread the word about the last minute change. No problem, right?

Well...just a small problem...more to come about the actual night soon! Hopefully with pictures, since I took NONE during the entire rehearsal dinner! I’m a bad bride...

Rehearsal Invite Reveal...

Well, I’ve heard from one or two people regarding these, so I know that it’s safe to reveal them to you now. Without further ado, may I present to you our rehearsal dinner invitations? These were SO much fun to work on making. Really they were. I don’t know if they were just more fun, or if the pressure of having beautiful invitations was done and over with so these felt like more fun. Either way, I had a blast designing and creating these. And they really weren’t that much work.

As far as the design? I knew that I really wanted to use a belly band, since B won that one and we went without a belly band on the wedding invites. So I just didn’t ask him about having one on these...sneaky, I know. Other than that, I was WIDE open with what I wanted. I had a lot of envelopes (or so I thought) left over from our STDs and thought that if I did something in a size that would fit those, then that would be cool. Other than that? Wide open for suggestions.

And that’s when I remembered kind of liking Mrs. Apple Cider’s invitations for her rehearsal dinner...so I hopped on over to Weddingbee to check them out again and see what I thought. I realized that what I liked most about her invites was 1) the font that she used and 2) the graphics that she put in...so I started doing some searching using the links that she provided. I liked what I saw, but the doilies weren’t exactly right. So I kept looking, and eventually fell into the world of Photoshop brushes. I was hooked, and had the design done with only one evening spent at home working on it. Love at first sight? Possibly!

So here they are up close and personal...

The invitation itself... The Menu card (which I already showed you)... The RSVP card... The Map – I cheated and used my wedding map as a template and just moved everything a little more North and included the necessary information for the rehearsal dinner. In the end, I liked that I did that, since guess could see the proximity to the wedding venue, the hotel where they were likely staying and the rehearsal dinner restaurant. I forgot to make an extra map...so here's some screen shots of the file so you can kind of see... Like our wedding invitations, there were printed directions on one side, and a map that I made on the other.

All tied up with the pretty purple ribbon (image shown above).

And then, just because I could, I designed another graphic file to put my “stamp” on the outer envelope too. Yeah, I’m just that cheesy!

I ran the envelopes through the printer for all addressing needs... And then they just needed a stamp. I didn’t even have to ask B to get nice stamps when I sent him to the Post Office for stamps...he brought back the popular King/Queen set and they were gorgeous. I thought that they looked cute.

When my Mom got hers in the mail, she actually called me to tell me that she had no idea the depth of my creativity. And she thought the flowers on the outer envelope was a stamp...not a graphic that I designed in Photoshop. She loved them, to say the least. Even told me that I should open a business doing this...I agreed with her! I would love to do this for a living!

I don’t really have an accurate cost breakdown to share with you. I already had most of the materials that I used, or I used materials in conjunction with other projects. What I know that I specifically bought for them totaled to about $16. That doesn’t include the big pack of paper that I bought to do these and the programs on, but that will fall into my total paper projects budget. I made 20 invitations, so that makes them less than $1 a piece. Nice for this bride’s budget!

Are you going to DIY your rehearsal dinner invites? If you are, and you did your actual invites as well, did you have more fun doing these? Just wondering if I’m the only one that didn’t feel the pressure on this project.

Frustrations with Contracts...

I’m slightly retarded. Seriously...this bride thing is getting to my memory capabilities. Because I’m not THAT old to be this forgetful!

I’ve been waiting and waiting, and impatiently waiting some more, for the 21 day mark to pass. Why, you ask? Because I finished up the Rehearsal Dinner invitations a week ago and wanted to wait to mail them out until after it was all official with the hall being booked. And somewhere in my pea-sized brain, I had it stuck in my head that I could reserve the hall 21 days before the wedding.

So like a good little bride, I sent off an email first thing Monday morning when I got to work to Danny, the coordinator at Texas Old Town. Politely thanked him for all of his help thus far, and could I please reserve the hall for my rehearsal.

Imagine my surprise when a message came into my inbox two hours later telling me that he was more than happy to let me know that the hall was still available, but that I was not able to reserve it until Monday, October 19th...five days before the event PER MY CONTRACT! I was immediately outrged. What?!?! No, no, no. MY contract states that I can reserve it 21 days out, HE must be mistaken.

Lucky for me, I thought to check my actual contract before hitting the Reply button. Yep. Right there in black and white. “...parties may reserve the facilities for day before activities no more than five (5) days before scheduled event...”. Hmmm, well "don’t that just beat all?" as we say in Texas.

I sheepishly replied back to his email and apologized for my scatter-brained-ness (is that a word?) and told him that I would contact him on the 19th. He was nice enough to write me back and let me know that the hall is still unreserved at this point, and it’s highly unlikely that it will be booked, but that it has happened before.

Why would he tell me that? Doesn’t he know that I already have nightmares about that very thing happening? Without him confirming that it’s happened before. Wait. Relax. Calm down. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

Much better.

Anyway, I felt a little silly, but what’s a girl to do? I mailed the invitations to the rehearsal dinner yesterday, so they’ll be arriving in mail boxes soon and I can do a reveal for you all...they’re beautiful. Here’s a sneak peek... CRAP! I forgot to upload the photo that I took...Doh! Thanks ColorCoated for pointing it out...you'll have to check back tomorrow morning to see it - Sorry!

Oh, and my Maids? Yeah, I ran out of postcard stamps for the RSVPs guys...and didn’t really want to go and buy three more $.20 stamps...so you guys can just email me what your votes on the food are, if you don’t mind. Sorry! Love you bunches!

Did you have dilemmas or drama getting your venue booked for a rehearsal, or was the rehearsal time included and guaranteed?

Planning the Rehearsal Dinner...

We were pleasantly surprised by a gracious offer of B’s parents a few weeks back. They had mentioned early on something about covering the rehearsal dinner costs, but we told them that we’d work all of that out later on. (This was like days after becoming engaged, so we weren’t really sure about a LOT of things at the time!) As time passed, B’s step-mom would mention it again to me every once in a while, and I just kept saying that that was something that they and B needed to work out and leave me out of...and you know how boys are, right? Yeah, so nothing was really discussed again until about two weeks ago.

Up until that point, we just assumed that we would be planning and paying for the rehearsal, which has had its own problems – see this post here to catch up. Well, we’re now about a month out, and I’m pleased to announce that our venue is still NOT booked for the day before our wedding. Even though I can’t “officially” reserve the venue until Oct. 3rd (and yes, I have a reminder set on my Outlook calendar AND on my To Do List to call Texas Old Town that day and book), we’re going ahead with plans as if we will be rehearsing at our venue.

Once that was decided (for the most part), picking a place to eat at was easy for us. To be honest, I would have liked to be able to pick a place that we could rent out...you know, have the place to ourselves and our guests and there are a few local places that we could do that with. But the cost was something that we weren’t willing to pay. And if we aren’t willing to pay for something, we’re sure not going to let someone else do it either! So, our next best option was picking one of our favorite restaurants and just having a room reserved for our party. That was a much easier solution to handle, both in our minds and on our wallets!

Since B has had some “free time” lately, he took on this task. Picking the place was a no brainer – it’s hands down Johnny Carino’s Italian Restaurants. Yes, we know that we could eat there any night of the week. We get that. But we don’t eat there...because it’s pasta and that’s not something that’s been on our plates much in recent months! It’s one of our favorites, and our kids love it too, so it really was an easy choice for us to make.

After having lunch one day and discussing this, B decided to go ahead and stop in and talk to the planner at the local Johnny Carino’s. The guy that he spoke with was very helpful and nice, and gave B all the information that we would need to make this happen. He even went ahead and “penciled us in” on their calendar. We’ve got the front room for our party, and they’ll set it up buffet-style for a per person price that was less than what we were expecting to pay.

Enter FILs. They swoop in and “save the day” by offering to cover the rehearsal dinner for us. After clearing everything with them, I went ahead and started working on the invitation suite...and included a menu card and voting section so that our guests can “vote” on what entrees should be served at our rehearsal dinner. I had to be very clear that it was a vote, and not all 4 options would be served, but I think that they turned out really cute.
What do you think? I’ll save the big reveal of the invites themselves for after they’re mailed, but I was thrilled to be able to step away from the black and cream and pull in some PURPLE!!! (Even though you can't tell from that picture, the backing of the menu card is EGGPLANT!)

Part of me would like to have done the rehearsal dinner somewhere with black/white checkered cloths and wine bottle candle holders dripping with wax...but the practical bride in me says someone else setting/cleaning up is worth the sacrifice of my wishes! Especially the day before the wedding, when I know that I’ll have other things to think about!

I’m so excited to be planning this part of the wedding too – it just makes it all seem that much closer to being here! Was it that way for you?

Rehearsal Dinner Dilemma

On a different note all together, let’s talk about the rehearsal dinner and my woes with this time-honored tradition. It’s not that I don’t want to do a rehearsal dinner…it just seems like the cosmos forces are working against my planning this portion of our wedding.
You see, my venue is great. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Texas Old Town – check them out here. But they have a funny policy on the rehearsal portion of your wedding. The good news is that they will include your use of the hall for a rehearsal for FREE. The bad news? It’s their policy that you cannot book your hall for the night before your wedding date to hold the rehearsal until three weeks before the wedding. Yes, you read that right. Three weeks.

I understand why TOT does this. It’s become a semi-popular trend to get married on a day other than a Saturday. Most venues charge less money, so the bride and groom on a budget can take advantage of this and get a smokin’ deal on a place by choosing a day other than Saturday. This also generates some extra $$ for the venue, so everyone wins. Except for the bride that paid extra $$ to have her wedding on Saturday and now can’t guarantee that she’ll be able to rehearse at the venue the night before…

Which means that I won’t know if I can even HAVE a rehearsal the night before until less than a month before it would be happening. And that really puts a crimp on my obsessive nature…yes, Mr. CC I freely admit that I obsess. About all things related to this wedding!

I’ve been talking with some family and friends about this dilemma that I’m facing and so far we’ve come up with a few suggestions that I’ll share with you. Because maybe you’re a bride that is facing the same situation. Or maybe you’re just smarter than me and have an idea that I haven’t thought of…

One suggestion made was not to stress about it until I know for sure one way or the other. Obviously, this person doesn’t know ME at all! So we’ll just pretend that suggestion wasn’t even made.

Second on the list - a day-of rehearsal. Since our wedding is going to be at a later time during the day (not yet determined, but before sunset) it might be possible to do an early morning rehearsal and follow it with a rehearsal brunch instead of a dinner. I have to admit that I like the oddness of this idea. It’s against the grain, and the norm, so of course I like it! But it poses some problems. For one thing, what do I do about Mr. CC and I seeing each other on our big day? Tradition says that we shouldn’t see each other at all that day…so if I’m following that tradition then how do I do a rehearsal the day of the wedding followed by a rehearsal brunch? I suppose that I COULD do a rehearsal with me, and then another rehearsal with Mr. CC and we would just eat separately from our guests.

But I don’t really like that idea. For one thing, that’s a lot of time on the bridal party. They, along with parents and the minister, would all have to do the rehearsal twice. Not a bad thing to get in extra practice, but still. Plus, doing it that morning also takes away from time that might be needed dong other things. What other things, you might ask? Hair, nails, make-up, decorating the reception hall and the ceremony site, just to name a few. Because if we can’t get into the venue for a rehearsal the day before, we won’t be able to do any of those things the day before either.

The only other suggestion that’s been made has been to hold a rehearsal dinner the night before and rehearse briefly wherever that will be done. Even though it wouldn’t be the exact SAME field, a field is really a field. And couldn’t you practice on one lawn just as easily as you could the other lawn. The only difference would be the steps of the gazebo. But that should only affect Mr. CC, the minister and myself. I’m sure that the three of us can manage to “make believe” that one thing. So rehearse on a lawn somewhere, then go and eat dinner. That might work. It would at least be a little easier to handle logistically speaking.

Do you have another scenario that I might have missed? A way to make this work just in case my venue does end up getting booked for the night before my wedding?