Wedding Wednesday: Rehearsal and Rehearsal Dinner

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Happy Wedding Wednesday!

Time to recap the Rehearsal and Rehearsal Dinner!
It was quite an evening. SO SO SO fun having super close friends all in one room!

This post is very photo-heavy, but these photos help me relive it.
Sorry I'm not sorry! ;)


My sister is the best!




 
...plus our Aunt/my Godmother - she's the coolest!



Posing with a few of the groomsmen


My gorgeous sister-in-law and brother

Aren't the flowers beautiful! Definite benefit of having a wedding the week after Easter!




I will show off these beauties any chance I get!


Andrew wore his abuelo's tie. So sweet :)


All done and rehearsed! So ready!

My favorite girls in the world.
6 states and DC are represented in this photo if that tells you anything.
OK, a couple gals from Chicago (Mary and Daniela) are missing, but they couldn't be there.
Still, I treasure this photo so much!!!

Groomsmen (minus one - he couldn't be at the rehearsal for work/training purposes. He was missed!!)


Groomsmen selfie. This makes me giggle every time I see it!
Love these guys!

Now let's get to the grub!
We had our Rehearsal Dinner at Shaw's, a quaint restaurant and hotel in downtown Lancaster. We have many family memories here, so it was our favorite option when picking a spot for the dinner. Plus, the out-of-towners stayed there and we all got ready there the morning of the wedding!

Andrew's parents and Aunt really created a beautiful ambiance.
The lights were low, the music sweet, the food delicious, the wine divine, and the company was of course the best part!

  

They copied photos of Andrew and I over the years as well as some baby photos and hung them from spray-painted black branches adorned with twinkling lights. It was perfect!!

Andrew's Mom also got us cute forks and my bridesmaid, Callie (the one who orchestrated the incredible letters!) gave us toasting glasses!

And here's a good one of two of my best and dearest friends in the world, all living in different states and all getting married within a year of each other!
The fun just doesn't stop!!

 

Andrew's groomsmen gifts were cuff links of the guys' favorite baseball teams (to go along with our Save the Date theme and a couple of other things the day of!).


Andrew and Steve's cuff links aren't pictured, but they are of the Detroit Tigers.

I'll make my bridal party gifts a separate post :)

After dinner there were speeches.
My oh my were those incredible.
Not only did our parents say a few kind and sweet words, but many other people in the room also joined in! It was incredibly touching and there were many happy tears. Andrew and I also enjoyed sitting back to take it all in: I mean, we put people together at tables who didn't know each other or didn't know each other very well...and we kept hearing eruptions of laughter and fun conversations all evening. It was so special!!!

Goodness, I'm tearing up right now as I write this!
I wish I had the words to express how wonderful that night was!

OK that's all for this week!

Thank you for viewing all of these photos and reliving the day with me!

I absolutely love reminiscing about the day before the wedding. 

So many things were brewing without my knowledge this day, but I'll get to that when I reveal the big surprise that took place!!!!

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All I ask is that you grab the button, link back to me and visit the other blogs!

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 @marysue20 is the name, #WeddingWednesday is the game.

Birthday Tuesday!

That's right! It's my Birthday! My first 29th! 

This is the most low-key Birthday I have ever experienced.
No bars, no dinners out, no new outfit.
No big deal. 

I mean, April 26 was a pretty big deal so I think I'm good on big deals for a while.

Instead, Andrew and I are cooking dinner for three friends. 

Just a little party of five with a cat. 

And lots of wine.

In preparation for guests, we decided to organize all of our new, beautiful and thoughtful gifts!
(that I still need to finish writing the thank you cards for ahhh!)

Let me tell ya, this was no easy feat, but Andrew was a champ!

We owned Ikea this weekend and killed the directions putting together five new structures.

Yes. Five.

Five assemblies.

Five different ways to curse Ikea directions.

Five new organizational dreams come true!!!

Our TV/fireplace area:

Our shoes:

And my favorite, two new bookcases to showcase some of our lovely new gifts!

Obviously this is the most dramatic transformation, as after the wedding our previously bare corner was stuffed with stuff. 

We still have some closets and our desk area to organize, but we tackled the biggest obstacles - and made our place presentable for guests - first!

I also follow two rules on my Birthday:

1) Eat anything I want and don't feel guilty

2) No working out

Well, I am amending the rules this year...don't worry, I still plan to eat all of the food, but I went for a run this morning. I figured that if I have too much wine tonight and need the extra shut-eye, tomorrow would be a good day to take off. Then again, I'm a chubster and will eat sweets today, so we shall see. I don't really deserve a day off. Whatever. Details.

Do you have rules that you follow for your Birthday?

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Soooo considering that my Birthday post is about cleaning and working out, I think I may be officially old.

Nah...I'll just keep acting my shoe size (8 1/2!) and I'll never be old.

Toodles until tomorrow!

Wedding Wednesday: Ladies Luncheon

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Happy Wedding Wednesday!

Today I'm recapping the lovely Ladies Luncheon the Friday before the wedding!
While the ladies lunched, the gents went to shoot pool, drink beer and eat pizza.
The guys had a great time, and so did the gals!

The ladies met at Henry Manor, the same place that catered our party the night before!
I had never been to this quaint B&B, but lemme tell ya it is cuuuuute!

{via}

We had a delicious meal of chicken salad croissants with fruit, followed by the most incredible Buckeye Blitz cheesecake. I ate the whole slice.
What? I knew my dress fit at that point! ;)

I loved chatting with my girls, watching Lizzie play after eating and hanging out with my aunts, Mom, and Mother-in-Law-to-be.

The florist called during our lovely luncheon, though, and said she couldn't find one of the fillers that I wanted: the Brunia Berry. I wanted the grey from the berry in the bouquet to match the girls' grey dresses. I had a really cute inspiration bouquet that, in my mind, would be perfect. She assured me that my bouquet was still beautiful and would still match the girls with the grey from the Dusty Miller. She even sent me a photo to make sure I was cool with it.

Um, duh. I'm cool with it.
It's GORGEOUS!
Plus, the girls' dresses didn't end up looking grey, but a grey-ish lavender (grrr), so it didn't matter anyway. I actually love my bouquet more than the inspiration photo, so nice job, Bloomtastic!!
I really appreciated that they called, too!

My Aunt and Godmother saw me fret (because it was a day before the wedding and my feelings were on overdrive - so silly!). She advised to let it go, saying that it's not worth letting flowers, of all things, get to me: "Mare, you can let this control you or you can control it. They're beautiful. No big deal!" She was so right.

Ugh. Feelings!

Aside from that ridiculously minor hiccup, the day was so wonderful!
All of us enjoyed our little respite from activities and inhaled the delicious food in such an idyllic setting.

And of course we took pictures.

Two of my aunts!

Cutest and coolest Mom ever! Thanks for hosting!!!!

Best Flower Girl in the world. 

Of course she's barefoot. Love it.

Best everything! Love my sister.

Ha - Kate's face.

Lizzie's pictures were of our knees.

So blessed to have an amazing Mother-in-Law!

Love these girls. I stole this from Instagram, obviously.

Next up: the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner!
How is your week going?

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 Have a wedding story that you want to share? Please join the linkup!
All I ask is that you grab the button, link back to me and visit the other blogs!

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 @marysue20 is the name, #WeddingWednesday is the game.

Wedding Wednesday: Recapping the Wedding Week

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Happy Wedding Wednesday!

Thanks so much to Ashlen for hosting the link-up last week! I really appreciate it and I am working on reading all of your posts and catching up on your wedding tales!

I'm officially a Mrs. and couldn't be happier!
Well, I guess I could: we could be still in Costa Rica honeymooning and enjoying time away from the real world!!

While we anxiously await our incredible photographer's photos and our videographer's videos, I'll kick off recaps of our wedding with tales of the week leading up to the Big Day.

I have to start by saying how STRESSED I was! Work was insane! I had to work late and over the weekend (which I usually don't mind), but somehow had to finish tons of little wedding details on top of it. I would get so worked up if someone had a question for me, no matter how big or small. Somehow, I thought, I would screw up something, whether for work or for the wedding. Oy.
I wanted to eat all of the chocolate in the world
(OK fine, that's nothing new).

It was such a race to get everything at work in order by the end of the day on Tuesday!
Luckily my boss is AWESOME and put my mind at ease. She practically kicked me out of the door to get my dress from Macy's.
I didn't argue.

Here's the dress hanging up - Andrew's curiosity was killing him, but he didn't look :)

Tuesday night was nuts as we packed, made list after list, and prayed we got everything.

Wednesday we were off!
The weather was great and before we knew it we were in Ohio!

That day was my Dad's Birthday, and we had to help get people from the airport, so we celebrated Dad's Birthday at a restaurant near the airport, the 94th Aero Squadron. 

It was fun to catch up with my parents, sister, and niece in person!

That evening, once my brother and sister-in-law arrived, we ate birthday cake and sang to our Dad. I can't remember the last time all of us were together for someone's birthday, so it was very special.

So special that I forgot to take pictures.

Blogger/daughter fail.

After cake we were on a mission: fold ceremony programs, put together the table numbers (can't wait to share this with all of you!), finalize welcome bags for the hotels, cut the welcome bag letters, cut the menus and I'm sure many other things. It was fun, but it was definitely a late night.

But, since I was too excited to sleep, I woke up early and did some Pinterest workouts in my room. 

Yes, my room!

When the whole family is home I NEVER get to sleep in my room since it's big with a double bed, so the married folk always get it and I'm either on a bunk bed or a couch. 

This weekend, though, it was allllll mine. I felt bad until my head hit the pillow. 

Then I was rather thankful!

That morning I opened the fourth letter from the incredible gift Callie orchestrated! It was from Holly, my hometown bridesmaid, and was so flippin' touching I could hardly stand it. 

I've known her forever, so yeah. Happy tears. Gosh I love her!

Later that morning we took the welcome bags to the hotels and dropped off decor at our reception venue, with a few other odds and ends in there, too. 

Andrew and I took off for the rest of the afternoon and hung out with his parents, who just got into town.

Later on, my parents had a fun soiree to celebrate April birthdays, as it was Holly's birthday that day! (Plus my Dad's the day before and future Mother-in-Law's also in April - my parents are awesome for hosting it!)

The party was amazing...

...except when I walked outside and everyone said hello.

I made a bit of an entrance because we were running a little late and I needed to change and freshen up.

After the welcoming and booming "hello!!!!" from everyone at the party, my sister-in-law hugged me and franticly whispered in my ear, "I love you...XYZ!"

I channeled my inner 5-year old and realized what she meant: my fly was down.

Yep, I made an entrance at the party with the zipper of my pants wide open. 

Whoops.

Anyway, the food was delicious!

So were the drinks!

...until I spilled a glass of wine all over the childhood pictures I was sharing with my future mother-in-law.

At least it was white wine and nothing was ruined!

Loved the flowers and the food! My parents sure know how to throw a good shindig!

Love these ladies so much!

{Lizzie playing with Andrew. She calls him "Tio Andrew" now! So so so so cute!}

OK, this post is officially too long, so I'll stop here.

The next few posts will go a little something like this:

Bridesmaid Luncheon
Rehearsal and Rehearsal Dinner
Morning of the Wedding
Wedding Ceremony
Reception
The incredible surprise that everyone knew about but me
Send-Off
Other Details that Bloggers and Pinterest appreciate but probably no one else does.

I have a couple of videos to share, too!

I'm so excited to continue to recap the best and happiest day of my life thus far!


OK, twist my arm, here's a picture from the Big Day from our instagram feed, #AndrewMarriesMary:

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 Have a wedding story that you want to share? Please join the linkup!
All I ask is that you grab the button, link back to me and visit the other blogs!

Please share the linkup on social, too, if you wish!
 @marysue20 is the name, #WeddingWednesday is the game.

Sooooo...

...

We're married!!!!!

More on Wednesday :)