The Rehearsal Dinner

Another late post, but I wanted to make sure I dedicated a post solely to our rehearsal dinner. This was without a doubt, one of the most special nights of my entire life. How often do you get to have everyone you've ever loved in the same room? Besides our actual wedding day, I've never felt more loved, humbled, and in awe than I felt this day.

I decided a few weeks after Drew and I got engaged that I wanted to have a our rehearsal dinner in my parents' backyard. You can see Drew's parent's house from our backyard, the view of the lake was beautiful, and really - my parents' house was just a place very near and dear to my heart. I also knew that choosing this as our venue for the rehearsal dinner was going to be hectic, because we had to rehearse at our actual wedding venue (30 minutes away) just an hour prior before the dinner was supposed to begin. So we had a tight window for all of the food to be cooked, everything to get decorated, and still have time to greet our guests!

But of course, as all things wedding related, it would be too easy for everything to happen as planned. :) We had to have some mishaps leading up to the rehearsal dinner - the first being that I had a baker create a beautiful, Air Force themed, 3 tier cake for the rehearsal dinner. We spent weeks going back and forth on the design, and a few days before the dinner, she sent me her address to confirm the pick up location. No problem, except for it was in a different STATE! Somehow I hadn't realized that this bakery had the same name as the one in my hometown.. it was just over 8 hours away.

A quick meltdown later, and 24 hours to go until the rehearsal dinner, my sweet maid of honor and sister made us an incredible espresso, chocolate dusted, layered cake to save the day. (which you'll see in the photos!)

The day of the rehearsal was beautiful, and setting up went as easily as I could've dreamed... except that about an hour before we had to leave to go rehearse, it started pouring... which meant we had to run and pick up all the decor and move it inside until it stopped. Luckily, I have incredible friends and family that volunteered to stay and re-set up while we went and rehearsed!

When I think back on this day, I still get teary eyed, because I feel so overwhelmed with how lucky I am to have the support system that I do. My entire family spent hours cooking all of the food for the dinner, hanging lights, setting up decorations, all while dealing with my craziness and still doing things for the actual wedding. Our loved ones drove hours, flew across the country, and went above and beyond to celebrate us. Drew and I are so unbelievably blessed with so many wonderful people.

Once we got back to my parents' house after rehearsing - everything was even better than I could've imagined. The weather was gorgeous, the decorations looked perfect, and the food was incredible. It was a night full of sweet speeches, so much laughter, and lots of tears. I look back and see so much of the Lord's goodness in this night. There were so many moments that I just sat back under the lights in awe that this was really my life - what good gifts the Lord gives to us. So many moments where crying over a cake or some rain seemed so trivial, because how lucky are we to live lives that are so full. How lucky are we to have people that drop everything to celebrate a new season of life - that love you so purely that all they want is to see you happy - I feel the tears all over again just telling this story :)

Important note - all of the incredible photos of this evening were by the amazing Anna Grace! She is an incredible photographer and friend, and captured this evening so perfectly. I'm forever thankful for her!