I shared about how our rehearsal really wasn't one at all since all we did was line everyone up and show them how to walk down the aisle and where to stand at the end of the aisle. We didn't rehearse anything and somehow the one thing we did rehearse (timing the walking down the aisle to the music for the processional) ended up getting screwed up on the day of the wedding. When I watched my wedding video I noticed that the bridemsaids were practically *running* down the aisle! I asked my daughter why the heck everyone was sprinting and she said because the coordinators told them to go fast because the song wasn't long enough. First of all, this wasn't true at all..so either the DJ started too early or the coordinators did not tell people when they were supposed to start their walk. But whatever...and don't worry, I'm in the process of figuring out how to convert the raw footage I received from my videographer to use on my PC so I fully intend to show you the 'sprint' down the aisle :)
At the end of our practice walk, my coordinator says "That's the fastest rehearsal I've ever done!" Yeah, well, that's because it *wasn't* a rehearsal, silly girl!
I then handed out the pre-printed directions I brought for the wedding party from our venue to the restaurant which was about 30 minutes away and we piled into cars and took off. We arrived at the Spaghetti Factory in Newport Beach and had a great little banquet room upstairs all to ourselves. They had tables lined up and the first thing Mr Fix It says to me when we are all looking for where we should sit is "Babe, would you be upset if I sit at a table with all the guys?" I gave him this look like "Are you serious right now?" This is our rehearsal dinner and you don't even want to sit with me?!? What the eff? But since once again, I was just trying to go with it and not throw a fit about anything, and since he said with his puppy dog eyes "If it will upset you, then I won't but I just would love to be able to hang with my brothers." (Several of them live out of the area and flew/drove in for the day so how could I possibly deny him?) I told him fine and went to sit with my family.
My daughter, Little Miss made the rounds at the tables and snapped bunches of shots of everyone...
Me and Mr Fix It (of course he has to stick his tongue out - moron!)
My mom, bridesmaid D, and Little Miss (daughter)
My dad and his wife, J
Mr Fix It's Dad, Mom, sis-in-law J and niece M
Mr Fit It's brother (Groomsman C), Mr Fix It, Mr Fix It's best friend (Groomsman T) and best friend's wife
My sis and her hubby
My bestie, Bridesmaid L (who flew in from Idaho but just moved back to our area today!!!)
My flower girl (cousin T) and her mom (Bridesmaid cousin E)
Mr Fix It's Aunt & Uncle (who flew in from MN)
Mr Fix It's brother (Best Man K) and friend (Groomsman J) and our Jr Groosman (nephew J)
Mr Fix It's sister C and sis-in-law T with their kids (2 of our ring bearers)
Mr Fix It's bro-in-law with another one of our ring bearers
My cousin Bridesmaid A with her hubby and son
So after dinner, it was time to give out our bridal party gifts. I asked Mr Fix It to help me pass them out. You can read about them here. I then thanked everyone for coming and told them how grateful we were for each one of them. Then I told the bridesmaids and groomsmen that they were supposed to wear whatever was in their gift box on the day of the wedding. This was referring to the red argyle socks that I had wanted to get a super cool pic of all the guys showing off on wedding day. However, we didn't even end up getting pictures of this because I forgot to mention it to my photographer...again, another reason why you should make a list of must have shots! I had forgotten that one of the things I also put in their gift boxes were these cute little tins with bandaids in them that read "Hugs and Kisses from the new Mr. & Mrs." These were for potential accidents on wedding day and believe me, in a future recap I will share why it was a good thing I had them! Well, one of Mr Fix It's brothers then joked about putting on all of the bandaids for the wedding since I said they were supposed to wear what was in the boxes.
After they opened their gifts, I finished off my speech by reminding them of when and where they were supposed to be for photos. I then proceeded to tell them that if they wanted to stress me out or upset me on my wedding day, all they had to do was be late. So "You better not be late!" Luckily, Little Miss snapped this shot of me reiterating this :)
(Don't you love my cousin's face in the right side of the pic? He knows I mean business!)
And that was it, our wedding rehearsal was over and Mr Fix It didn't even sit with me...silly boy! I told you 2 days ago in my post that boys are stupid...just another reason why :)
TODAY'S WEDDING TIP: (Or rather rehearsal tip) Remember to bring the things most often forgotten for your rehearsal:
* A boom box to practice the music you will be walking down the aisle to (both ways) - or have the live musicians there to practice and be sure their songs run a good length. If it's too short, ask them how they'll lengthen it...and if it's too long, tell them to fade it out early.
* Directions for your party members from the venue to the dinner.
* A few copies of your script with the key elements of the ceremony so you can run through the walks, hand offs (of bride, flowers, rings, etc), readings, etc.
* The readings, poems, and other elements for communion, unity ceremonies, etc. Typically, you can bring these items to the rehearsal to leave overnight at your venue or hand off to your officiant, coordinator or another trusted party member to bring on the day of the wedding.
13 comments:
Too bad your coordinator messed up the ceremony by telling the girls to race down the aisle. It's always so elegant when the bridesmaids and flower girls enter in a stately manner.
Was your coordinator at the rehearsal?
If she was I am totally surprised that she didn't have a music system with her to play the songs. It really helped at my rehearsal when my coordinator set up a small PA system to play the music and have a mic set up for when we did our vows. My girls said that hearing the music the night before helped them get through their jitters about walking down the aisle. I'm glad we had the microphone there because neither of us are used to speaking into microphones...we did our mock vows three times to make sure we spoke up and into the microphone correctly.
Great tips, I forgot to do all of them! I even forgot to print off the readings for our two readers and had to have my coordinator do it that night at midnight. I was a bit frazzled. Oh and I didn't even know how to get to the restaurant...thank God for GPS! It's amazing things ended up going as smoothly as they did. I got very lucky.
Great tips. I am freaking out about our rehearsal since we can't have it at our venue (there is another wedding the night before ours), and we didn't want to make people have to miss work for our rehearsal. We are going to rehearse at our hotel, but I'm hoping our DOC (whose service we paid for on top of our venue fee, but works at the venue), will come.
I LOVE the Old Spaghetti Factory. That was one of my favorite places to go growing up. And yes, boys are dumb!
Our timing got messed up too because my HUSBAND went down the aisle to the warm up music, NOT his entrance song! Whatever though, at the end of the day it doesn't matter.
P.S. Yes get a new bag! Then model it for us!
Great tip about bringing a boom box to the rehearsal...I'll have to remember to bring our iPod and travel speakers!
The boom box idea is smart. I just hope I don't turn into a bridezilla during rehearsals. I want to go over it until everyone gets it right. It not that hard, right?
I would flip if my fiance wouldn't sit with me at the rehearsal dinner! You're more patient than I am, haha.
The music issue got me thinking. It's expensive to have the musicians come to the rehearsal. But I wonder if I used a stopwatch at the rehearsal to see how long a "stately walk" takes, if that would be helpful for them to gauge their speed and fade out point. Hmm.
I love the look on your face when you're telling the guys not to mess up on the wedding day. I can see myself doing the same thing...boys, ugh. At least you don't have a story about everyone getting lost on their way to the dinner. I thought that's where this post was headed when you started talking about directions and the restaurant being 30 min away from the venue. Whew! Dodged a bullet, there :)
@Amberdawn: Yes! Do the stopwatch thing. We did and it worked really well.
So sorry about the processional being rushed! I wasn’t happy with our rehearsal at all. I think it confused everyone more than anything else, and it led to some problems on the wedding day, though the guests were luckily oblivious and we were the only ones who realized that a couple things were skipped or done out of order. Our rehearsal dinner was awesome, though! I’ll share a recap soon.
We got the sock shots... but they were all bad except for one. ;) Maybe even if you mentioned it, it wouldn't have been usable. See? Bright side! ;)
Thats silly he didnt want to sit with you; think I told G where we were going to sit; although since we were the last ones there, there wasnt much choice!
We had the opposite issue with the music, the song I had chosen was fairly long but on the day we just listened to it once we all got down the aisle and it actually gave me a chance to get myself sorted then hang onto G when my legs started wobbling!
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