Rehearsal Day/Dinner

Friday, July 30th officially marked the kick-off of the Heather-and-Andy wedding weekend extravaganza... 7 years in the making. My maid of honor, Rachel and I, had arrived at Lansdowne the following evening for a little girl time before all of the festivities. We rolled up with two SUV's packed to the brim with wedding things, checked-in, went out to dinner at the resort and then went back to our room to watch wedding movies and drink wine. Lansdowne was kind enough to put us up in a BEAUTIFUL and HUGE bridal suite with plenty of space for all of the pre-wedding preparations to come.

 I had a really hard time falling asleep that Thursday night in anticipation of all that was to come, so I tossed and turned until waking up early Friday morning to begin the celebrating. We met briefly with my wedding coordinator at the resort to hand-off oodles and oodles of boxed wedding goodies to be used for the ceremony, cocktail hour and reception. As we left the meeting, my bridesmaids were at the front desk checking in! Everyone was so excited to be there and to get started. We headed straight out to a nearby salon for our group mani/pedi's. I was so touched to have all 6 of my beautiful girls join me so early in the day to get our nails done together and grab lunch. It was so nice to have a little girl time before all of the family began arriving later that day.

After lunch, we headed back to the resort to shower and get ready for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner that evening. At 5:30pm, we all met back in the resort lobby. As soon as I walked out of the elevator, I was overwhelmed! There were about 50 friends & family members waiting in the lobby to head to the rehearsal site together. It was so amazing to see SO many people that Andy and I love altogether. It was even a little strange to literally know every single person in a room, so it was a daunting task to visit with everyone and thank them personally for being there to help us celebrate. But it was so great to walk off and see Andy (who I hadn't seen since arriving at the resort Thursday night) smiling and so happy for such an awesome weekend. The rehearsal went well, even with ALL the people involved, and I felt very confident that everything would work out just perfectly on our big day :)

Immediately following our rehearsal, the girls headed back up to the suite for a quick champagne toast,

...and then it was on our chartered bus to Tarara Winery for our rehearsal dinner. Tarara Winery is the place where Andy asked me to marry him, so it was the absolute most perfect setting for our rehearsal dinner. Andy's mom and dad hosted a BBQ-style dinner, with delicious wines to drink, great food, and even better company in our awesome friends & family. The weather was PERFECT! Not humid, not hot... a gorgeous night for a fun dinner on the back deck at the winery. My mom even made our rehearsal dinner cake that was so perfect and so "Me and Andy". We both really enjoyed having the opportunity to give some very important thank-you speeches to our friends and family, and were able to present them with gifts for being such an important part of not only our wedding, but our lives in general. It was so fun spending time with everyone we love in a smaller setting, with everyone so excited for the big day! We are both so lucky to have these people in our lives, and our rehearsal dinner was a perfect beginning to the most perfect weekend of our lives.