Not having a wedding planner really worked for us as I prefer to take on the added stress of being in charge if it means that I get to be aware of all the decisions, plans, etc. that are involved in an event. But the time and effort that pulling those final details together took were much more than I expected. I still don't regret doing it by myself, and had some of the best months of my life leading up to the wedding; but that kind of commitment also meant letting some of my free-time activities sit on the back-burner (one of those obviously being this blog!).
But true-to-form I continued to document every creative project and task leading up to our wedding - so now that I have a nice break before my MBA program begins in January, I have an arsenal full of stories, details and crafts to post about :)
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Our Big Day! (and the night before) Part I
Truly one of my and Jason's favorite parts of our wedding celebration was the rehearsal dinner his parent's hosted on the night before our ceremony. There was this amazing peace that settled over me on that day where I realized that everything was done - sure there were still details and questions that could be worried over and talked about - but when it came down to it, I was finally (after 18 months of planning) at a place that I could safely relinquish all control and just enjoy myself!
It also didn't hurt that after our rehearsal were greeted by sixty of our closest family members, friends and out-of-town guests at one of the coziest restaurants in downtown Rome, GA. There was so much anticipation and excitement in the dining room, I don't think anyone could help but join in on the celebration...
While I had zero free-time to spare in those last few weeks before our big day, I decided a few weeks before the rehearsal dinner that I wanted to carve out an evening to design the invitation for this as well. The last year and a half has been filled with reasons to continue my graphic-design projects for various parties, showers and celebrations related to our wedding, but the reality was that these events were soon coming to an end and with the encouragement of my family and friends I realized how special it would be to look back on Jason and my wedding weekend and see that every invitation, insert and special touch was something that I created (I admit it also helped that the perfectionist in me wasn't 100% satisfied with any of the rehearsal dinner invite options available for us to simply order from another designer online).
We let the restaurant and delicious food take care of the romance and classiness of the evening, so I took some time to include some personal touches to remind everyone of why we were all there to celebrate, and how they had all been involved and important in our lives up to that point.
We used the sign that my mom had painted for us as a shower gift earlier in the year near the entrance of the restaurant with all of our seating cards. I thought it was a cute touch that hinted at our rustic-theme for the following day (the below picture is from the shower in June - we were a little too busy at the dinner to remember and take pictures of every detail :P ).
The other personal touch (and I know most people's favorite) was the table numbers that I crafted together, using side-by-side pictures of Jason and I at the ages of the table's number (seen below in the middle of my cousins' table):
It was too fun pouring over both my mom and Jason's mom's collections of photos of us growing up, seeing silly similarities between us as kids (like how we both have the crazy three-year-old eyes haha).
Many people asked about how I found the time, and reminded me of how crazy I was to do it, to create all of these small details for our big day but I tried to remember to tell them all that it never felt like cramming it in, or another to-do item on my list. I have always loved crafting, photos, blogging/writing so it was really such a wonderful excuse to give myself the time to actually do these things again.
Jason and I both begin classes during the first few weeks in January so I know that life will inevitably become hectic again soon, but I'm hoping today's impulse to post some of our rehearsal dinner details will serve as a reminder to me of how much I enjoy sharing these fun projects with my family, friends and maybe even some random internet surfers via the blogosphere. That's all for today - but keep your eyes out for many more posts as I still have a lot of fun little crafts and projects to go back and share on here :)
And Happy New Year from Jason, Kelly and Mya Mincey! xoxo
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