Rehearsal . . .

I had been told by my family that I was not going to be working the day before the wedding.  Yeah, right – maybe not here, but I definitely spent the day working . . .

 

Early in the day, I met Emily, her mom and stepdad, her aunt and a family friend at a flower warehouse where several groups were assembling the floral arrangements for their weddings (and saving about half the cost).

This pic is grainy, but provides visual evidence that I did in fact play a part in assembling Emily’s bridal bouquet . . .

 

At 6:30, we met at the church for the rehearsal.  You will notice that my nephew Conner has his arms folded . . .

I couldn’t understand why my brother was sitting in a pew laughing and taking pictures.  But if Blake was standing up there with us, his arms would have been folded as well – we all do it.  But apparently this is not acceptable at a wedding.

 

But it took us a couple of tries before everyone got it right . . .

This is the picture that blew me away at the rehearsal – and I can’t believe that I had time to grab my cell phone and still get the shot after I saw it.  Emily was looking into Ryan’s eyes as they were practicing the “who gives this woman to be married to this man” – and in that moment I saw that my son was marrying a woman who truly loves him.  As his parent, how could I ask for more?

 

A couple of nice shots of proud grandparents and their grandson . . .

I have been to really fancy rehearsal dinners with sit-down meals – I prefer something casual where we can all mingle and visit.  The rehearsal dinner at my wedding was at an ice cream parlor – we went behind the counter and made our own sundaes.  Ryan loves pizza, so a pizza parlor was an easy choice.

 

On the way there, I called and ordered five large pizzas so we would have something to eat as soon as we got there.  Figured I would have to order two or three more later so we would have enough to fill us up.  Silly me – the 26 people present ate thirteen large pizzas.  My brother and sister-in-law took lots of pictures while I made sure everyone was fed.

 
 
 
 

And with that, tomorrow I will relive the wedding with you.  There won’t be pictures of the actual ceremony – it will be a while before I have those and I’ll share them when they come.  But we do have shots from before and after – and we have video . . .