Our Sweet Beginning: Practice Makes Perfect

The day before our wedding, Brian and I met our families and wedding party at the Concord Point Lighthouse in Havre de Grace, MD to rehearse our wedding ceremony with Brian's minister. I spent the day with some of my favorite ladies, getting my hair done, making our nails pretty, doing some last minute shopping, and totally failing to document it in pictures. For our rehearsal, I exercised my bridal right to wear white a day early, just for practice!

We ran through the ceremony twice, and I used the pretty ribbon bouquet that Amber and Zoë made me at my shower. Brian and I wrote our entire ceremony, and it was crazy to hear the words we had written months ago imagining our wedding day, as we were standing in the place where we would very soon become husband and wife. Crazy and surreal moment!

We had absolutely beautiful weather for the rehearsal, but when I checked the weather on my phone for the following day, there was a 60% chance of thunderstorms. I was incredibly nervous, but figured that at least we had one pretty mock ceremony and got 'pretend married' at the lighthouse if things didn't work out.

After our run-through, Brian's parents hosted an amazingly beautiful rehearsal dinner at MacGregor's. We enjoyed some delicious food, including Maryland crab cakes, blackened chicken pasta, stuffed crab claws, and (Brian's favorite) cannoli chips and cream, in a private banquet room overlooking the water.

We took the opportunity to say a few words, thanking our family and friends for being with us on the most important and exciting weekend of our lives, as well as for their support throughout our lives and journey together.

At the end of the night, my favorite Phi Mus and my adorable flower girl headed back to my house for a good old-fashioned sleepover before the big day! I actually got in bed around midnight and was (miraculously) able to fall asleep, despite my nerves and excitement about what was to come. :)

Our Sweet Beginning: My Bachelorette Party!

Now that things are starting to settle down and we are getting situated in our new home in the lovely Peach State, I really want to get back into the swing of regular blogging. I hope I remember how! :)

I do want to do a couple of recaps of our big wedding events. Our wedding day was the the most perfect expression of us as a couple and probably the happiest day of my life, so I am really excited to share the details! I don't have my hands on all of the professional pictures from our amazing photographer yet, so those posts might wait just a little while. In the meantime, I wanted to share pictures from my bachelorette party, which was held exactly one week before our big day.

My lovely bridesmaids planned a fun-filled night to celebrate my last official outing as a single lady! We had a yummy Japanese hibachi dinner (my FAVORITE!) with the bridal party and my mom and (soon to be) mother-in-law, and then headed Girl's Night Out event at my favorite local vineyard, Boordy, with some of my very favorite people!

We sat on the lawn, sipping wine, eating cupcakes, and listening to some live music.

Then, we headed over to a local bar for some good old fashioned shenanigans. It was a night that reminded me of our fun college days. :)

Such a fun time! I am so lucky to have these girls in my life, and I have definitely already felt the sadness that comes with having to say "see you later" and move away from such amazing friends.