Wedding Bales: Rehearsing It All

The Friday morning before the big day was a pretty crazy busy one, you know all the prepping and stuff. Stepdaughter K and I woke up fairly early and, after a family breakfast, we headed off to the nail salon. We wanted a chance to spend some time together before all our friends and family arrived, and this was a perfect chance to do so. While K and I were getting our nails done, Mr. Farmer and stepson R were doing a bit of last minute shopping. Something we completely forgot to tell the kids about was the dress code The Florian Gardens has. 

You see The Florian Gardens has a pretty strict time frame for when you can host your rehearsal, especially on a Friday, which has become a pretty popular day to get married. We could wear whatever we wanted except jeans. Thankfully, because we were aware of this beforehand (read those contracts folks) we were able to let all of our bridal party know so they could dress accordingly. However, we neglected to let the kids know so we both ended up doing some last minute shopping before the rehearsal, to make sure the children were outfitted appropriately. Hey, you can't win them all. 

Anyways, after Mr. Farmer and R got R's outfit all situated they were the welcoming committee for our arriving bridal party members. K and I were running a tad bit late, kind of a theme for me it seems, so we had very little time to get ready for the rehearsal when we got back. With a little help from K I was able to throw myself together and be presentable enough.

Mr. Farmer and I needed to be at The Florian Gardens early enough to go over some final details and unload the decorations that we brought, so we wouldn't have to worry about it on the day. It was also the first time that we were able to see our venue, in person, set up for a wedding. I don't have any photos of that. We did not want to disrupt the staff while they were trying to get everything set for the wedding taking place after our rehearsal. We stayed outside the majority of the time and I was perfectly fine with that, especially when it looked like this:

So with everyone all ready to go and everyone accounted for we were able to get the show on the road.

Our wonderful, amazing, I can't say enough good things about her, wedding coordinator, Collette, gave us a run down of how everything was supposed to work. That lovely bouquet you see me carrying is from all the bows and ribbons on the gifts at my bridal shower. Apparently, for every one you break that's how many children you are supposed to have. I was pretty skilled and I didn't break any, but I am also kind of superstitious. I guess it's considered good luck to carry it with you on your rehearsal, so carry it with I did. A huge thanks to Fluff for putting it together for me.

Mr. Farmer: Ok you ready?

Miss. Barn: What is R wearing, did you really pick that out by yourself?

I might have been slightly distracted......

We worked our rehearsal backwards just for time sake. After everyone was in their appropriate place, we started at "Mr. Farmer you may kiss your bride", you can see we had different ideas.....

"Pleasure doing business with you"

R was a little shocked that we did not kiss each other and K looks incredibly confused. She later confided in me that she was really concerned our kiss wasn't going to be good enough. Collette is trying to hold it together and everyone else you can't see, is busting a gut and clapping. Anything for a good laugh!

We practiced our recessional next:

Flowergirl K and ring-bearer J refused to hold hands on the first go around. Clearly, J looks less than impressed....

MOH Fluff and Best Man N in what might be some of the only photographic evidence that he does in fact smile.

Sister in law T and Brother Barn looking ever the odd couple with their gigantic height difference, followed by the rest of our wonderful bridal party.

Mama and Papa Barn

Mr. and Mrs. Farmer

Once everyone has recessed, we went back through and did our processional. It was a quick rehearsal and I am sure most everyone was glad because at this point, everyone was getting excited to go check out the Go-Kart track and get checked into the hotel. A quick run through was exactly what I needed. 

I will say this, I would go into your rehearsal having an idea of how you want it to go, especially if you have special places for different people. Since we had R and K, we wanted them to exit right before and right after us and it made the traditional lineup a tad complex with our flower girl and ring bearer. It could have also been because we had such a large bridal party, I haven't decided yet.

It was at about this point that I started to have a mini melt down. So many people were asking me so many questions and I couldn't quite answer them fast enough before another one was shot my way. Most often it was the same question being asked by different people. Mr. Farmer knowing how stressed out I was becoming pulled me aside and gave me a little pep talk. We had a few hours between our rehearsal and our rehearsal dinner so in order to relax and regroup, I left with Mama Barn to accompany her to her hair appointment, and Mr. Farmer stuck around the hotel to entertain our guests. 

Wedding planning is overwhelming. Spending that additional alone time with my mom was exactly what I needed in order to get my head and my thoughts back in order. It helped that our hair stylist was the bomb.com and was a total dream to work with. It was the perfect opportunity to spend some quality time with my mama and to get away from the craziness of "being the bride". I came back completely relaxed and ready to tackle the rehearsal dinner with a much calmer demeanor. 

Did anyone else struggle with fielding a lot of questions? Did you separate your rehearsal and your rehearsal dinner by a few hours? Please tell me I am not the only one who got a little stressed out during the rehearsal.

*all photos personal

Missed a recap? Catch up here:

Wedding Bales: Let's Get The Party Started

Wedding Bales: Special Cargo