A Woodside Wedding: Rehearsal Dinner Under The Trees

After the scramble to get everything set up for our rehearsal dinner, we could finally relax as our guests started arriving. Since we had invited all of our out of town guests, and knew not everyone was familiar with the area, we’d planned to have drinks and appetizers from 6:30-7:15pm, to make sure anyone running late didn’t miss dinner.

This time to mingle was a great opportunity for both of our families to meet each other. Our parents had met once over dinner about 6 years ago, but hadn’t seen each other since. And I’d hardly met any of Mr. Cola’s family before our rehearsal dinner, since most live on the east coast.


At 7:15 our buffet dinner from Armadillo Willy’s BBQ was set up, my signs were put out, and everything was ready to eat, so Mr. Cola and I gave a quick thanks to everyone for joining us, and let everyone know it was time to eat. And then I had to repeat it all again, because apparently only half our guests could hear me the first time!


Once everyone had helped themselves to the food, Mr. Cola and I had a chance to sit down and eat ourselves. I was terrified of getting BBQ sauce on my white rehearsal dress, so I opted to eat with a very fashionable napkin tucked in the front of my dress.


The rest of the evening was spent chatting with our guests as the sun went down behind the trees. At some point our groomsmen passed out Its Its ice cream sandwiches for dessert, which were a big hit for everyone not on a diet!


Toward the end of the night I was starting to get a sore throat from talking so much, so I had to switch from wine to Sprite. At about 9:30pm we started to wrap things up, and our wedding party was wonderful enough to help with the tear down and loading the décor back into our cars. And then some of the groomsmen were nice enough to load the speaker system into our Uhaul truck back at the hotel, and help me move the after party supplies from my car to our hotel room, since my feet and throat were killing me. Mainly the after party supplies were just a whole lot of liquor, beer and mixers, so after it was brought up to our room, it didn’t take Mr. Cola and I very long to set it all up for the next evening.

For the rest of the night, I’m not sure what everyone else did, I think they hung around the lobby bar, or in their hotel rooms. Mr. Cola spent some time with his groomsmen, promising to wrap things up and be back in our suite by midnight or so. I took the opportunity to take a really long, super steamy shower, drink some more Sprite, and give myself a French manicure.

I’m not sure what time Mr. C fell asleep the night before our wedding, but it was definitely before I did. The last time I remember looking at the clock it was 2:30 in the morning, and I was still tossing and turning, and hoping my sore throat would go away before the big day.

How early do you plan to get to sleep the night before your wedding?

Miss any wedding week details? Catch up here:

- I packed an emergency bag that saved my dress
- We had a crazy 4 days prepping for house guests and stuffing favors
- Shopping for a ton of wedding flowers to arrange ourselves
- Mr. Cola drinks a 40 and I have a night out on the town for our low-key bach parties
- A day of DIY'ing flower arrangements
- I kicked off our official recaps with my #1 wedding tip
- We began the weekend festivities with a sunset cruise for our wedding party
- We rehearsed our quick and easy ceremony
- I panicked, but we got our rehearsal dinner decorations set up just in time

(All pictures in this post are personal photos, taken by myself, my family or our wedding party)

A Woodside Wedding: Decorating for the Rehearsal Dinner

With our ceremony rehearsed, and after killing a couple hours at the hotel, we headed out to go set up for our Friday night rehearsal dinner.

I was in my car by myself, and after swinging by my mom’s house to pick up the Its Its ice cream sandwiches we would be serving for dessert, I arrived at our RD venue, the San Mateo Garden Center right at our rental start time of 5pm. Unfortunately (or luckily, at least they weren’t late), the guy who was delivering the speaker system we were using for the weekend through my work hook up was there already. And I was there, by myself.

I started to panic a bit, because for one, uh, I was there by myself for the first half hour of our rental time, and didn't know where everyone else was. And this AV tech guy was trying to tell me stuff about things I know nothing about, and my sister’s boyfriend (who would be running the AV equipment) wasn’t there yet to get the instructions. To make matters worse, I had very little of the rehearsal dinner décor in my car to be able to start setting up; I had mostly just the after party stuff.

**Pause for a few minutes of a bride-to-be pulling out her hair**

So where was everyone else? Well, Mr. Cola and a couple of the groomsmen had to stop by Safeway to pick up ice and our appetizer trays. But because Quiznos had refused to let us place our Sunday luncheon food order in advance, and weren’t returning my calls earlier that afternoon, he had to take time to put in a new order with Safeway for Sunday’s food. Unfortunately this took a while longer than it should have, and he happened to have almost all the RD décor in his car….so I was panicking about the set up happening in time, and franticly texting him and everyone else.

Luckily, around 5:30pm Mr. C and the rest of our wedding party showed up, and we scrambled to get the drinks on ice and all the décor set up (have I mentioned already how much I love our wedding party for all the set up help? 'Cause I do!). And it all turned out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself! Everything looked pretty dang close to these Photoshopped mock ups I’d done last fall.


And once the sun set later in the evening you could better see the paper bag luminaries that Mr. Cola decorated, as well as my DIY centerpieces.


With only a few minutes to spare before everyone else arrived for our 6:30pm rehearsal dinner, I could finally relax with a glass of wine, try not to look too sweaty from the set up scramble, and get ready to meet most of Mr. Cola’s family for the first time!

(Ahhh, a much needed glass of Gewurztraminer!)

Miss any wedding week details? Catch up here:

- I packed an emergency bag that saved my dress
- We had a crazy 4 days prepping for house guests and stuffing favors
- Shopping for a ton of wedding flowers to arrange ourselves
- Mr. Cola drinks a 40 and I have a night out on the town for our low-key bach parties
- A day of DIY'ing flower arrangements
- I kicked off our official recaps with my #1 wedding tip
- We began the weekend festivities with a sunset cruise for our wedding party
- We rehearsed our quick and easy ceremony

(All pictures in this post are personal photos, taken by myself, my family or our wedding party)

A Woodside Wedding: Practice Makes Perfect at the Ceremony Rehearsal

Friday morning before our wedding, Mr. Cola slept in while I got ready for the day. I was too excited to sleep in, after all, we were only one day away from our wedding day!

We met two members of our wedding party for an early lunch at the hotel’s restaurant, and then met up with the rest of our wedding party and Mr. Cola’s parents in our suite at about 1 in the afternoon. I passed out driving directions to our venue, and we all carpooled to the rehearsal, to meet my parents and our DOC.

When we got to our venue, they were just starting to set up for another wedding that was taking place that evening. While I touched base with the site coordinator (who I'm not sure if was new or not, because I'd never met her before; I'd worked with two other contacts the past year) and handed over our hefty final payment check, Sara, our DOC, coordinated with a few of our groomsmen to put our DIY napkin rings on the rented napkins. One less thing that needed to be done the next day, and it only took them about 5 minutes to finish them.


Since our ceremony was going to take place in front of the bay view, instead of in front of the redwood trees, we weren’t in the set up crew’s way for our rehearsal. We did borrow a couple of their chairs though, as place holders for the front row, and two in the back row, where my dad would be waiting to walk me down the aisle (because my dad is partially disabled and can’t walk long distances; I wrote about the logistics here).


Sara took control of our rehearsal, and got everyone lined up how we would be standing during the ceremony the next day. Starting this way worked really well, because then we would know exactly where to go when it came time to practice walking down the aisle.

(If anyone is curious, since I didn't have a chance to blog about the second rehearsal dress I bought, my dress is BCBG, my shoes are Chinese Laundry from Endless.com, my jewelry is from Etsy seller Zafirenia, and the sash on my dress is from here. I also used the excess sash material to wrap my Cola rehearsal bouquet stems.)

We then practiced our recessional. I was sure to do a couple of bouquet pumps with my rehearsal bouquet, so I would remember to do it the next day—I just love pictures of the bride and groom celebrating as they walk down the aisle, married!

(By the way, the Sole Mates I'd gotten to prevent my sitlettos from sinking into the grass totally didn't work at all. They kept getting pushed up over the bottom of my heels, and ending up half way up the spike of the heel, so I opted not to bother with them on my wedding shoes the next day. Walking slightly on my tip toes was a lot easier than having to keep fixing the Sole Mates.)

Then it was time to practice the processional. We opted to do it in this order: Officient takes his place, Mr. Cola’s parents, My mom, Mr. Cola, Groomsman P and Groomsman D, with Bridesmaid A in the middle, Groomsman A with Bridesmaid H, Best Man with Maid of Honor (Mr. C’s brother and my sister), followed by my dad and I.

(My dad walked on the opposite-than-normal side of me because his left arm is completely paralyzed, and he was walking without his cane, so it was better for him to be able to hold onto me for balance with his right arm. It was also easier because he didn't have to cross behind the train of my dress before sitting down.)

Three times we ran through everything: the processional, practiced fixing my imaginary train and handing off my bouquet, the rings (I had Ring Pops for us to practice with!), and the recessional. The third time we had our guitarist play through too. After some more words of advice from our DOC, we were good to go for the next day!

(Me with our DOC, who did a great job of herding our cat-like wedding party at the rehearsal!)

Since our rehearsal finished up around 3pm, we had a few hours to kill before we had to go set up for the rehearsal dinner. Everyone carpooled back to the hotel, and I’m not sure what everyone else did, but Mr. Cola and I spent some time putting final payments and tips into envelopes (which had somehow not gotten done earlier in the week as planned), and calling to confirm the speaker system delivery for that evening and our appetizer trays order, and I tried to put in the order for our Sunday luncheon food (a long story, but I’d tried to call Quiznos to order sandwich and salad trays two weeks prior, but they wouldn’t take my order and told me to call back the Friday before we needed the food. I left them several messages that afternoon, but never heard back until the morning of our luncheon, when I refused to talk to them. Don’t worry though, we came up with a backup solution!). I think during our down time that Mr. C may have also dozed on the couch in our suite while I mobile blogged part of this post about our rehearsal.

Next up, we set up for our rehearsal dinner, and find out why it’s a good idea for the person starting the set up to have the items that need to be set up in the car they are driving!

Miss any wedding week details? Catch up here:

- I packed an emergency bag that saved my dress
- We had a crazy 4 days prepping for house guests and stuffing favors
- Shopping for a ton of wedding flowers to arrange ourselves
- Mr. Cola drinks a 40 and I have a night out on the town for our low-key bach parties
- A day of DIY'ing flower arrangements
- I kicked off our official recaps with my #1 wedding tip
- We began the weekend festivities with a sunset cruise for our wedding party

(All pictures in this post are personal photos, taken by myself, my family or our wedding party)