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)