It was finally time for our rehearsal! You'll remember that I previously explained that our rehearsal had to take place on the Thursday before the wedding instead of Friday. To ensure that everybody was well aware of this break with tradition, I sent out invitations to our rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. This was one of the few DIY projects I did for our wedding.
Sadly, it's been so long, I don't remember where I got the graphics or exactly which font I used. I do know that it's one of the fonts from
Fonts For Peas. I printed them on some cardstock I had picked up at Hobby Lobby and mailed them in extra invitation envelopes.
So, on to the rehearsal. You'll remember that our priest did not want to discuss the ceremony prior to the rehearsal, so I was very anxious to have our rehearsal and figure everything out. I had never been to a Nuptial Mass before, so I had no idea what to expect.
Sadly, after our rehearsal, I still didn't really know what to expect! We practiced walking down the aisle and when to stand, sit, kneel etc. (which I already knew from regular Mass.) The readers got a chance to practice with the microphone and the gift bearers practiced their part. We ran through it a couple times, but we never actually discussed the ceremony.
I had typed up and printed very detailed programs since very few people attending our wedding were Catholic. I had no idea if the priest was even going to say the things I had written. I really hoped that he would or I was going to look pretty stupid when people tried to follow along during the ceremony. I got all of the wording from the book he gave us and the missilet we use during regular Masses.
After the rehearsal, the priest held a special confession time for us and anybody else who wanted to confess. I did appreciate that because I did want to confess before our wedding and it was nice not to have to make a trip to the regular confession on Friday night.
Then it was time for dinner! We held the rehearsal dinner at our favorite local pizza place. We went there pretty regularly while we were dating and if M had had his way, they would have catered our reception. The rehearsal dinner was limited just to those who were involved with the wedding and their spouses. This was due to the size of the private room the restaurant had and the fact that many people would not be arriving from out of town until the next day.
I don't have any pictures from the rehearsal or the dinner, but we had a great time. We had a nice dinner of delicious pizza and then M and I said a few words. We thanked everybody for attending and being part of our wedding. We then passed out gifts.
We gave our readers, M's sister and great aunt, gift cards to restaurants.
We gave our moms 1 year subscriptions to Netflix. We decided on this because M and I both had our own Netflix subscriptions when we lived with our moms and now that neither of us would be living with them, they no longer had access to Netflix. They both really loved this!
We gave our groomsmen and usher watches. And since he likes to be just like my brother, we gave our ring bearer a watch as well.
I found the perfect gift for our flower girl a few weeks before the wedding. I wanted to get her something wedding related, so I was excited when I found this.
Our flower girl loved this!
Finally, it was time to give my bridesmaids their gifts.
They each got a Vera Bradley cosmetic bag. (Which I got at the Vera Bradley Outlet Sale, of course!)
And a pair of navy blue Old Navy flip flops to wear at the reception when their feet got tired.
I also bought them jewelry to wear for the wedding. They each received a necklace, bracelet and earrings made with Montana blue crystals.
But wait, we had one more gift for the guys!
It wouldn't be an argyle wedding without argyle socks would it? And lucky for them, I found the socks in our wedding colors. Who doesn't love getting a pair of bright pink argyle socks? They all groaned, but wait until you see our pictures!
