Emily Creatives: Love Again: Pre-Ceremony

The Rehearsal, Rehearsal Dinner, Rehearsal Dinner Gifts, Getting Ready, First Glance, Portraits, Loved Always

After returning to the River's Club after our portrait session the boys headed to the Men's locker room and the bridesmaids and I went to powder our noses. I wanted to get upstairs and hide away before the guests arrived, so Emily, the wedding coordinator for the River's Club, took me through the coat closet and into the ballroom where the ceremony would be taking place.

As you can see, we did very little to decorate the ballroom. We were working with a limited budget and would only be in this room for under and hour, so any grand ideas I once had were scrapped. The decor wasn't stunning, but the carpet was new and there was some simple decorative art on the walls.

The only things that we added were programs on each chair and the hand-painted aisle runner. (The runner was taped at the end to the floor, something I didn't take into consideration.)

Our ceremony and pre-ceremony music was performed by great friends of ours, Pete and John. Pete was also one of the groomsmen so there were moments when John played and sung solo. It worked out really well, with Pete just sitting and standing when needed. :)

They did an amazing job and I love that so many of our friends were able to be a part of our wedding.

So while Pete and John were playing to an empty room I was hidden away on the other side of a temporary wall. My bridesmaids were in the locker room finishing their touch-ups and I have no idea where anyone else was. This was a very strange, but relaxing, time for me. It seemed like I was sitting alone for an endless amount of time. Every few minutes my mom, Emily or one of the photographers would peak there heads in to make sure I hadn't run away.

This is one of the times my mom came to keep me company. The only way I could think to sit down without wrinkling my gown was to sit backward. I am indeed a classy gal. At one point all three photographers and Emily came in with worried looks on their faces. I don't even really remember what the crisis was, something about having enough time to get photos of the important moments before our contracted eight hours were up. I just kind of giggled and said to put the events in whatever order was necessary. I couldn't imagine actually caring at that point. (It turned out not to be an issue at all and the photographers left well after the cake cutting and such.)

One of my favorite parts about having all of these photos is seeing how genuinely happy everyone was. I was over the moon to have this time to share with our loved ones, but it is wonderful to see how over the moon happy others were too, like Krissy and Katie.