Wedding Week: Rehearsal Dinner

Saturday, October 16

To pick up from the post below, Tres and I walked into the rehearsal dinner about 20 minutes late with everyone waiting on us, but I don’t think anyone was a bit surprised. We are never on time for anything… it’s awful! I mean, I always thought I was bad, and now I have a husband who is even worse than I am. That is the only way we’re not good for each other :) Ok, so back to the story… The rehearsal dinner was better than we could have ever been imagined. The closest people in our lives were all there to celebrate our marriage the day before it happened, and we had a blast with everyone! The food… ok, this is another story all in itself. Seriously, when we went for a tasting back in July, we were blown away and chose the place solely on how wonderful the food was. But when we ate dinner that night, a number of items we had not tasted were added to the spread, and OH. MY. GOSH.! No joke, this place has some of the best New Orleans food you will ever eat! It’s called Oceana Grill. It’s on the corner of Bourbon and Conti. If you are ever in New Orleans… GO THERE! I am a doing you all a favor by telling you that. Our wedding party and family were all completely blown away by the food. I made about three plates and still insisted that I had not had enough, so I consumed about half the dish of bread pudding! I cannot say enough words about this food… DELISH!
We didn’t do the typical rehearsal dinner slideshow, but we wanted something to entertain everyone after dinner and before the speeches. Why we decided against the slideshow… 1) We just waited until the last minute and 2) We didn’t really want to do the “typical.” So instead, we decided to play a game. We had a card placed at each table setting that said “How well do you know the Bride and Groom?” We had everyone fill it out, and then we got one of the groomsmen to be the “announcer” and call out all the correct answers. We bought $100 in casino chips, and gave the top three winners money to go gamble! It was lots of fun, and everyone got really into it! The winner was our good friend Lori and my mom was a runner-up!

After the game was speech time. The speeches were amazing. I have been to at least a hundred rehearsal dinners and weddings and always wondered what it felt like to have so many people that you love speak their true feelings about you. One after another, it is compliment after compliment, congrats after congrats, and best wishes after best wishes… it’s a great feeling. It makes you feel so blessed to have so many people in your life who love you, think so highly of you, and believe in you. And the best one, in my opinion, came from my groom. What he said about me, my family, his family, and friends, confirmed what a genuine, wonderful husband he would be. I already knew it, but his words that night made it even more special. Finally, I have to mention what my girls did for me. They presented me a scrapbook. Each of my close girlfriends who were in the wedding got together on the idea and each made a scrapbook page to go in the book. Each page included the past, present, and future of my fun times with them! Throughout the book, they also included wedding invitations, memories from the bachelorette party, and pictures from the bridal shower. It was the most thoughtful, wonderful gift my best girlfriends could have ever given me! I mean… there were pictures in there from high school and college - memories that I had completely forgotten about, and afterward, it was fun sharing those distant memories with my groom. I love my girls! Thank ya’ll again!


The rehearsal dinner was three hours, and time flew as it always does when you’re having fun. We didn’t want the party to end, so we headed back to the hotel to hang out in Tres’ dad’s suite. He had a party going on for everyone in town for the wedding. It was nice to get to visit more, but when I say I was exhausted, I mean… I was the most tired I have ever been in my entire life. I felt like I had been run over by a train. Combine that with several glasses of wine and the 100 things I had on my mind, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I said goodnight to my family, friends, and groom and headed to bed. I went to the suite, shut all the doors, and though I had considered having some of the girls stay the night with me, I decided I just wanted to be by myself the rest of the night. It didn’t take long to go to sleep, and soon enough, it was Wedding Day!

Best Man Speech

Dad's turn!

My sweet groom's speech to me Bride to GroomTHE BOOK from my girls!!!

Looking through the book at our fun memories together
"The Girls"
Tres being silly with "the girls"
One of our favorite couples! The crew and our men!