Our Rehearsal Dinner

On the eve of our wedding day, we celebrated our rehearsal dinner with our close friends and family. After a morning spent with my girlfriends and a surreal run-through of our ceremony at the church, it was so wonderful to spend some moments with our bridal party, friends and family to officially kick off what was the best weekend of my life up to this point.

Stephen and I got married in Wallace, North Carolina, which is a small town with not a ton of venue varieties. Fortunately, River Landing offers quite a few venues in one. Our reception was in the entirety of the clubhouse, but for our rehearsal dinner, we opted for the River Room, which was the perfect lakeside setting for our 70 guests.

My mother-in-law put together beautiful golf-themed centerpieces which were perfect since Stephen is an avid golfer. One Belle Bakery created a stunning groom's cake that was also centered around Stephen's love of golf and it was definitely a hit!

Not long after we got engaged, I asked my mom if I could redesign her wedding dress into a rehearsal dress and she said yes! Her wedding gown was a two piece design with a high neck top and pleated floor-length skirt. I knew I wanted something short and something with a low back, so a few months before the wedding, we took it to our seamstress and she slowly made my vision come to life. We opened up the back, cut the skirt, and made the front into a lower-v. When we opened up the neck and back, the top lost a little bit of its structure, so I purchased this gorgeous belt to add as a little detail. I wore my wedding shoes with the ensemble and loved every second of being in my mom's wedding dress.

Though I of course loved our wedding reception, I loved our rehearsal dinner as well. It gave us time with our immediate family and friends, and I was overwhelmed by the love we felt after the speeches given by our family and friends. I'm so glad we had those moments, as the weekend flies by so quickly. I remember looking around at Stephen and our friends and family and feeling so in awe that this was truly the start of a wonderful weekend.