The Best Day Ever Eve-Wedding Post 4

Continuing a slow meander through my daughter's wedding weekend.  I'll probably finish sometime.

Not today though.

I haven't even gotten to the actual wedding or reception yet but the thing is, I really want to have photos, and our photographer uses actual film so we wait. Patiently for the most part because he's amazing.

But also not so patiently because we're impatient when it comes to pictures. Let's talk about the rehearsal.

Daughter1 and her brand new husband! were married in a church that sits on the edge of Greenville. Daughter2 is a member of said church, and they were kind and helpful in allowing her sister to marry in their beautiful building. As I mentioned above, we don't have our photos back yet, but I did snap this one back in August. The bride and I met her wedding planner and also the floral designer there to see what we wanted in the way of set up and decor.

The church building itself was pretty on the outside, and beautiful on the inside with it's soaring wood ceiling-

...heavy wooden doors-

...and a great big wooden table in the foyer, just the right spot for propping their wedding verse on a chalkboard made and written on by the bride herself. We love us some chalkboards here, and you should know it wasn't smudgy at the church. I think that happened later, when we loaded it into our car at the end of the night and a soft rain was falling.

The walls and altar area in the sanctuary were essentially a blank canvas, and we were free to rearrange the staging anyway we liked. The woman who showed us around the church happened to mention a wedding that had taken place the week before our visit. She said the bride's father had built a pallet wall that fit across the entire front of the sanctuary, and they'd given it to the church for any future brides to use, so we leapt on that! It was absolutely gorgeous, and made the perfect backdrop for the ceremony.

Plus our floral designer worked her magic and added a vine that looked as if it grew there, along with candles in glass jars. She was amazing, but of course you'll have to wait until I have the pictures to prove it. In the meantime here's an off-centered photo I snapped at the rehearsal, which gives you some idea of what I'm struggling to describe.

Aren't they just the cutest?
You can positively feel the love when you're around them.

Hubs got a little emotional at the rehearsal, but was a star when it came to the actual handing over on the day. It helps tremendously when you already adore, and have absolutely no reservations about, your future son-in-law.

Following the rehearsal we headed back downtown for a really fun dinner.  The groom's family hosted and it was such a great evening. They graciously included our whole-entire-great big family, the very large wedding party (16 plus dates or spouses), plus the officiant, his wife and their three sweet daughters, so not small. They rented the Upcountry History Museum as the venue, and had a real Southern feast catered as the meal. It was delicious, and the first time a few of the guests had tasted shrimp and grits, pretty much hubs favorite meal.

We had the museum to ourselves and could browse as much or as little as we liked. The Upcountry Museum tells the stories and history of the Upcountry (the northwest corner of SC, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains), and you actually eat amongst the museum displays.

It was the perfect space for mingling and introducing friends and family on both sides to one another...everybody loved it. The venue lent itself so well to the talking and moving around you want to do at a rehearsal dinner.

In a restaurant you're typically confined to your table, but this was roomy, relaxed, and a friendly, sociable kind of space. A perfect way to kick off the wedding weekend celebrations.

After dinner the maid of honor, aka Daughter2, made a super sweet, highly emotional speech, chunks of which she forgot to say because she was feeling every bit of sister love her heart could hold, and it might have spilled out in the way of tears.

One of the groomsmen had to follow that, and he managed to make us all laugh.

At the end of the event the bride and groom went up the grand staircase in the foyer and they kissed, and we cheered. It was a happy night, the beginning of a whole weekend of happy.

A whole lifetime of happy.