recap: rehearsal dinner

After navigating through a giant rainstorm to the rehearsal, the clouds parted and it was a gorgeous night for our rehearsal at Topo Gigio.

The upstairs private room at Topo Gigio is fab. I was worried about the fact that our church, hotel & rehearsal dinner location were all somewhat spaced out, but it worked out just perfectly once the rain quit. We chose to do the antipasto table and cocktails to start the night off...with a full dinner and carving table served an hour later. I would highly recommend Topo Gigio. The staff was wonderful, the food was excellent, and the space was perfect for a party of 50. I highly recommend Topo Gigio for a rehearsal (or any private gathering). They were organized and responsive throughout the planning process with my MIL, accomodated our need for a sound system and even let my MIL set up a small slideshow in the corner of the room. As cheesy as some may think slideshows are, I loved ours and it kept our relatives entertained.

My mom's best friend, who owns Eleanor Manor & Garden in Cleveland, did all of our rehearsal dinner florals with my mom. I LOVED them. Tim's mom printed out pictures of the city skyline and named the tables after neighborhoods where family lives in Chicago.

For a modest fee, I also hired my mom's best friend's daughter to take pictures during the rehearsal (I haven't gotten them yet and these are obviously not them). She is is an up and coming photographer and I thought she could use the pictures for her portfolio and I could get some good pictures of our night without hiring a high priced pro. I recommend this if you want to have someone there to document your day. Look for photographers on theknot.com message boards, craigslist, etc. if you don't know anyone personally. Or hire my friend Andi Lantz :)

Tim's dad delivered an awesome speech at the rehearsal...mostly giving Tim a hard time for never bringing a girl home to meet his parents (until he met me) because he didn't "need another mother."

And finally, we stood up and said a few words to thank everyone for coming. And Tim tried to crack a joke when he said "Nicole just wants me to tell everyone she's sorry for everyone she yelled at during the wedding planning process."

While I laughed at this, I was thinking in my head the only people that really saw my frusturation during planning was my poor mother...and of course, Tim. However, the day before the wedding, I don't know why - but I was suddenly stressed. After being pretty collected for almost the whole year and a half before, I don't know if everything just fell on top of me and I realized it was here or if I was just exhausted.

But the night was almost over & the big day was almost here...