Wedding Wednesday: The Rehearsal Dinner

We tried to keep the rehearsal part of the evening as fun, casual, and short as possible. The wedding party met at 5pm and after a run through of how the next day was going to go, we boarded buses in front of the hotel to take us to the other side of the Lake for dinner at Gordy's Boat House.



We had tons of champagne and beer on the buses to get the party started and we got very lucky with patient and fun drivers, because we. got. rowdy.

This was the first of 3 full buses arriving at Gordy's for a night of Fish Fry - Wisconsin style! 

 

Last year, when my mom and I were checking places out to host the wedding, we fell in love with Gordy's private room. I'm pretty sure we booked it the day we saw it and it instantly became the foundation for our wedding.

After a few appetizers and drinks, everyone sat down and had an amazing dinner. The fried perch, spotted cows (the beer), coleslaw...the whole thing was so Wisconsin, and so perfect.

 The room also had a private patio that we took advantage of all night.

 

 

Everyone was in such great spirits and our group of people that we spent the night with were so much fun.

Joel and his dad gave such touching and sweet speeches. Joel always impresses me when he speaks in front of large groups....he turns into quite the politician.

 

And my bridesmaids surprised Joel and I with a slideshow of us with pictures from when we were babies, from high school, to our college dating years, Chicago, Los Angeles, Roscoe....the whole thing. It was amazing.

 

We stayed at Gordy's until 10 before we bused it back to the hotel - which was an entire show in and of itself. Thankfully we got smart and put the party people on one bus, and everyone else on another.

 A lot of friends and family had made it to the hotel, so we met everyone outside for a few more hours of drinking and catching up. I had told my girls that I had to be upstairs by 11:30, and all of us kept to that promise.  

I'm sure I'm sounding like a broken record, but the rehearsal dinner exceeded my expectations. Everything was so well done, everyone had so much fun, and I wouldn't have changed a thing.