Before I jump the gun and divulge details about our wedding day, I thought I would share with you some of the events that took place the day before our wedding (and day after our rehearsal). As I mentioned, one of the best decisions I feel we made was having the day before free. It turned out there was plenty to do that day but since I wasn’t rushing to an event, I enjoyed all the last-minute tasks greatly.
The day started out with a visit to our venue. Luckily, there wasn’t an event there Friday night, so we were able to deliver all my DIY projects (i.e. centerpieces, menus, namecards, etc). The floor dinner was to be served on (Floor 2) was already set up with tables and linens to my great delight.
Our dinner feasting tables set up, pre-decoration.
We chose silver linens with natural wooden chairs for dinner, a little bit of contrast between luxury and adventure, modern and old–just like our wedding. Originally, I envisioned a burlap runner down these tables, but after trying it out on one table with our centerpieces, I thought it looked too “busy” and nixed the idea completely. And from now on, all the gifts I give will be wrapped in burlap and twine until the 200 yard roll of it is gone…
We lined the windows with about 300 candles from IKEA, placed the centerpieces on the tables, and set up “lounge furniture” in the corner of the penthouse atrium space to add some nightclub ambiance to the space. Secret tip: rather than spend a grand on renting lounge furniture, we purchased a whole set off of Craigslist for less than $200 and resold it!
This is just part of the lounge furniture set that we set up in a corner of the atrium, we also had an additional loveseat.
After setting up the bathroom baskets,
We used silver baking tins which were the perfect size, and fit our theme and our budget, for the wall shelves. (On our wedding night, we saw one guest spraying AXE on himself every once in a while on the dancefloor, so the baskets were a big hit).
and filling up a basket with 75 pairs of flip-flops for dancing (which were gone within the first hour of dancing!), I treated some of my bridesmaids to a mani-pedi at a BYOB nail salon called ARBRE in Old Town, Chicago where we sipped champagne and watched SATC–heavenly.
Me and my MOH. Note my two flower girls in spa pedicure chairs behind me…adorable.
On our way back home to my parents’ house, we stopped by our hotel block downtown at the Whitehall and delivered out-of-town bags to our guests. Our weekend happened to coincide with the Crosstown Classic (Chicago White Sox vs Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field), so we gave Cubs tote bags to my guests’ and White Sox tote bags to my husbands’ guests (respective of our loyalty). We filled the bags with Wrigley gum, water, mini wine bottles, chips, muffins, granola bars, mandarins and information on the Crosstown Classic, Chicago Blues Fest, and the schedule of World Cup games (that started that weekend)–the bags were a huge success and we’re so happy we honored our OOT guests with them since we had so little time to talk to them at our actual wedding.
The tote bags were a steal, less expensive than gift bags, and re-useable!
Finally we were on our way home to the North Shore suburbs, when my fiance frantically called me and asked me to meet him at the Mens Wearhouse to make a last-minute decision on which tux he should wear for the following day (black jacket or ivory jacket). We killed two birds with one stone, and practiced our first dance, one last time, right outside.
Sweet memories.
Then we made our way home. Exhausted from a week (a year) of wedding planning and preparation, I had no problem falling asleep–and next thing I knew it was 6am, the morning of the wedding…coming up next!