I last left you at the rehearsal at Immaculate Conception. Once we finished rehearsing and everyone (kinda) new what they were doing, we all started walking to Le Foret. It was a 2.5 block walk, but I knew it would feel like 3 miles in heels so I slipped on my flips and enjoyed the short walk.
We arrived and dove into the food. I think I actually started the food line as I really, really wanted the gnocci! I had 10 plates of it. It was by far the best thing on the menu (in my humble opinion) and I chose the menu! ha.
I got to hang with some of my favorite peeps…
Around 8:15 pm, doug and I officially kicked off the presentations/speeches with one of our own. We shared the results of the RSVP short answer, true/false and some of the awesome drawings you created for us.
The RSVP Card questionnaire looked like this:
In the mean time, I will share some of my favorite answers/facts:
-Options for our new last name: Broux, Devlin, Awesomeo, both kinda suck honestly, and Tony Danza.
-A higher percentage of you thought I drafted you over doug. Technically, I could only draft 50% of you, but at least 70% though I drafted them. I have no idea what this implies, but I love it.
-To the question, “what color would doug’s tie be”, the best answer hands down is “pale yellow with holes”. Kenny L, you rock.
Question: What next minor holiday should they celebrate:
-“Groundhogs Day – Doug you be the ground hog and Lizzie says if you can come out of your hole” – most innocently dirty answer ever written.
-There were also lots of answers that had to do with us having a baby. You will see in the video.
Question: What song best describes them?
-I’m sexy and I know it – ??? really? you guys think we think we are sexy? :)
-The Dave Ramsey Theme song
-It’s peanut butter jelly time!
-The Titanic song….ha.
-Anything Bieber
Advice for the newlyweds:
-laugh a lot, don’t be rude, 1 kid max.
-keep our Thursday night volleyball team forever
-drink lots of water. It’s important to stay hydrated
-get more cats. eat good food. don’t eat the cats, that’s just rude.
-if you are going to fight, fight naked
-be fruitful and multiply
-make babies…our country is in desperate need of some good ones.
-Ignore everybody’s advice
And then we shared all the drawings that I blogged about here, but the epic finale was this one:
This was cut from our couples shower invite, wedding invite and wedding inserts! So clever and then we finally figured out why so many of you had babies on the brain! :)
After we presented the answers, the video slide show was played! It was hysterical. Sarah did a fabulous job. I wanted only awkward, terrible pictures to be shown. Why, you might ask? The slide shows at rehearsal dinners are usually of the “cute” stages of the couples life. I have even seen some slide shows where they completely skip the awkward phase (middle school, plus or minus 2 years) like it never existed. I LOVE and embrace that terrible awkward stage. We all went through it! Let’s share it so we can all enjoy it. Like I always say, OWN IT!
When I pitched the idea to Sarah, she absolutely loved it. She just giggled and giggled because she had seen most of my terrible awkward photos. I did tell a few people about the idea and most of them loved it. I have to admit a few of them thought I was crazy, but I went for it. Sarah volunteered to make the slide show and keep it a surprise from me. I gave her all the terrible photos I could find of myself and doug.
She did a great job. Thank you Sarah!
Once we had sufficiently laughed at fat/awkward doug and lizzie, Shawn (the best man) got up and toasted us. When he set up the powerpoint, I had no idea what to expect. Would he show pictures of doug doing crazy photo-shopped things? Terrible pictures of me? None of the above. He gave a very heartfelt toast to Doug and I while showing hilarious photos of animals. They were completely unrelated and awesome. Totally Shawn. It was for that one moment in time Shawn was very sweet and wonderful when it came to the topic of me. Once that night was over, we went back to being sworn mortal enemies…:) Not really…but kinda. heh.
Shawn is an awesome guy and we have a special relationship. The only reason I can write this is because I am SURE he does not read the blog so I can say all the nice things here. He is a great friend to doug and I am very glad he is in our lives. (I also love his wife, Lauren, but that is for a different blog on a different day…)
After Shawn toast, Ashley took the stage with a full on powerpoint! She told the “Geode” story and gave doug is very own geode. He also gave me a geode ring and necklace. We will save the geode story for another post to give it the time and attention it deserves. Ashley, would you be willing to be a guest blogger to tell the geode story? Then Doug and tell his side of the story also!
After Ashley, was Dad. Oh Dad! He is such a great job and showed the most embarrassing photo of me shaving my legs for the first time! He was very sweet and talked a lot about being raised in a veterinary hospital! I have photos of him coming later! Thank you dad for your sweet words and awesome toast!
Next to hop up was Amanda. Anyone who knows Amanda is fully aware that she goes makes most of her decisions with her giant, warm, amazing heart. She is a wonderful friend and she knew she would cry (like the ugly kind) if she had to speak while toasting doug and I. She went Love Actually on us and wrote her toast on small poster boards and had planned to just hold them up. Once she realized how big the room was and how people in the back would not be able to see, she enlisted Ashley to read the signs out loud so everyone would be able to enjoy them.
As soon as she started, she started crying. She gave such a heartfelt toast and shared so much love that I got a little teary eyed. She gave me her cards and we hung them in the bridal suite so I could see them the rest of the weekend. I share the toast on another blog 
Thank you Ball. She loves us thissssssssss much!
Next up was Courtney! She wrote an awesome poem that I posted a few weeks ago! You can read it here! She was amazing and was rocking some amazing shoes! :) There were so many memories wrapped up in her toast. I loved it even more when she emailed it to me.
Last, but not least was DJ (Doug’s mom). My favorite line from Doug’s mom: “Doug is like a butterfly.” :) She did a great job and so sweet in her toast to us! I regret that I do not have any photos from her speaking yet. They are on they way, but not here yet.
To wrap up the night, I toasted Doug. All I remember saying was, “who knew a nerd could be so hot?” :) Then he toasted me and related to loving me like he loves his old, yellow, holey t-shirts. It sounds crazy, but he worked it. He also mentioned not just marring someone you could live with, but marrying someone you could not live without. He did a great job and I loved it. I can’t wait to watch it again when we get the video!
After the toasts were finished, I started telling people goodbye as they were heading out. It was then that doug reminded me we had not given out the wedding party gifts. I rushed to get them all out as we had already missed two ushers/groomsmen.
We also gave our parents their gifts! I think they really liked them.
Below is the picture of what we had framed and we wrote a little note in the middle saying they could pick their favorite photos from the wedding and put them in the middle.
We gave all the groomsmen/ushers and fathers a bow tie and socks. (This is important to the story later). Doug made a special point to tell each guy that the socks and tie were to be worn at the wedding.
As the night wrapped up we took a few more pictures at Le Foret.
notice my geode necklace!
It truly was a fantastic night! We felt so loved and blessed to have such fabulous people in our lives. I could not have been happier (or so I thought!)
So the plan was to go out dancing after the rehearsal dinner. At the end of the rehearsal dinner, I decided I was kind of tired after all of that and really just wanted to chill in the bridal suite with friends and family. So we moved the party (and left over food that Doug and I ate on for days on our mini-moon) to the bridal suite.
We had a blast! Kenny ran to the store and purchased some beer for the party and we just hung out for a few hours. I do not have many photos from the mini-party, only these:
As you can imagine, it was pretty awesome. One more thing I want to mention. I got to spend a lot of quality time with Tammy, Brian and Nhung. Tammy and Nhung worked with me in Disney in 2002. Tammy dragged her awesome husband, Brian, to Nola for the wedding and they hung out with us late. I loved getting to actually talk and spend real time with them. Nhung came from California and Brian/Tammy came from Orlando. It was such an honor to have them at the rehearsal dinner, wedding, tea, and other random events!
We finally went to bed very late. It was such a fantastic night! Thank you everyone who helped make it happen, have loved us and supported us and everyone who toasted us. We are so loved and blessed.
Love and Hugs, Lizzie
Man, that was a long one.
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