I’m coming down from a high of the most fun, never-ending double-weekend wedding celebration!  It was such a great time, that I’m re-thinking how I see my future wedding being played out.  Let me tell you about it…

Part 1:  Friends and family from Omaha, Chicago, Iowa and southern California all meet on the beach on the central coast of California.  See the groom is from Nebraska, the bride is a California girl.  At 9am – we all meet at the beach house (rented by the bride’s parents) where we were all staying.  After we claim bunk beds – yes, bunk beds! — we do a a quick rehearsal on the beach.  Did I mention the officiant is the BFF of the bride and got ordained on the internet.   He was proud to wear his “Minister” T-shirt during the rehearsal, courtesy of his Minister Kit complete with parking pass!  No worries, he took his role very seriously, and blew us all away with his ministerial skills.  We called him “The Rev” for the remaining of this wedding adventure. 

Sandwiches were delivered to the house for lunch.  Then we piled onto a limo bus to go wine tasting around wine country.  It was beautiful!  I didn’t want to come home.  We ended up at a mexican restaurant where we had endless margaritas and nachos.  We walked back to the beach house and played football on the beach, built a bonfire and made smores late into the night.  It was the perfect day.

Part 2:  It’s Wedding Day!  I’m coordinating the set up of the ceremony and mini-reception with 10 guys who surprisingly took their job as the set-up crew pretty seriously.  “Which way do we face the wine bottles?”  “How many shells go each table?”  “Do you think we need another keg?” 

The noon ceremony was heart-felt, the bride was beautiful, and the shells all found good homes with the bride’s 5 year old cousin.  We cleaned up, took naps, then repeated the same football-bonfire-smores routine that evening.  For two days straight, we did nothing but laugh.  It was sad to say good bye to everyone, but we all knew this was only halftime in this epic wedding.

Part 3:  Two weeks later, the same crew is back in Omaha – Yay!  We all meet at a groomsman’s house the Friday before Memorial Day.  We’ve rented Olly the Trolly to take us around for the day to our favorite “establishments”.  Unexpected surprise – the groomsman hosting the event had T-shirts made for everyone!  There were 3 different shirts designed all including funny images and quotes from the wedding weekend two weeks before.  Depending on which t-shirt you had determined which team you were on.  There were challenges for teams to complete throughout the day. 

Part 4:  The following day we all had a pool day at the groom’s parents house.  A perfect sunny day that included more laughing, of course. 

Part 5:  It’s Reception Day!  The gals spent all day getting our hair and make up done.  False eye lashes are key!  Amazing, fun, beautiful party at a top-notch country club in town.  We ROCKED that reception.  Apparently, playing Whitney’s “How Will I Know” is the key to getting guys on the dance floor.  Who knew? 

After Hours:  Headed to a favorite dive bar in town, because no one was ready to say good bye.  Alas, 2 am came and lots of hugs around to all.  Sad.  Felt like summer camp just ended and you knew you had to wait until next summer to see all your friends again. 

Looking back, I don’t think I could ever forget about this wedding.  I had so much fun and made some amazing new friends.  It got me thinking, why should weddings be just one day?  It’s your WED-DING!  Make it last for a year!  I always hear brides say it goes by too quickly.  We made vacations out of the two trips, and I know we’d all agree that we had more fun on these two mini-trips than we’d ever had on a vacation before. 

Disclaimer:  It took a village to plan this.  But all the details were thought out – meals, transportation, where we would be sleeping at, etc.  I was so impressed.  This article from The Knot has some good tips for planning weekend weddings.    Martha Stewart Wedding’s Idea of the Day was Tips for Planning a Flawless Weekend Wedding. The bride and groom made it easy to have fun and enjoy ourselves.  So now we’re waiting for the other couples in our group to get married so we can ‘go back to summer camp’.  Cheers!