In honor of our one-year wedding anniversary this past July, I thought it would be the perfect time to finally get our whole wedding story written down and shared with all of you!

Part 1 of our wedding story is about the week of -- prepping and a whole lot of celebrating, including wine tasting, the Oregon Brewer's Festival, and our absolutely delicious rehearsal lunch.

Most of our immediate family arrived on Wednesday, but some came in on Thursday and Friday. We both worked Monday and Tuesday that week, and started our wedding vacation on Wednesday, so the timing was perfect.

The weekend before was spent organizing, prepping, and labeling all of the decor, alcohol, stationery, etc. for pickup from our day-of coordinator on Wednesday night. I'm not joking when I say you could barely make a walkway through our apartment; there were bags and boxes everywhere! But I will say doing all of this hard work up front made for such a smooth, no-stress week before and day of. So for that, I am grateful.

Back to the fun -- the family who did arrive on Wednesday got into town around Noon. Our apartment building had to shut off our water from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (fun times!), so Tim and I woke up somewhat early on Wednesday to get out of the apartment before then and run some last-minute errands before our families arrived.

Even though everything we heard was "plan your wedding for the end of July for guaranteed good weather," the forecast definitely called for rain on our big day, so we stopped by Powell's to pick up umbrellas for the bridal party. After Powell's we swung by Target to pick up frames for our parents' DIY wedding gifts and then came home.

We got to say a quick "hi" to my family before they headed off to the Oregon Brewer's Festival (my mom's first time!). Then we went out to lunch with Tim's family and came back to the apartment to finish up our parents' gifts. Later that night we all met up with my family who rented the cutest house off NW 23rd and enjoyed some delicious tacos. It was so nice getting both of our families together for a quiet meal before all the craziness ensued! ;)

Thursday was all about Tim celebrating with the guys and me celebrating with the girls. Not all of my bridesmaids were in town yet, but we did get a good group to go wine tasting. It was a beautiful day (sunshine and not too hot or cold) and such a fun time spent relaxing with wonderful company :)

Tim and his guys went to the Oregon Brewer's Festival because, while I'm definitely #TeamWine, Tim is without a doubt #TeamBeer. The girls went to three wineries in Dundee and stopped at Red Hills Market for lunch on the way back (highly, highly recommended). We got stuck in crazy traffic since it was a weekday, and were getting pretty hilarious texts from the guys who hadn't quite sobered up yet. All in all, I'd say it was a great day all around.

Thursday night the guys and girls met up for our joint bachelor/bachelorette party. We started the evening at Brix Tavern for dinner and drinks and then bar hopped the rest of the night. We didn't get in until 2 a.m. and I'm definitely an old soul, so I'd say it was a pretty successful night of celebrating. ;) I won't post any photos of that night here, but there's a picture of me taken by my sister on Instagram that will live there forever. And I'm not sure how I feel about it, haha.

On Friday morning, my mom, sister, Tim's sister, Sarah, and I got our nails done together (photo below of mine -- I'm so obsessed with how they turned out!). We opted for a rehearsal lunch because it was much cheaper than a dinner and since we were having a brunch wedding, we thought it was an awesome idea to stick with the same non-traditional theme. The rehearsal at the church began at 4 anyways, so the lunch from 12:30-3:30 was perfect timing to ensure everyone was on time.

We enjoyed flatbreads, salads, waffle fries with this absolutely to-die-for gorgonzola cheese sauce, wings, cupcakes, and more deliciousness. I'd say everyone was satisfied! Tim's sister, Sarah, made such a special movie of pictures of us growing up and the length of our relationship. It was beautiful and definitely brought tears to our eyes.

The rehearsal at the church was flawless, thanks to Sharon, the church wedding coordinator, who was such a gem to work with throughout our wedding planning process. Friday evening Tim had to run last-minute to Men's Wearhouse to get one of his groomsmen fitted and then he picked up our cake from Whole Foods. I stayed at our apartment to wrap his gift and pack for my night at my family's rental house. When he got home we exchanged gifts - I got him a GoPro and he got me a record player that I absolutely love. We ended the night at 23Hoyt for dinner with some of my family and then said our goodbyes until morning, when we would finally become husband and wife.

I went to bed that night with butterflies because I knew in less than 12 hours, I would be married to the man of my dreams. The next morning I woke up and the fairytale, most-perfect wedding day I could have ever asked for began. More on that in Part 2.

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