Boston Wedding Week

Two weeks have passed since Brea's wedding, and since then, I have spent a week in DC, come back to London, prepared/attended a job interview and completed my 2008 US Tax return (expats get an extension). So enough with excuses about my busy (unemployed) life, and on with the blog posts about the wedding week!

I flew into Boston on Saturday 16 May with two goals: to not infect Brea with my terrible cold and to be as helpful as possible to her for the week running up to the main event on Monday, May 25.

Fortunately, I was over my cold by Monday and she never caught it. Also, Brea and Nathan had friends who were out of town for two weeks and they let us borrow their car, so I had my own transportation for the week to do errands. The pre-wedding week was a steady pace of errands, putting together programs, running or going to the gym, and going to all our girly salon and nail appointments before Friday night marked the official start of the wedding weekend.

Friday was the Wine and Cheese Party which I got to help organise and select all the wines for tasting. We served 8 different wines, all of which had a recommended cheese pairing. The food was prepared by another friend of Brea’s, Christy, who is also a caterer and chef. I think the two Christie’s made a good pair for planning a great event!

We held the event at the Mary Prentiss Inn in Cambridge. This is where many of the family and bridal party had rooms for the weekend, and we had use of the common facilities for events such as this one. The weather was perfect, warm all evening and clear skies, so we could use the outdoor patios. We had a fun activity for guests to make their own wine charms, and it was great to see the first commingling of 35+ of bride and groom family and friends.

Brea and three of her bridesmaids!

One of the wine tasting tables

I have posted more about the wines from the party on my wine blog, but suffice to say, all the wines were a big hit, and it was really fun to expand people's horizons on new varietals and regions.

On Saturday, we had a Fun Run at 9am to do a 3 mile loop around Cambridge, Boston and the Charles River. It was fairly cool and cloudy, which is good running weather, but bad weather for those who were waiting at the finish line and snack table. Many of us took the opportunity to wear our Brea and Nathan Wedding Weekend T-shirts, and after the run, Nathan gave us a tour of MIT, where he is completing his PhD this summer.

Brea and Nathan after they did the run, twice!

Saturday night was a fun night out in Boston, themed "Sports Soiree", where we all met at Jillian's near Fenway to watch the Red Sox game on TV, bowl, and share drinks and dinner with friends and family.

University High School Crew! (sans Bernard who was just landing in Boston, with my very important maid of honour dress!) Mike, Brea, Aydin, Peri and me

The first few hours the boys and girls were all hanging out together, and then around 9pm the groups separated, and us girls had a girls only night out, while the boys went to a bar called Sunset for beer and the girls went to a nearby bar and then a small club type place where we could dance.

Brea with bridesmaids: me, Ginger (the only local bridesmaid),
Emily (Nathan's sister) and Emily (Brea's sister)

Antics on the T ride home....

Sunday morning I got to sleep in, although I did oversleep just a tad, making me rush to make it to the 1pm departure for the Duck Tour of Boston. And it was very important that I made it on time because I was bring the duck hats!

T-shirts and hats!

We were able to rent out an entire duck boat, and we specifically requested this one!

The duck tour was 90 minutes long and really covered quite a bit of Boston, including 15 minutes+ on the Charles River. It was a fun, family-friendly event that got another 35 people together before the actual wedding.

Sunday night was the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. We all met at Hope Fellowship Church in Cambridge, where Brea and Nathan have been attending the past few years, and we went through the ceremony twice before heading off to Christopher's around the corner for dinner.

Brea, Nathan, me and bridesmaid Kassey

Brea and Nathan practising for the next day

And then.....the wedding! (next post)