Miss Doe's Steel Magnolias Moment

I really did not have any expectations in regards to our rehearsal lunch. We had picked what we thought was a pretty good restaurant and all of the plans were in place. However, this was definitely not an area of the wedding that I had put much detail into.

We set out bright and early on a Friday morning with our bridal party in tow. We would be traveling about an hour so we would be staying up there for the whole weekend. As we hit the road, the best man checked with us to make sure we had all of the tuxes.

Tuxes? Whoops. Yeah, we forgot the tuxes.

Thank goodness for his reminder! Luckily we were not far so we quickly turned around to grab them. This got me worried though, what else would go wrong? This wasn't exactly a good way start to the weekend. Luckily everything was smooth sailing from there on out. 

We ended up holding a semi-casual lunch at the Auburn Ale House that followed our rehearsal. They truly did an outstanding job with not only the food but with the entire luncheon. They even did a personalized menu which was really a nice touch. 

{You can't see it but our names were on the top of the menu}

The food was superb, the manager and waiters were beyond accommodating and our overall experience here was fantastic. They didn't miss a beat making sure everyone had a mimosa in hand and a smile on their face. 

I have to say though, one of my favorite parts of the day was my Steel Magnolias moment. You guys, let me say this again.

I HAD MY STEEL MAGNOLIAS MOMENT!

Seriously, it was beyond awesome in every single which way. I had ordered Mr. Buck's grooms cake from Olivia's Custom Cakes out of Roseville, CA. I never was able to meet her but I went with my gut on this one. She was one of the few bakers I could find that would be able to sculpt a duck cake with red velvet cake and not charge me my first born child.

She beyond delivered, just check out this masterpiece:

The funniest moment of the whole day was when it was time to cut the cake. Mr. Buck asked me how we should cut it and I said, "I don't know, why don't you take a bit out of the head. That would be awesome." So he did, and little did I know that the head was made out of Styrofoam. 

Umm, whoops. Everyone thought I was playing a practical joke on him but I honestly had no idea that the head was made out of Styrofoam. We all had a good laugh and it was time to move on to actually cutting the cake, a la Steel Magnolias.

{Yuuuuuum}

It was then time to give our bridal party their gifts. I decided to wrap everything in brown Kraft paper and fill the front with photos from when all of us were young. Each person knew which gift was theirs simply by looking at the photos.

{The contents of the bridesmaids gifts will be revealed in my recaps!}

Even though I had not obsessed over the rehearsal lunch, it turned out to be quite an enjoyable, fun and beautiful afternoon. Sometimes things like that seem to just work out the way they are suppose to.