OUR REHEARSAL DINNER

design darling rehearsal dinner

Hi friends! I’m so so so excited to kick off wedding week on the blog with pictures from our rehearsal dinner today. It’s been a little over two months since our wedding over Labor Day weekend and I can’t wait to relive all my favorite moments with our family members and friends on the blog this week! I’ll be sharing photos from our welcome party, our pre-wedding first look, and our ceremony and reception and ending the week on a high note with our wedding video. I hope you’re ready for allllllll the pictures!

OUR REHEARSAL DINNER

design darling sconset chapel nantucket

If you read my post on what Nantucket means to me, you may recall that we were married in the ‘Sconset Chapel, where my parents were married 31 years before us almost to the day. I’ll be sharing more photos from inside the chapel in a post about our ceremony and reception later this week, so here’s just a quick snap of us practicing walking down the aisle at the end of our ceremony rehearsal on Thursday afternoon. My sister Reilly magically remembered to bring the ribbon bouquet from my bridal shower!

design darling sconset casino nantucket

mds stripes criss cross ball gown on design darling

After the rehearsal in the chapel, we led our bridesmaids and groomsmen to the Summer House, where we would be having our reception two days later, so everyone in the bridal party would all know the route from the ceremony to the reception on our wedding day. I love all the candid snaps of our family and friends along the way!

design darling rehearsal dinner dress mds stripes criss cross ball gown

This is one of my favorite photos from our wedding weekend. I fell in love with this MDS Stripes criss cross ball gown right after we got engaged and knew I needed it for one of our wedding festivities. (Sadly it’s no longer available, but I found similar styles here, here, here, and here and you can browse the designer’s full collection here.) The crisp striped poplin felt like it was made for Nantucket and the cut of the dress made it appropriate for this once-in-a-lifetime occasion!

design darling lightship basket and engagement ring

I kept my accessories classic and simple with these oversized pearl studsmy go-to nude sandals, and the Nantucket lightship basket my mom passed down to me at my bridal shower.

design darling nantucket rehearsal dinner

My brother Camden, sister Reilly, cousin Emily, brother Grayson, and friend Amy on the wedding venue practice run from the chapel to the Summer House. I loved Amy’s CJ Laing dress!

design darling sister bindle and keep custom suit

How incredible does my sister Reilly look in her custom suit from Bindle & Keep? I made it to several of her fittings in Brooklyn and I was still blown away by how perfectly it fit her. She paired it with these silver oxfords that Will and I had given her for Christmas. I couldn’t have asked for a more extraordinary maid of honor — she gave toasts at both our rehearsal dinner and our reception and brought the house down both times (you’ll hear part of her wedding toast in our wedding video later this week!).

design darling rehearsal dinner nantucket

design darling rehearsal dinner at the chanticleer

chanticleer rehearsal dinner nantucket

design darling rehearsal dinner dress

design darling rehearsal dinner chanticleer nantucket

Will’s parents hosted our rehearsal dinner at the Chanticleer, a charming little French restaurant in ‘Sconset just across the street from the chapel. It was the most beautiful evening filled with amazing food, incredible toasts, and lots of little personal touches! We started with cocktails in the back garden followed by dinner and toasts in the main dining room. The rain clouds managed to hold off until the exact moment we all got inside! My parents had their rehearsal dinner at the Chanticleer 31 years ago and I was over the moon to be able to kick off our wedding weekend in the same exact spot.

signature cocktails for rehearsal dinner

the chanticleer nantucket

monogrammed drink stirrers

Will’s mom Reggie worked with the Dallas-based 5 by 7 Designs on the signature cocktail sign, cocktail napkins, and drink stirrers featuring the Kearsley Lloyd watercolor crest from our wedding invitations.

design darling grandy

nantucket rehearsal dinner at the chanticleer

design darling grandy peter beaton hat

design darling grandy lightship basket

grandy at rehearsal dinner

We had celebrated my Grandy’s 90th birthday a month and a half before our wedding and unsurprisingly she was the life of the party all weekend long! We set her up with a chair in the middle of the back garden at the Chanticleer where she could hold court among all our friends. She is truly one-of-a-kind and has the best sense of style and sense of humor.

mackenzie horan and will beuttenmuller

beth and peter horan

mackenzie horan family

Family photos with Will’s parents, my parents, and the Horan crew! Lots of contenders for this year’s Christmas cards. 🙂

design darling rehearsal dinner dress blue and white stripes

Chatting with Amy, Amy, and my Aunt Kathy. I guess everyone got the memo on my favorite color! 😉

grayson horan reilly horan camden horan

My siblings Grayson, Reilly, and Camden, who all gave speeches that made me laugh and cry that night! They’re just as good as it gets.

amy stone ali schilling emily driscoll sarah driscoll mackenzie horan grayson horan camden horan

My friends Amy and Ali, cousins Emily and Sarah, and brothers Grayson and Camden.

amy and wade havins

Amy is my hero for flying to Nantucket to be a bridesmaid just seven weeks after giving birth to baby Ralph. Aren’t she and Wade the cutest?

design darling bridesmaids at rehearsal dinner

The best bridesmaids (+ one bridesman, hi Eddy!) a girl could ask for.

paul hedrick and david haley

Will’s best men Paul and David (whose joint toast on our wedding night also made me cry!).

will beuttenmuller and jane murchison hvidt

Will with our adorable friend Jane, who also had her precious little baby Thomas less than two months before our wedding!

Ali and her husband Patrick are two of our favorite people in the world and pitched in in so many ways to make our wedding weekend what it was. They came to live on Nantucket with us this summer and helped literally transform my family’s house (before and afters here, here, here, here, and here) and helped me keep my sanity in those final weeks of wedding planning mayhem. I don’t know what Will and I did to deserve friends like them, but we’re damn lucky to have them.

caroline of milly & grace weddings nantucket

Speaking of people we’re lucky to have in our lives, I have to take a moment to love on our month of wedding planner Caroline. I knew her older sister Emily from working at the Ralph Lauren store on Nantucket at age 16 and just happened to run into them in the Stop & Shop parking lot the summer before our wedding. Emily now owns an incredible boutique on the island called Milly & Grace and shared that her sister Caroline would be opening Milly & Grace Weddings the following spring. It was honestly as if the stars had aligned — we knew from the first time we met with Caroline that she was exactly the person we needed calling the shots on our wedding weekend.

I could rave about Caroline for ten paragraphs, but I’ll leave it at this: if you’re planning a wedding on Nantucket, there is no one in this world more generous, genuine, hard-working, or kind-hearted to help you bring your vision to life. She truly thought of every single detail for every one of our wedding events, and in addition to having the organizational prowess we needed to tie everything together, she’s the type of person to literally roll up her sleeves and help your family clean dishes the night before your wedding to make sure the house is clean before family photos the next morning. I told her with tears in my eyes the night of our wedding that we were so lucky to be one of her first clients, because I know in my heart of hearts she’s one to watch in the years to come. In an industry that can be full of arrogant vendors and insane costs, we simply hit the jackpot with Caroline. She never once forgot what our wedding was really about and was ready, willing, and able to move mountains to make our day everything we’d hoped it would be.

chanticleer rehearsal dinner on design darling

Back to our rehearsal dinner! I love this aerial shot of the cocktail hour in the back garden, where Will’s parents had hired a violinist to play outside. The live music was the loveliest addition to an already perfect night!

mds stripes criss cross ball gown and bindle & keep custom suit

monogrammed napkins at rehearsal dinner

chanticleer rehearsal dinner

design darling monogrammed napkins at rehearsal dinner

After cocktails, we headed into the main dining room for dinner and toasts. Will’s mom had ordered personalized menus that doubled as place cards from 5 by 7 Designs and topped them with cookies she decorated herself (if you’re in Dallas, her company Highland Park Pie Lady makes the most delicious sugar cookies I’ve ever had). She and her friends also ordered a variety of beautiful monogrammed napkins from Sew Sew Swell that Will and I now get to use at home! Will’s dad gave a hilarious welcome followed heartfelt toasts from his mom and my sister. My dad had also rewritten the words to one of our favorite country songs to make it about me and Will which will go down as one of the more epic toasts I’ve ever witnessed!

chanticleer carousel horse nantucket

the chanticleer on design darling

I hope you enjoyed seeing our rehearsal dinner! I’ll be back tomorrow with pictures from our welcome party the night before our wedding. Thank you so much for reading and letting me reminisce! 🙂

*photos by Cameron & Kelly Studio

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