Engagement Party Recap

Our engagement party was this past weekend, and it was so much fun! We had a backyard pool party, with 75 family members and our bridal party in attendance. Most people just hung out, ate, and chatted, the little cousins swam, and the always classy bride to be owned at flip cup.  A little photo recap:

 

Me with 3 of my bridesmaids

 

With our respective future bros-in-law

A nice view of the deck

 

I think this shot of my little cousins in the pool is so cute!

 

Another party candid..bored yet?

 What's a party without drinking games?

We had such a good time! Mr. B and I joked that the party, in a lot of ways, was good practice for the wedding. For starters, it required a bunch of advance planning for things like the menu, music, and my outfit(which happened to be a white dress!) But even so, some last minute work, like setting up tables and making our sangria, was unavoidable:

We had tons of family there, and unfortunately didn’t get to spend enough time with anyone! We were running around thanking people for coming, catching up quickly, and making the rounds.

We also barely saw each other!

And we had almost no time to scarf down our casual yet delicious spread of gigantic 8 foot subs, ziti, meatballs, wings, and copious appetizers.

We did a little cake-cutting. This was sort of thrown on us, so hopefully we are less awkward when we do this at our wedding!

And we had a cool cake with our engagement picture printed on it: 

People encouraged us to open gifts, so I had some bridal shower practice, with my maid of honor handing me gifts and a good family friend writing everything down. We got such nice stuff, but opening them in front of people is something I'm going to have to get more comfortable with.

Afterward, we snuggled, read our cards, and then I went home around 2 am. I was so wired from all the excitement (the party went on for almost 10 hours!), and from pumping my body full of Coors Light all day, that I barely slept at all.

The best part was how happy I felt after all of it. Ever have a great weekend, or a great vacation, and then feel bummed when it’s over? That’s what I expected after the party, but it wasn’t like that. We both felt so lucky to have tons of family members that traveled from all over, even as far as Chicago, just to be able to celebrate with us. I was so happy people stuck around for hours too. I guess I was nervous that with all the family and small amounts of people from my age group, that my friends would be bored. But they were the best of all! I just assumed at least my girlfriends would leave early, but they raged on, playing drinking games and hanging out all night. My MOH and her fiancé being the very last people to leave- they’re some of my faves, and having them stick around with so long was unexpected but a great way to celebrate! 

Did you guys have engagement parties?