Our Wedding 5k

Most people either jet off to their honeymoon the morning after their wedding or they host a nice, air-conditioned champagne brunch for their out of town guests. Not the Dobys (for reference, Mike’s last name is often shortened to create the nickname “Doby” therefore a lot of the theme of our wedding included reference to The Dobys including our instagram hashtag #thedobys). Instead of allowing our guests to relax and stuff their faces at a breakfast buffet, we challenged them to a 5k.

Despite an open bar at the wedding, we had a great turn out at the 5k – over 80 people had RSVPed and it seemed at least that many showed up to either run, walk or cheer! We lured the non-runners to the event with a light breakfast of bagels, donuts, coffee and fruit and it worked!

 

This event would NOT be so amazingly organized and decorated if it weren’t for my fantastic bridesmaid Allison who volunteered to coordinate the entire thing. Mike and I almost canceled the event due to the stress of trying to put it together on top of everything else, and Allison stepped up and volunteered to coordinate the other volunteers, create the decor, pick up supplies, and set-up and tear-down. Mike and I were floored by her kindness and we can never repay her! The event turned out absolutely wonderfully thanks to her craftiness and event planning skills.

When we first arrived, I was absolutely blown away by Allison’s work. She did such an amazing job of making the event not only run smoothly but look amazing! She set up a bulletin board with the table name cards from the wedding which were a race Mike and I have done together complete with a photo of us at the event and a brief description. She made a banner for the food table made out of our old race bibs and strung cute grey and yellow pom poms from two trees. She even came up with a slogan for the event, “When two become one, we run!”

After a few minutes of chatting we rounded up the troops and Mike made an announcement and thanked everyone for being there and then introduced his Best Man Greg. Greg set out the 1.55 mile marker for the race and he did the course talk. The route was an simple out and back on the bay and Allison had even made a cute sign at the turnaround as well as a sign along the way cheering everyone on to make the route obvious.

Stephen, our friend who did all of our design elements for the wedding, also suggested bibs for the 5k so we also had bibs for all the runners and anyone else who wanted one! Mine said “Mrs. Doby” and Mike’s said “Mr. Doby” and there were special bibs for bridesmaids and groomsmen and the rest of the bibs had the date 092913.

After the announcement all the runners (about half of us ran!) lined up and Mike’s dad called out the countdown and shouted “GO” and we were off! At first everyone kind of followed Mike and I but I encouraged faster runners to take off ahead. I purposely ran fairly slow so a group of us would stay together. I was on a preemptive runners high as I ran – I couldn’t believe how smoothly the event was going and how many runners there were! I felt so much joy from the wedding and so much love from friends and family. We had fun chatting and soon some of the runners had made the turnaround  and we were slapping high fives and cheering each other on.

At the turnaround Asia and I stayed back and waited for Page and her husband Josh and we ran with them for a while. At some point we joined up with Allison and her husband Tim (his first 5k!) and ran it in. Mike and I finished together for the first time ever! We grabbed food and cheered on the remaining finishers, including my Dad and Step Mom who have really come to love running in the last year (makes me SO happy!).  Mike’s aunt and uncle had trained for the event and finished their very first 5k that day! It was so incredible to watch them finish!

We spent the next hour or so chatting and taking photos with friends and family. It was so great to spend more quality time with all the friends and family who traveled so many miles to see us. It was so hard to get to even greet everyone at the wedding (and I’m sure I still missed people!) let alone have a conversation, so it was wonderful to have the 5k to not only do that but also have our loved ones join us in our favorite activity – running!

Thank you for the millionth time to Allison, my Dad and Denice, and everyone else who made the 5k a reality! And thank you to everyone who woke up the morning after a wedding and showed up! It was a great way to close out an amazing weekend.