First come the photos, then comes the previews, and now 'How I Met Your Mother''s ninth and final season has paved the way to the finish line with our first look at September 23rd's hour-long season premiere "The Locket" / "Coming Back." The gang gathers for Robin and Barney (and technically Ted)'s big day, but what happens on the way to the alter for 'How I Met Your Mother's final year?

The first clip of the final season picks up where we left off in season 8 finale "Something New," with Ted and Lily on the road to Farhampton for the wedding. Don't buy into the idea that pre-wedding jitters will provide the sole source of story for the final season however, as executive producer Carter Bays recently told HuffPostTV of the multiple flash-forwards and time jumps that:

Without giving away the context of it or how it happens, we’re going to get to see the happiness that’s after [meeting The Mother]. We’re going to see happily ever after ... It’s going to be more tears, more of that stuff.

So far, the final season of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ has recruited such guest stars as ‘Revenge‘ star Roger Bart, ‘The Office‘ star Ellie Kemper, Sherri Shepherd, Wayne Brady and John Lithgow reprising their roles as Barney’s half-brother James and biological father Jerry. In addition to other recent clarifications on the final season’s wedding weekend format, CBS also revealed that all four regulars would meet the mother (Cristin Milioti, herself a newly minted regular) prior to Ted.

We'll have to wait near of a month for 'How I Met Your Mother' season 9 to finally premiere (assuming we have CBS back, yikes), but check out the first sneak peek above, and give us your final season predictions in the comments!

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