Advice for ceremony without a rehearsal

Can you maybe meet with his sister just the 3 of you (you, groom, and her) the night before and do a walk-through/go over the plan? That way, at least you three are on the same page for the events. For the rest of the bridal party, it's just a matter of having someone cueing them to go (do you have a day of coordinator or anything?). Our event coordinator handled that part for us, as the officiant is up at the front and can't really give the go ahead to the bridal party.

Has your fiance's sister ever officiated a wedding before? It would make me nervous not having a rehearsal with someone who isn't a professional. Is there any way your bridal party could come in a day early? All of our bridal party traveled and they came the night before. Some of them shared the cost of staying over night. For example, my husband's best man and another friend are friends as well so they got a hotel room with two beds and split the cost.

I agree that it's much more concerning that you have an amateur, inexperienced officiant, than having no rehearsal for the wedding party and everyone else. I have been to plenty of successful weddings without rehearsals, but those had experienced, professional officiants and (in most cases) wedding/day of coordinators who ran the show.

You, your future spouse, and your officiant should definitely make time to talk through everything. And please encourage your officiant to rehearse the script on her own several times.

I did not have a rehearsal, what we did is that we agreed on cue moments for people to walk. I will say our bridal party was only two people but the entrance was my hubby walking his mom to her seat followed by my SIL, my sister and I met my Mom at the end of the stairs I went down so she could walk with me. I was walked down by my two male cousins, one who basically held me and the other held my veil, all of this was super last minute as my veil was long and the stairs had an anti slip thing at the edge which it would have gotten caught on. I told the two sisters okay once my hubby is at the alter SIL start walking, once SIL is half way my sister to start walking and boom. When my music started I couldn't even hear it because I was far away but my photographer gave me the signal and down we went. Lean on your professionals for moments of uncertainty, some of them are blessings in disguise and will go above and beyond their scope of work to make your day amazing. I do agree that being on the same page as the officiant is important however, my officiant was also not part of any agreement of who walks in when so we just kind of did it and hoped for the best. One of our guests said it was smooth and looked practiced, haha.