Are rehearsal dinners necessary for a small wedding?

If you have a rehearsal, you must feed the people who attend it. It can be simple (like pizza and beer) but you need some sort of a meal!

If you are having a rehearsal, you should have a rehearsal dinner. It doesn't need to be expensive. We just went out for pizza and beer. How big is your bridal party? We only had a matron of honor and a best man, so for the dinner we invited our bridal party, their partners, and our parents.

You can take the people that will be at the rehearsal to a local restaurant or even host them at your house and have pizza or a bbq. It doesn't have to be anything fancy but do feed them.

If you're having a rehearsal you have to have a dinner. It can be small and relatively cheap. Otherwise nix the rehearsal.

Cut the rehearsal, just do a quick walk through the day of the wedding if you really want to practice.

Yes food is a necessity in a rehearsal dinner. If not then skip the rehearsal all together.

You can do something simple like have people back at your place for pizza and drinks

We're not have a rehearsal just a pizza party the night before the wedding to give everyone theyre favors and let everyone in on the timeline

We did a rehearsal and dinner afterward and while it was fun, in hindsight it seems totally non-essential. as PPs have said you can just do a quick walk through the morning of and be fine. i think it was @Celia who said on here once or twice that grownups don't need instructions on how to stand and walk--she's right.

We skipped it and just did a run through the day of before the ceremony. It was fine.

We're having a rehearsal and rehearsal dinner because we know everybody won't be able to make it to rehearsal on a weekday because there's a wedding the day before my wedding so the dinner will be on sat and wedding on sunday

The size of your wedding has no bearing on whether or not you need a rehearsal. If you decide to have a rehearsal, you need a dinner, no matter how casual.

Almost no one needs a rehearsal. Just do a run through the day before; it'll be fine.

We had a wedding of 52, with 3 wedding party members on each side. We had a rehearsal in the afternoon the day before and we went out to a nice lunch afterwards with our wedding party members (plus one SO), my parents, my Hs parents, and my H grandmother (13 people total). I think we paid around $45 per person for lunch, so it wasn't a huge expense, but it wasn't a small amount either.

Rehearsals are totally not necessary. We would have been fine without one, but it was included with our venue and my coordinator and it worked out for peoples schedules, so we figured we might as well do one. It was actually really fun, but we could have skipped it and been fine.

If you do a rehearsal you have to feed people. It doesn't need to be fancy (can be pizza and beer at home or something) but you have to feed them.

50 isn't small.

If you're having a rehearsal and people are taking time out of their days to attend that, you need to have a dinner. You don't, however, need a rehearsal (and therefore no dinner) in the first place. You can skip it altogether and have a quick rehearsal/have the officiant/coordinator fill people in the day-of. But again, if you have a rehearsal, you should have a dinner/meal.

I think I didn't word this quite right. By ceremony I meant the whole walk down the isle and exchange vows part, meaning probably just the bridal party groomsmen and parents going, I didn't exactly mean the dinner part. Of course I know to feed people of we're rehearsing dinner! LLol. I feel like as long as we do a run through it could be fine. I just didn't know if it was acceptable to skip the rehearsal dinner I guess.

Still new to the whole wedding thing. Never been married before lol

I am prettt sure I would be a ball of nervous energy if I did not have a rehearsal! I am asking all venues if there is an opportunity for one. I agree with PP, feed people but keep it casual.