Can't rehearse the day before-*UPDATE* Oh yes I can :)

So my advice to brides still searching for a venue- Ask about the availability the night prior so you can rehearse BEFORE you book your date!

Gin- I had the same issue having a Sunday wedding. I could either rehearse VERY early on Saturday (but my officiant couldnt be there then) OR Sunday am. I however was warned when I booked my venue that I would have to have my rehearsal whenever there was an available slot.

How about just skipping the rehearsal, or having it somewhere else? I've been married twice, and have never had a rehearsal. And no one tripped over his/her feet, in spite of that.

I saw your post and is what prompted me to email my venue. Man, I am so pissed....but more so at myself for just not asking sooner.

I'm assuming that your ceremony and reception are at the same place. In that case, I also assume you're getting married outside? I would just suggest doing it in a park, or maybe someones backyard? It may not be ideal, but in my own opinion, rehearsals are for kids who haven't done this before... adults should be able to follow the leader.

In terms of dinner... it will probably be cheaper to have it at another restaurant and not at your reception site. We're doing our dinner at my parents home... mostly because I refuse to pay $4k for a rehearsal dinner and don't want to spoil the awesomeness that will of course be our reception.

It really sucks that this is happening, and I'm really sorry. Be thankful you're finding this out a year out and not next February!

2D bride- half of my BP are German and even my DH doesn't really know how an American ceremony goes so in this case we need the rehearsal.

@Gin, start rehearsing with your German BP now, so they're familiar with how the ceremony will go, then have a rehearsal elsewhere the night before with everyone. I think you'll be fine with some good communication to everybody.

We're having our rehearsal at the Best Man's pizzeria the afternoon before, won't look anything like the venue, but we can go over whatever needs to be known.

Hey Gin ~ Just use any space so that people will understand the order of the ceremony. You can decide the order people need to stand so that they walk in the correct order. Your MOH and yourself will need to know when to pass your bouquet off to free up your hands. Then just be sure you are at the ceremony location 40 min before the ceremony starts just so that you can do a quick walk through so that everyone knows where they are supposed to stand. You and they will be fine!

If your venue is available the morning prior to your wedding, why not do a morning rehearsal and lunch (instead of dinner)? We had to do that b/c our venue was also booked the evening prior, and it worked out wonderfully! We did the rehearsal, then lunch (cheaper than dinner) and then us girls went together for mani/pedi and drinks/dessert that afternoon/evening. My mom invited our out-of-town family to hang out at her house while we got pampered and had a very casual "come when you can if you want" dinner. It was so nice to be able to have the afternoon free with no time-table, no running around in traffic worrying about being late to the rehearsal, etc. I was home by about 8:30 that evening and was able to just relax and visit with my OOT family.

If I had to do it again, I'd probably do it that way regardless of venue availability.

We had a similar situation. Our wedding is on a Sunday and our venue only does rehearsals Mon-Thurs meaning the rehearsal would be at least 3 days before the wedding. No one ever mentioned scheduling the rehearsal and we never thought to ask...so once it finally came up, we found out that Thurs was already booked so now we have our rehearsal FOUR days before the wedding. I was a little stressed about it at first but we decided that whoever can come is welcome, but we aren't expecting everyone to be able to make it. We'll be doing a separate "rehearsal" dinner that Friday night at FSIL's house, so if we need to run thru everything at that point, we can.

I think you can pretty much rehearse the ceremony, go over where everyone will stand/walk, etc anywhere. Do you have a DOC? If so, she can tell everyone where to stand once you are at the venue on the day of.

I was married on a Sunday and had the same problem. I think you will find that very few venues will give you space for a rehearsal on Sat as it's their prime wedding day/night. As frustrating as it is, it's also kinda understandable. So-- I had my rehearsal on Thursday and while not everyone was there (my entire family was OOT), there were enough of the wedding party so that when wedding day it, it wasn’t a problem. Can you have it at the venue on Thursday or even Friday morning? If not—then go with Saturday elsewhere to help with the timing. But try not to stress about this. Srsly. As my sister said “just walk awkwardly slow and you’ll be fine”.

We may or may not have the same problem, because our venue books events on Friday nights. But we had to decide on the space for the rehearsal dinner way before my venue will tell us if we can use the space to rehearse Friday night (a month before). So we decided to book the rehearsal dinner, and just have the rehearsal at a park around the corner from the restaurant if we can't use the venue to rehearse. The rehearsal itself is what's important, it doesn't matter if you can actually do it in the venue space or not. Just do it the night you want, anywhere!

Just do it in a backyard or park nearby. All you really need to have is your officiant and BP, know the lenght of the aisle and call it a day. then have someone go to the church/venue the next day to check sounds etc.

Ours is at 4pm the day before the wedding. Im also not thrilled as it means my BP needs to take the day off work as it's a far drive, where as if we had it at 8pm the'd just need to duck out an hour or 2 early.

**UPDATE**- She emailed me this morning and said I CAN rehearse, I just can't have a Rehearsal dinner bc they have a private party booked. The way she worded it the first time clearly stated they were booked, period. Glad I got that cleared up.