How do you book a rehearsal dinner without knowing your rehearsal date yet?

Your rehearsal should be the day before your wedding. I would go ahead and book that with your venue and wherever you’d like to have your dinner.

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Usually that is the case but I have seen where some venues scheduled events the day before so the rehearsal had to be a few days before. And the venue said they would let the couple know a month or two ahead of time. That's crazy! I let my venue know that I needed to know ASAP. They had an event scheduled the night before my rehearsal so ours will be at noon the day before

View Quoted Comment I know traditionally is the day before, however I was told by my venue that they can't guarantee I will be able to have my rehearsal the day before. They said they will have a better idea as we get closer to the date, 2 to 3 weeks before which doesn't help me at all.

View Quoted Comment If you book the space for a rehearsal, then I don’t understand why this is the case. If you book and pay for a space, then it should be yours. If your venue won’t let you book it because they are hoping to book a pricier event, then they are greedy and I would find a new venue. We booked our wedding venue for Saturday and our venue for the rehearsal the Friday before. We had no issues.

View Quoted Comment Sorry, should've included this in my initial question. The problem is our rehearsal dinner has to be a different location then my wedding venue because they don't do rehearsal dinners there.

Unfortunately I don’t think that it’s really possible. I would look at perspective dinner venues and ask them when the latest is that you can contact them for booking, then collaborate with your venue to figure out a date ASAP.

Well rehearsal dinner is just dinner so it should be easier to plan.
My venue gave me the date the day I signed the contract.

If you’re having the ceremony at a traditional “reception” venue this can definitely be difficult! I’m having a Friday wedding with the ceremony and reception in the same location, so I know the bride having a Saturday wedding will be inconvenienced if she’s having her ceremony there too. Definitely discuss what your venue has booked as of now and they may be able to give you somewhat of an idea-if you’re having a Saturday wedding and somebody else is already booked for a Friday wedding, you’ll know it won’t be able to be the day before. I’d also reach out to whichever locations you’re considering to host your rehearsal dinner and see what their availability is around the time of your wedding (week before) and explain the situation. They’ll definitely be able to give you some guidance.

Typically its the day before !!! HOWEVER, I did not want everyone hungover so i opted for 2 days before the wedding. You cant book the rehearsal dinner without the date

Daughter's venue held rehearsal for a Saturday evening wedding on Thursday late afternoon. We knew that from the time we signed the venue contract. However, we only booked the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner about 3 months in advance (a local brewery/restaurant); for a Thursday night in mid-January, we didn't really have any trouble securing a reservation for 45 people (it's a big place and they have a great space for private parties). I think a lot depends on where you're located and how many options there are. We're in a major metropolitan suburban area and were looking for a week night reservation in mid-January, so it wasn't hard. Depending on your guest list, maybe you can consider someone's home and bringing in simple catering as a flexible back-up plan?

You have to have a date. You can do this a month before the wedding. You just need to book a space for a dinner.

So for us, the rehearsal is still the day before (a Friday) at 4pm, but if they have another event that gets booked between here and there we will either have to adjust the time or adjust the location (aka use a room that is not our ceremony room). We booked dinner at 7:00 because it will include all oot guests as well as the ceremony participants and we wanted to give everyone enough time to get in, get to the hotel, get settled, and back out...or at least as many as possible. We have informed the wedding party that they basically need to be "on call" all day Friday but we will have my brother record the whole thing just in case since the majority of the party is coming from out of state (CA, AZ, CO, FL, DC) and we understand sometimes things happen that are out of our control. This way, should anything happen we can show them the video so they aren't completely lost.

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Hey Rosmery! Were you able to get a date for the rehearsal from your venue yet?

View Quoted Comment Hi, no, not yet. They told me we'll know better in about a month from now, so fingers crossed it allows me enough time to find a place we want for rehearsal dinner.