How early to plan rehearsal dinner?

Our rehearsal dinner is at our venue - they have a great restaurant on site - and our coordinator said we didn't need to officially book the dinner until a month or so from the wedding. I booked the rehearsal itself and just asked her to pencil us in for the dinner while I coordinate the details with my FMIL.

I ran into the same problem! Either a place was crazy expensive, wouldn't let me book so far in advance, or gave me the boot because Luke Bryan is performing that night. One place was like "wellll we need to see the Cavs schedule " it's September. No bball people. I truly do not understand why these places wouldn't want a guaranteed 30 people, deposit in hand.

ETA: I ended up booking a place attached to our venue about 5.5 months before our date. I didn't want it originally because you can see into our venue and there will be another wedding that night, but we can draw the curtains. Also it has chocolate martinis so I'll be a happy camper.

Thanks, I'm glad I'm not alone! I'm getting married in a smaller town, about 30,000 people, so there are limited restaurant options. But FH wants us to have a nice sit-down dinner. I've only found two restaurants in town so far that have private rooms - one is the most expensive restaurant in town and the other is the one that blew me off

I'm getting married in February of 2016 and have already started the search for a rehearsal dinner location. Yes, people are surprised that I'm planning this far out, but if we find the *perfect* spot and it's already book I don't want to be disappointed.

I'd be wary of booking with a place that's so disorganize they can't get you on the books now for an event in November. But maybe try calling back between lunch and dinner to speak with the events manager and you'll have better luck. Just explain that you'd prefer to get the space reserved now.

I am getting married in December and we currently in the process of booking the rehearsal dinner venue. The weekend is a popular Christmas party weekend so we don't want to be limited to super expensive places or having to drive out of the downtown area. Interestingly, there has not been any pushback about the advance planning.

My wedding checklist said that we should book our rehearsal dinner about 5 months ahead of time. We booked ours at the beginning of April for July 24.

Not too early IMO. My FMIL has been planning ours for over a month. I will say that the location wouldn't let us book until 6 months out, so it's not unheard of. However, they should understand you wanting to plan ahead. I'm totally with you on checking things off the list.

We booked our rehearsal dinner venue at the end of January. Five months out.

For my brother's wedding, my mom booked it 4 months in advance. I feel like if they seriously made you wait until a few weeks before the dinner, it would get booked by someone else without you even knowing. I don't think you're crazy at all for wanting to plan things early and get them booked/out of the way!

Parents and BP will go out for dinner before we hit the rehearsal at 7-8pm. probably pizza! Then we're going back to the hotel to relax and swim.

We reserved ours 4 months out at a restaurant.