How much food for Welcome/rehearsal Dinner?

I'm getting BBQ from a local place delivered to our rehearsal dinner space (my friends yard). I'm getting all the beer/wine and other drinks as they go on sale. Our estimate for everything (including rental tables and chairs) is $1000.

Forgot to add I am having 50 people at the rehearsal dinner

We are, family style Italian food. I think light appetizers are okay, but maybe do it at a different time? Earlier or later? And let people know, so they know to eat on their own time. Cheaper options for full meals would be BBQ or Mexican food too.

I was lucky to find 2 options that are around $1300. One is a bbq place, whole restaurant, and the other is at a brewery restaurant, separate room. So now we will just choose! I did feel that a full meal would be better but my mom kept saying light apps was fine. Thanks!

We have a lot of out of town family who haven't seen our house yet and most of our siblings/wedding party have kids (some not invited to the wedding) so we wanted to keep it family friendly so they aren't apart 2 nights in a row and also show our family our home. We are smoking a pork shoulder with KC BBQ sauce to represent where my fiance is from and doing a low country boil to represent where I am from (coastal NC) and making some sides in advance and my bridesmaids husbands will heat up for us while we are at the rehearsal (their excuse to open a beer earlier, haha). Then we'll have homemade pies instead of a groom's cake and a s'mores bar for the kids. Renting tables/chairs, buying cheap linens in case they get ruined, using a combo of cheaper and/or DIY decor and a few things also being used at the wedding, buying food and alcohol and expecting to spend no more than $500.

My friend catered Chipolte and beer at her house for a laid back rehearsal dinner, so you can get creative but the bridal party should get a meal after the rehearsal. Especially if the rehearsal runs over a hour. If you are combining to welcome your wedding guest with the rehearsal dinner it should also be a meal. If you really want to do light appetizers, you can host a thank you breakfast or brunch after the wedding to say goodbye before your traveling guests leave. Good luck!

Full meal for sure. Or enough apps to make a full meal. We are keeping it casual so doing fajitas, taco bar all the trimmings and then dessert.

Originally I wanted to do pizza and beer. However, that wasn't going to work since our BP would have to travel all over my county. We opted to do dinner at a restaurant that is a sister business to our venue. It's literally 5 min away and bc we are a couple of the venue, we receive a 10% discount for dinner. My mother offered to pay for it-- thank goodness! We will have 22 adults and 1 child. It's running at $713 total. This includes a sit down dinner for the adults, chicken fingers and fries for the childrens meal and a 42 piece assorted dessert tray. Adult beverages will be available for purchase through a cash bar. I opted for this since we are having a 5 hour open bar the night of the wedding. I didn't wanting to get stuck paying the tab for people to drink 2 nights in a row.

I agree with what others have said about a meal. We are keeping our costs down and doing pizzas and some salads from our favorite restaurant. For us, it is more of a welcome party - the majority of our guests are from OOT and will be getting in late afternoon so we wanted to have something for them to do and make sure they are fed. Plus, we have a lot of our families who haven't met so figure this is a less formal way to do that before the big day!

Glad you found a couple options to provide a full meal. Just tell your mom it's called a Rehearsal "Dinner", not Rehearsal "Apps", lol!