Is anyone having a more casual rehearsal dinner?

We rented the church hall for $25 and are ordering chinese food and pizza for those who don't like chinese

We are using the church hall and having soda, water and pizza. Maybe a salad too.

I don't see why not! Sounds like a fun time to me! If anyone has any problems with that plan...well then they can host something fancier lol

That's a great idea. We were thinking about it but we didn't have enough space to do it. If you have space, you should go for it. Just make sure it doesn't end up costing you more than if you did a prix fixe menu at a moderately priced restaurant. I tend to overbuy when I have people over :-) but that could be just me.

Sorry I still have nothing to contribute to sauerkraut, although I like it :-)

Our rehearsal dinner is going to just be our bridal party and their husband/wife and our parents and grandparents. Nothing huge, cooking out and probably just having Giant Eagle "cater" it for us with meat and cheese trays. Why spend money on a rehearsal dinner for everyone when the very next day is the wedding?

After rehearsal we're going back to my place and the MOH is catering some goodies for us...

Yup, ours is very informal. We are ordering in barbecue!

Thanks everyone! I was feeling really guilty about this idea for some reason.. thanks for the support!

We moved ours from the venue and opted not to have it in the hotel because of how much they both cost, we are having ours at a japanese restaurant instead You're already spending enough on the wedding, I don't see rehearsal dinner as a huge priority to be lavish either

We had ours at my mil's house...she made baked ziti, salad, and iced tea!

it was perfect, small and inexpensive

We are taking everyone out for pizza at one of our nicer pizza places, but nothing real fancy.

We're having pizza delivered to us :]

We had ours at a pizza place. We booked the party room, had unlimited pizza (it was included in the price) and kept the pitchers of beer coming. For dessert, we had the groom's cake. It was low-key and perfect for our crowd.

We did a country style buffet that way everyone got to eat what they like and could eat as much as they wanted. the price was pretty reasonable as well. was casual but good. maybe look into some buffet places you may get a group discount

Oh Mrs. C, I LOVE the idea of doing the "groom's cake" at the rehearsal! I really wanted to do a groom's cake for our reception, but we ended up not having a display cake at all (it's just being served) and so I thought a groom's cake might be silly without the "regular" cake!

We are doing FFIL's "famous" fish fry for our rehearsal dinner. I love the idea of a casual dinner lets people relax and have a good time before the big day

We had ours at one of the park pavilions, but made it more of a "Welcome to Town" dinner because most everyone traveled in for our wedding.

Ours will be at the pizzeria that FH and his BM work at. Delicious and budget friendly.

Great question. I've been the sole planner for pretty much everything. FH and I are paying for everything (except dessert - thx dad). So nothing about our wedding is "traditional" $ wise and we're not wealthy. FH's parents are not stepping up for the rehearsal dinner. I was getting bitter to have to plan another event but thankfully my mom talked me off the ledge and we came up with a solution. COSTCO! Lol, we're doing a make your own sandwich bar, seasonal caprese salad, bruschetta (stepdad is making this), wine/beer/water/sodas, chips and i'll get something easy for dessert. we're doing it at the venue since we get to stay and be there all weekend. DONE. the dinner the night before is really special because that's when you have this rare moment to spend time with your family. i actually stayed up late writing a speech i hope to deliver to everyone. but yeah, we're going casual; paper plates, etc

We are just going to order pizza after the rehearsal.