Low Cost Rehearsal DInner

Its really suppose to be wedding party, parents, officiant, and maybe out of town guests if theres not a million of them. i dont think you neeeeeeed to invite all brothers and sisters. unless you want to! lol. but it depends on how formal the wedding is too. example: im probably gonna have the rehearsal dinner at my grandmas house in the backyard(where i live now and its right down the street from the church). im gonna make some food myself, and maybe order a few pizzas. nothing too crazy... buttttt my wedding is very casual, and we want to try to keep things as casual as possible to try to get the families to bond... lol. so if yours is a bit more formal... go to costco and buy some groceries, have your mom or grandma, aunt, moh, bm's whoever help you make a big nice meal for everyone... have candles lit everywhere and put on some music... serve some cheap wine. (you can always use carafes instead of putting the bottles out. only a real wine conniousseur is gonna tell the difference)

And there you go! a nice rehearsal dinner, for little money and very personal for everyone. hope i helped! cuz going out is nottttttt cheap

If you don't want to be the chef that night, Chinese restaurants, Mexican food restaurants, are pretty inexpensive per person. You can also order pans of lasagna and pastas and put together a big salad and have a buffet style dinner at yours or a family members house We are going to be doing our rehearsal dinner at a local small chinese restaurant, it is very reasonalbly priced and its great food!

Since you both have bigger families would a pot luck be out of the question? Have everyone bring a dish (and they could even bring a copy of the recipe for you and your FH to start a recipe collection/book) and then you could provide the place settings, drinks, and a dish or two yourself. This would make the atmosphere more casual as well and I think everyone would be more likely to be mingling and getting to know each other better.

We are having our rehersal dinner at a local pizza place. We are just going to have several different pizza's and some appitizers and pop. Nothing too fancy and very relaxed!! It will be less expensive too.

Since your wedding is late October...I would definitely say spaghetti dinner or a fish fry. If it's not too cold where you are, a cook out is another option. That's what I'm doing...hotdogs, hamburgers, chicken, some salad options, and a few beers...LOL

We are ordering Pizza and using the Church Hall.

Since we are having mostly a DIY wedding, We have the hall for the night before. We are ordering in pizza & wings then setting up the tables, decorations, etc..

@LoveDevine - I love that idea but will need to still think of a place to have the cookout b/c I do not want to put my family out the night before the wedding (myself and my bridesmaids are already spending the night there and we will have all our stuff there as well). Unfortunately, my FH parents live over an hour away and none of our siblings own a place big enough to do that. I might look into renting a small community space somewhere. Also, almost all of our guests will be from out-of-town so I will DEFINITELY not be inviting them to the rehearsal dinner

Thank you everyone for your ideas! I will most likely do a combination of all your suggestions. I love Wedding Wire!

Just one more thought. If you can find the "spot" and don't want to cook in addition to pizza you can do places like Qdoba or Jason's Deli (sandwich place) for pretty cheap per person. We did that for my law school graduation party and it was a big hit. I think we paid $500 for everything and had like 50 people. I would think a BBQ place would also be cheap. Also grocery store delis will do like chicken wings/finger trays, cold cut trays, sandwich trays, etc. for cheap.

Great idea jlm826, thanks for adding!

When we got married (in 1996 lol), we were young and broke and had to do it ourselves.


The apartment complex that we were moving in to had a community room that we could use for free. We bought lasagnas, garlic bread, and bags of salad from costco. My aunt from out of town, who wasn't in the wedding, set it all up while we were at the rehearsal.
It turned out to be really special. There are usually plenty of people who are willing to pitch in if you don't mind asking.