Rehearsal Dinner Cost

It really all depends! We're having a bowling alley rehearsal dinner, also considered a backyard barbeque one too!! It's going to cost us less that $500 for over 40 people. It includes out of towners too!

This is entirely dependent on what you're doing.

We went all out since it was a destination wedding. We had a welcome dinner in which every wedding guest was invited. We ended up with about 70 people at the welcome dinner and the cost for food and drinks came to $5000.00. But we could have had pizza and beer in our hotel suite and spent a few hundred.

We went to a BBQ place within walking distance from the hotel where all of us stayed. We had 25 people and it was a little over $600.

Ours will be about 24 people at a local restaurant by the church and will come to just under $1000.

My friend hosted an $8000 rehearsal dinner. It was at a yaght club for over 80 guests. The bride had an enormous family.

I'm getting married in a state park and my future in-laws want to host us the day before. We aren't rehearsing anything bc it is such a small wp. They have recently taken on their daughter who doesn't work and her 3 children due to a divorce. So I feel compelled to keep costs extremely low. So I have asked them to host a post hike bbq lunch. The costs will be minimal and celebrations will be over by the time dinner rolls around. My goal is to just hang out and relax the evening before and have a bonfire at the cabin we rented.

We had about 10 people, and just ordered in pizza and sodas. So under $100.

We had a church wedding which included their fellowship hall in the budget with full use of the kitchen. Our rehearsal dinner was on Friday a week before the ceremony. Because we reserved the fellowship hall, we were able to start storing the food in the refrigerator Monday night. We, us, our mothers and our BP, cooked all of the food. We prepared fried chicken, barbecue ribs (pork and beef) baked beans, spaghetti, green salad, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, garlic bread, rolls, green beans, corn, collard greens, cornbread, pot roast, pork chops, pies (apple, sweet potato, banana and chocolate cream) cakes (lemon, chocolate, red velvet and pineapple) tea, lemonade, sodas (Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, 7-Up, Mountain Dew, Crush (grape, pineapple, and orange) and coffee. We had 60 people (immediate family, BP, BP SO, officiant and spouse, musicians, DOC, readers, church coordinator and staff). The cost for all of the food was just under $600.

We will have about 40 people in a private room at at restaurant in Center City Philadelphia which will cost us a little over $2,000.

Food will be served family style and the restaurant is BYOB which helped cut back on costs.

View Quoted Comment Your BP had to cook their own dinner for the rehearsal dinner? The whole point is that it is a thank you for them.

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And let's not even touch the safety issues.

OP, definitely don't self-cater.

We’re hosting ours at a private banquet area at a local restaurant. For the wedding party and their significant others, parents, some OOT family—about 40 ppl. Minimum food cost is $1500 buffet style which includes beverages and alcohol.

We are hosting about 20-25 people at our house for the rehearsal dinner. We decided to do a theme so we picked fiesta. We are having a local taco place cater it and then we are going to have beer and wine. It is going to cost us bout $350.00 for everything.

FMIL wanted to invite OOT guests as well to the RD, ~100 people, so we had to rent out a whole restaurant to fit them all. It costed about $12,000.

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This is one of the most realistic of the estimates I have seen. Now that more people must be invited--outside of the family and wedding party, invitations, stamps, drinks, appetizers, the dinner and dessert, decorations/ flowers, the venue (restaurant) and possibly 80-100 people--you are looking at five figures--easily.