Rehearsal Dinner Help Please

The rehearsal dinner location doesn't necessarily have to be at the venue! If that's where you want to hold it, go for it! But if you prefer somewhere else, you can definitely do that. You can hold the rehearsal at the venue, and then all meet at a local pizza place or a banquet hall or even someone's backyard for dinner and socializing. You could decorate the venue, then hold the rehearsal, then head out to a different location for a more casual dinner.

Is there an option to just have the rehearsal at the venue and then the group goes somewhere else for the dinner?

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I was thinking this too! You can always just rehearse at the venue and go to a nearby restaurant for dinner. That's the way I've always seen it done when I've been in weddings. And you could even create a menu with the restaurant to keep it within your budget instead of having people order whatever they wanted.

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Oh sorry I guess I should have also included that if I don’t reserve the venue for rehearsal dinner night, then someone else could swoop in and have any event there that evening. So I am not guaranteed any usage of that space unless I also book the dinner. Does that change your advice? Please let me know thank you

View Quoted Comment It looks like your rehearsal dinner would be on October 9, which is a Saturday, and your wedding that Sunday (October 10). Is that accurate? If so, it's likely that someone would book a Saturday wedding in October, so the venue might not be available. Personally, I wouldn't pay that much per person for rehearsal dinner (unless you didn't have a lot of people attending the dinner), though it's totally up to you and your budget. You could rehearse at a park or somewhere else other than the venue (really just getting an idea of who will stand where, the order people will walk down the aisle, etc), unless your venue has such a unique setup that you need the actual venue to rehearse. If you're not willing to pay those prices, I would plan to hold the rehearsal elsewhere (though if the venue ends up being available, great!).

I still think it isn't really necessary to use the venue!

My fiancé is a police officer and works nights (and so does half of his wedding party). They are all off on the night of the wedding, but most will have to work the night before so we decided against a real "rehearsal dinner" the night before all together. I think if you have a DOC and your wedding party is all adults, the rehearsal itself isn't as big of a deal! If it was between the two, I would personally just do the dinner and save the money you'd spend at the venue for rehearsal! But that's all depending on how important you think the rehearsal is!

Hope this is helpful!!

We did our rehearsal dinner at our venue and it was so nice to not have to travel to another location. Everyone was on time, because they were already there, and it was just nice to have that easy transition. To me, it is worth the extra cost.

You could try and see about hosting your rehearsal on a Friday too if needed, I'm a big fan of practicing at the venue itself, but I'm from a small-ish town so it's easier to manage.

Rehearsal dinners don't have to be really upscale either, we're planning on doing pizza and beer for the most part at ours, but to each their own. I think if you get to set-up the night before during your dinner but might not get to set-up beforehand at all it might be worth the peace of mind in that extra cost for catering.

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Rehearsing the ceremony is done at the venue so everyone can see where to stand, how long it takes to get from point A to B, etc.

Pre-Covid, the dinner would be at a restaurant. You can have pizzas and sodas (typical rehearsal dinner food) delivered from your favorite takeout spot. But since many do not currently allow inside seating, it sounds like eating at the venue would make the most sense logistically.

I'd recommend rehearsing definitely, but if they are making you use their facility for the dinner too, I'd probably look elsewhere. Our venue offers a dinner but it's not mandatory to rehearse there, so we are going there for rehearsal and then having the dinner elsewhere. So I'd suggest probably doing it at a restaurant or in a park or something like that. My friend did NOT rehearse and everything was off for her, her bridal party didn't really know what to do and it looked like they winged it. So I'd at least suggest doing the walk and lineup so the bridal party gets a feel for your vision.