Talk about your rehearsal dinner/welcome party

We had a destination wedding and decided to have a welcome party with all of our guests. I dressed up, but it was pretty casual. My mom’s family rented a huge AirBnB and prepared a ton of snacks/passed apps and hot Italian entrees. The only thing they underestimated was how much my cousins and the groomsmen drink! I think they ran out of booze with a few minutes left in the party haha.


It was super fun and I’m glad I had extra time to hang out with my guests!

We’re having a rehearsal dinner just inviting wedding party and their spouses. Our guest will be able to choose from chicken fish or beef and a small variety of appetizers.

Everything isn't set in stone yet because FMIL is hellbent on us having it in the banquet room of our hotel lol, but we want something more laid back and casual.

Our plan is to have it at a local pizza place downtown, and it's on the same street as our hotel. We'll be rehearsing at the venue, but can't afford to rent it out for our dinner AND pay for catering. We'll be inviting anyone that's involved in the ceremony (wedding party, parents, grandparents, officiant) and their significant others.

After dinner, we plan on going back to the hotel and having a 'meet and mingle' with the rest of our guests that have traveled to see us. We want them to know we appreciate them traveling so far to be with us!

Our rehearsal dinner is at an Italian restaurant at Caesars Palace. We aren’t inviting all out of town guests & bridal party (55 total). This includes plus ones. It’ll be a more formal event, but nothing crazy.

Casual Oktoberfest themed buffet open to everyone.

We were just talking about this and we're not sure what we're going to do. Our rehearsal is on Thursday, wedding Saturday, and we don't really have a wedding party, so I had been envisioning some sort of casual open house (maybe at his parents' house?) on Friday night that's open to anyone who wants to pop by. FH had apparently been thinking more of getting a room at a restaurant and doing a dinner. Luckily, we have a year to figure it out--wedding is a year from today!

It was casual. we were able to reserve this outdoor patio area of a restaurant and they were so great! we had a set menu people had options of ordering off of which included a drink, the entree and dessert!

We rented a rooftop party room and invited the bridal party + SOs, immediate + extended family, and out of town guests. We had 4 heavy app stations for dinner and cupcake towers and fruit platters for dessert, and we hired bartenders to serve wine, beer, and champagne. It was a lot of fun!

We aren't having a formal rehearsal dinner, but a nice meal before the wedding. It'll be us, our parents, MOH, and bestman and just talk through the ceremony. His parents will simply seat themselves with our guests, my groom, MOH and bestman will walk down separately, and my dad is escorting me. Not a lot of complicated steps there.

My FMIL is planning our rehearsal dinner, so it will probably be fancier than our wedding 😂❤️
It will be at our venue, for the wedding party + SOs, and just a few out of town relatives that are very close to the groom.

We are having a slider station and a taco station, with a beer/wine bar. And we will have ax throwing after dinner (my fiancé wanted this at the reception, and I didn’t, so he compromised by having it at the rehearsal dinner. ). Will be a really fun night with the wedding party!

Since 90% of our guests will be from out of state, we are including them in our rehearsal party. It will be on the patio of our favorite Italian restaurant. Very casual. We'll be offering several charcuterie boards, large tossed salad and a variety of pizzas. Guests will pay for any alcohol. I love that we'll have this extra time to visit with our friends, and I think it's a nice way of thanking them for spending the money to attend our wedding.

Ours is going to be at our venue and we're catering in Mexican food and using the venue's bar. It's just going to be our bridal party, their significant others, and our parents and will be pretty laid back.