What exactly do you do at a rehearsal dinner?

Typically you rehearse the processional, the actual ceremony, and the recessional. Then you would provide dinner for everyone who attends to thank them. It can be at the venue, a restaurant, or someone's home. You can do a formal plated meal or something as simple as pizza and beer.

I've been in over 5 weddings and every rehearsal is different but typically you rehearse where the wedding party starts walking into the ceremony at, who walks with who, timing, and do a quick..... We are gathered here." blah blah blah" I pronounce you married and then how you want everyone to walk out. Then you usually provide dinner for the wedding party, some family and plus ones of the wedding party. I've been to ones that have a formal seated rehearsal dinner but we have such a small wedding that we are just having a BBQ with lawn games.

Usually the rehearsal is first (typically at the venue) and you do a run through of the ceremony. Then the dinner is after and is more casual. I've heard the father of the groom speak (usually because he hosts it) and a few other people. But then it's just mingling.

Well, there’s a rehearsal and a rehearsal dinner. Neither are strictly necessary (though if you have a rehearsal you do need to feed those who were involved!). A rehearsal, yes, you do in fact “practice the wedding” — you can go over the order you’re walking, do a quick run down of the order of events, and practice walking out. It generally gives everyone an idea of where they need to be when. It’s not necessary— most weddings are very straight forward and formulaic, although you may find it helpful (and/or calming) if you don’t have a lot of wedding experiences. But, it’s totally okay to skip. If you do, just touch base with the wedding party (and any readers if you have them) so they know where they’re supposed to be /stand/sit /what have you .

IF you do a rehearsal, then you need a rehearsal dinner, effectively as a way to thank those who rehearsed for their time. The dinner could really be anything (pizza and wine at your place) as long as you’re providing for those people. But many end up turning it into a bigger event— a sit down dinner, opening it up to include more extended family and out of town guests. But none of that is a must. Some people do this kind of rehearsal dinner without actually rehearsing — and that’s fine too! It doesn’t technically have to be the day before the wedding, what’s important if you’re actually rehearsing is the wedding party’s availability (I wouldn’t do it in the middle of a weekday , as this wouldn’t be something I’d want to make people take off work for).

We skipped a rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. MOST of our wedding was out of town guests, so I didn’t want to get into feeding them all (and having, essentially, a second wedding), and my wedding party were all also mostly from out of town and traveling in, so really not available in advance to actually do the rehearsing. Instead, we opted just to host a super informal “welcome drinks” at a bar by the hotel— some drinks and apps open invite to anyone who had traveled early and was in the area the night before the wedding.

You typically do a run down of how the wedding will go ( timing and placing mostly) then bride groom their parents and the wedding party have dinner. It used to be that the groom's parents hosted the rehearsal dinner but nowadays I think more couples are hosting it on their own. We are doing our rehearsal then hacing everyone over to our house for a bbq.

Our rehearsal will be the day before the wedding at our venue. The coordinators told us to allow about 1hr to 1.5hrs for the rehearsal.

Afterwards, we're doing things less traditional. My fiance and I and our wedding party will split up to have some time together. I plan on taking my ladies to dinner, running a couple errands, and then we'll all get back together later in the evening to hang out.

The ones I've been in yes, it's a mock trial run of the actual wedding. So you can see how things go, and everyone knows what to do (how fast to walk, where to stand, etc)

Thank you everyone!! This really helped!! His mom wanted to be apart of the wedding and this would be perfect for her!!

We are doing our rehearsal dinner at our venue. We will have our parents, us, our flower girl and ring bearer, and bridal party there (plus one of my fiancé’s grandparents because his grand father is marrying us!) there will be about 20 of us. We will practice walking to the ceremony site, ect. I’m sure that part will be short and sweet. Then we will have dinner and wine there (they have the best food hello that’s why we booked, lol jk). Then I’m sure there will be some speeches that some of our bridal party or parents would like to say. Then we will finish off with gifts for our parents and bridal party. 😁 hope this helps! (I watch lots of YouTube videos on how to get ready for the big day) it helps!

I'm glad I saw this. I had the same question! I know about different parts of weddings, but have never been to weddings where I needed to be apart of this type of stuff.

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Glad I could help! lol

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Youtube! I didn't even think about that. Thanks for that suggestion!

(our venue supposedly has amazing food too, yeee)

View Quoted Comment You’re very welcome