Post # 1
Member
2157 posts
Buzzing bee
Hey Bees!
Just wanted to see what you all think about rehearsal dinners.
Fiance and I are planning a church wedding with a casual reception to follow (pig roast, park setting, etc). I was talking with my future MIL and she has offered to pay for the rehearsal dinner. I brought up the idea of possibly not having one so she could use that money toward something else (more booze, the band, venue, etc). I also don’t really see a point of having a rehearsal dinner. I understand it’s essentially a thank you for everyone participating in the wedding, but we’ll be spending all of the following day with them and providing dinner, drinks, etc.
My future MIL is a very nice woman and I love her to death, but she even kind of grimmaced at the thought of a pig roast/casual reception. I don’t think she really understands that weddings don’t have to be a big elaborate celebration like they were when she got married. And she is very concerned with others’ opinions of her and her family (including me). So I tihnk that is why she is so insitant on having a rehearsal dinner. Though I don’t think her oldest son had a rehearsal dinner last summer (though, it was a destination wedding).
We’ve come to the decision to just do a casual dinner, burgers and beers at a pub close to the church we’ll be getting married in.
What are your thoughts??
Post # 3
Member
1193 posts
Bumble bee
I think rehearsals are unnecessary unless there is something specifically unique about your ceremony.
Having said that, I’ve never been to a formal rehearsal dinner. They all tend to be very low-key affairs with casual food, mingling, and drinks. I think that burgers and beers sound wonderful and a great way to unwind with your party.
Post # 4
Member
3260 posts
Sugar bee
Sounds like you worked it out perfectly.
Post # 5
Member
1670 posts
Bumble bee
I was just in a wedding where they ordered pizza at the grooms family house for the rehearsal – it went just great – there were plenty of chairs and plenty of booze. Very casual but fun.
Post # 6
Member
1161 posts
Bumble bee
@CaroBee: This is what I’m planning on doing if we end up having one. I’m glad someone has done it and it worked out!
@MichiganGirl24: If you’ve got a lot of moving parts to your ceremony, then it might be a good idea to have a rehearsal. But if it’s just a stand in line and walk type of thing, it’s probably not that big of a deal to go without one…even if FMIL is adamant on having one. The main reason I’m considering one is because I’ve got 3 little kids involved in the ceremony and I don’t want them to bug out and not know what to do on the day of.
Post # 7
Member
2157 posts
Buzzing bee
@Galang_Gyal: We plan on having the rehersal, I just wasn’t very keen on having a dinner afterward, at least not the one my future MIL wanted us to have.
@CaroBee: That sounds like a great idea! I’ll have to keep something like that in mind. Maybe family style Italian at home?
Post # 8
Member
1009 posts
Bumble bee
I’m so glad we had a rehearsal. I’m not a big crier, but I LOST IT during the vow portion of the rehearsal. Thankfully, by getting that out of the way, I was very much composed at the actual ceremony 🙂
Our rehearsal dinner was casual. We basically did carry-out catering from a local restaurant, and then set up a buffet. We ate on paper plates. Our dinner was just for people actually involved in the ceremony (and their families). Had we opened it up to all OOT guests, we’d be hosting 2 receptions and that’s just too much $$ (we paid for everything ourselves). Since most of our OOT guests were staying at the same hotel, we went to the hotel with some bottles of wine so we could greet them, without having to feed them (though we did do a casual brunch of OOT guests the day after the wedding).
Post # 9
Member
133 posts
Blushing bee
@MichiganGirl24: I think rehearsal dinners are a nice way to say an extra thank-you to those helping you out, but not an absolute necessity. It sounds like a pub dinner fits in well with the tone of your wedding over all. We are doing a church wedding as well with, what sounds like, a more formal evening reception. FILs are hosting the rehearsal dinner and we are having ham, scalloped potatoes and salad buffet-style in their home!
Having had my own FMIL issues, I feel your pain. We originally weren’t going to have a rehearsal dinner, just because of how our access times to the church and the hall worked out on the day before the wedding (Friday). It turned out that hosting a rehearsal dinner was really important to my fiance’s parents and they wanted to host it on the Thursday evening before so that we could still have one without having to further complicate the Friday evening. I thought it was kind of silly to go to that much effort just to have a rehearsal dinner for the sake of having a rehearsal dinner, but it made them really happy and gave them the opportunity to have a little bit of their own moment and do something extra for us in amongst all the rest of the wedding activities. Obviously you know your FMIL, but maybe she realized how much she missed doing something like that for her older son?
Post # 10
Member
3421 posts
Sugar bee
Well we want to do a rehearsal in the afternoon then go out with our bridal party to a pub or something…
Post # 11
Member
2775 posts
Sugar bee
If you’re having a rehearsal, a rehearsal dinner afterward is a must. It can be as fancy or as casual as you want, but it is customary and expected that you’ll feed people after having them come out to rehearse your wedding.
Burgers and beer at a pub sounds great!
Post # 12
Member
495 posts
Helper bee
We didn’t disagree on much in wedding planning, but we did disagree on whether we ought to hold a pre-wedding dinner of any kind. I won, and we had family over to oue house the night before for pizza, salad, beer and pop.
It was crowded and chaotic and lots of fun, and I’m so glad we did it. It gave us a chance to talk to all our older guests at length, and we were able to focus (a bit) more on our friends and younger family at the wedding. It was also kind of a practice run (for me) with our photographer, who was a family member from out of town who I met that night for the first time! We got to go over details of the next day with all the relevant participants, too.
Oh, and since our ceremony was just us (no wedding party), we billed it as a “welcome dinner” instead.
(And it was an excuse to buy a cute new dress, if that’s your thing!)
Post # 13
Member
846 posts
Busy bee
It’s something I have only ever seen in movies or heard from brides here on the Bee. I have never attended a rehearsal dinner in my life and I’ll not have one either. People would think we were being strange if we did.
For my wedding the bridal party will be staying over the night before (the venue is also a hotel) and having an sunset picnic on the venue’s massive lawns. So I guess that counts, though even that is not common around these parts.
Post # 14
Member
758 posts
Busy bee
We are just having a welcome drinks and light appetizers thing at the hotel. When we crunched the numbers it would have been 70 people for rehearsal dinner following my FMIL’s guidelines and I wasn’t comfortable asking her to cover that.
Post # 15
Member
2694 posts
Sugar bee
I had one after the rehearsal and it took place at my house. My mom and stepdad made all the food and drink and it was delicious, low key, casual and fun. I spent very little on it too and we had over 40 people there. I felt a rehearsal was a muct for us since the bm had to walk in a specific way to match the beat of the song and they needed to know what order to walk in (everyone in the bridal party). We also had the officiant there and we signed the marriage contract that day.
