Rehearsal dinners

I recently read a wedding planner blog on the importance of a rehearsal dinner. It advised couples to do things like hire their wedding photographer (for an extra fee, of course) to come shoot pics of the evening, hire a party rental company to come jazz up the dinner space, perhaps hire a mini bus to transport all the out of towners. I read this and I thought "holy hell, its no wonder people have such a hard time with the wedding industry." Eesh, when I googled rehearsal dinner, I even found a website dedicated solely to planning just your rehearsal dinner.


There is no reason you need all this stuff to make your rehearsal dinner a great event. The rehearsal, and the following dinner, are meant to ease your mind. The purpose of the rehearsal is to make sure everyone involved in the wedding knows their place, knows what to do during the ceremony. The following dinner (which is by no means mandatory, but any excuse to surround yourself with those you love works for me!) is meant to gather all the wedding participants in one place so you have a chance to thank them, and to eat, drink, and be merry. (Traditionally, parties were held on the wedding eve to chase evil spirits away. The more noise the better. Oh yeah!!).

Source: 100layercake.com via Rachel on Pinterest

In sane and practical wedding land, lets try this. Wedding rehearsal (not necessarily at the ceremony site), followed by potluck dinner at mom's house. Or, one of my favorites, one couple I worked with went to their favorite drive-in for dinner, then invited everyone back to their place to unwind. Couples use the dinner as a chance to pass out any thank you gifts, hear and give toasts, sit back, relax and still have an awesome kick-off to the wedding celebration. There doesn't need to be any stress involved, nor does this need to be a huge expense. Put a little creative thought into the evening, absolutely. But be practical. You don't need to hire a party rental  company to make the evening memorable ... you just need to be creative and happy and know how to have a good time.

Just don't drink TOO much, because the next day YOU'RE GETTING MARRIED!!