How much food for Welcome/rehearsal Dinner?

We're just doing pizza. It's actually kind of exciting for our rehearsal dinner guests because our area is known for good pizza and many of the guests that have moved miss the pizza near us.

We're renting a room in a restaurant. Usually around 5-6pm people are ready for dinner, so light appetizers might not be enough. I was able to find a restaurant for $400 for 30 people, which came out to $14/person. You don't even need to do that, you can always keep it super informal and get some $5 pizzas from little Caesar's.

My fiance and I were just going to do pizza until his parents offered to plan the dinner, but I think if you offer a variety of appetizers and finger foods you should be good! In my opinion any food is good food

We had a cocktail hour and then a buffet dinner. We rented out a little restaurant.

5-6 is dinner time. You should serve a meal. Like PP have said though it doesn't have to be anything fancy though.

We were actually discussing having a rehearsal lunch instead of a dinner. Our venue is having our actual rehearsal at 11 am. I would find it weird if we had everyone wait until 4 or 5 to have the dinner. So the plan is to do a lunch and then go hang out with all of our out of town guests for awhile afterwards. Having it at lunch time will be at least $5 a person cheaper than at dinner time

No, you need more than just light apps, you need to serve a full meal.

Ours was a cocktail hour with antipasto platters, followed by 3-course, plated dinner at an Italian restaurant. Rehearsal/welcome dinners are big in my family, but you don't need to do all that if it's not in budget. You could go as simple as pizza and wings, but it does need to be a real dinner.

At 5-6pm I would expect a meal. All of the rehearsal dinners I've been to served a meal even if it was just pizza or a BBQ at someone's house. It doesn't have to be fancy!

Serve a meal since you're having it at dinner time. You could do heavy apps, but that'll most likely be more expensive. Pizza is always an inexpensive option.

Definitely do a full meal. There are cheaper ways to go about it like a taco bar, pizza, italian catering. But you should 100% feed people if it's dinner time.

We also rented a room in a restaurant for our rehearsal dinner so it's been easier to just go and be served than have to set up and find a caterer.

Light appetizers isn’t enough. We are doing passed appetizers and food stations for our welcome party since the restaurant isn’t big enough to seat 150+ people at once and we imagine it as more of a come and go thing. But for only 35 people definitely just get a room at a restaurant and do a meal.

That's dinner time, and you should definitely do a full meal! The rehearsal dinner is really supposed to be a "thank you!" to your wedding party. So if you're making them come out to rehearse right before dinner, you need to feed them dinner.

Check out local italian places. We're doing trays of chicken parmesean & spaghetti + meatballs, salad, and dessert for less than $300. We also will have around 35.

I agree that you need a full meal. ours was catered at FIL's condo party room--we had a couple of appetizer platters and then a buffet with a couple of flatbread/pizzas and a couple pastas. pretty simple but substantial.

We rented the patio at a restaurant as well for our welcome dinner. We had about 30 guests and it ended up being $600, but we could have gone cheaper. We went with an all you can eat buffet of 4 types of pizza, pasta, salad, and sodas for $13 pp. We also covered alcohol. What was really nice for us was we got to keep the leftovers, so my family took it the next day for lunch before the wedding.

We are doing a "cocktail welcome party" the night before from 7-11pm. This way it is after dinner and it saved us so much money not providing food for all guest 2 nights in a row (we have 80 guests). Our venue coordinator actually suggested the idea and since desserts can be brought in off site, we may even have a smores bar set up for a late night treat. If its possible to push your time back i would consider the cocktail/dessert idea... otherwise you would need a full meal for your guest being dinner time. Good luck!

Yes, serve a full meal at that time but it doesn't need to be formal or expensive. Even just pizza and beer is fine.

We are having about 20 people .. im just gonna do pizza and wings .. it will cost about $10 - to $15 pp .. seeing as my fh (who is pretty small ) can eat half a large pizza on his own im assuming the bigger guys can eat the same of not more

I agree with others that you should serve dinner. I’m assuming with 35 people it is only close family and people actually in the wedding. I’d say the quality of the dinner should reflect how much much time and resources the people you are inviting have put into your wedding. Many of our rehearsal participants are taking off work on Friday to travel and be there in time for the rehearsal and spending an extra night in a hotel. My bridal party Is also throwing me a destination bachelorette and traveling for my shower. Given this we decided to rent a room at a local restaurant and serve a three course meal with an open bar. I’m not going to lie it’s kinda $$$.

I think in most cases you can get away with a full dinner that is cheaper. I’ve been to some really nice rehearsal dinners that just rented out a basic space and had BBQ or some other buffet catered in with coolers for drinks. Another one was in the couples backyard where they grilled out and had kegs of beer. It was really fun and I can’t imagine very expensive. Another option would be a restaurant that lets you create a custom menu so you can keep cost down by selecting which entrees your guests can choose from.

Good luck planning!

We had ours at a pizza place and service pizza, wings, toasted ravioli, and salad. It all was a big hit and very cost effective.

View Quoted Comment T-ravs! You must be from STL.

Yes you need to serve a full meal but it doesn’t have to be super formal or expensive! Maybe pizza or bbq?