Looking for Rehearsal Ideas

Most rehearsal dinners are very casual inexpensive pizza and sodas/beers.

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Yea I was thinking that ...I have a big patio and full size finished basement ...I wanted to do it from home ...but I didn't want it to be tacky at all.

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Nothing inappropriate about doing it that way.

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Thanks so much that was helpful

Are you talking about doing the actual rehearsal somewhere else or just the rehearsal dinner?

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Both in the same place so it can be cheaper ...

For the rehearsal itself, my wedding coordinator has said that having the rehearsal at the actual venue is not really necessary, it’s more about the logistics of knowing who walks when and general direction vs EXACTLY where to stand. Our venue does 1 wedding per day and if there’s a wedding the day before yours, you don’t get a rehearsal because they don’t allow you to “crash” someone else’s wedding day so to speak, so it’s really common for the coordinator to just come to wherever you’re staying and work through the details with you there.


As for the dinner, I’ve been to 2 very fancy rehearsal dinners in my life where it was in a restaurant private room or a rented ballroom at a fancy hotel, speeches and gifts and all kinds of hoopla. Otherwise they’ve been very relaxed, which is our plan! We rented a cabin right next door to our venue so we will have the rehearsal itself either at the venue if we can, or if not at the cabin, immediately followed by BBQ at the cabin and everyone can just kind of hang out and socialize and relax! It’s ultimately up to you how you want things to go.

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As for us we're doing our own wedding we dn't have a planner ...we can do it at the venue but it will cost us an additional 850 that we are not trying really spend. So we have decided to do it at our home ....We're just hoping that the weather is like it was this year then we could use our patio for the event ....

View Quoted Comment Yeah $850 just for a rehearsal sounds excessive! Having it at home sounds like a great alternative!

For the rehearsal itself, usually it's at the venue so that you can figure out the spacing, but if you can't use the venue space then you should still be fine as long as you have your officiant there to run things through.

For the rehearsal dinner, there are so many options! There isn't really a 'normal' and you can make it to be whatever you want as long as you provide the food + drink for your guests. I would say that 80% of the rehearsal dinners I've been to were at nice restaurants, but we had ours in a rooftop party room we rented out, a cousin of mine recently had hers at an art gallery, and my best friend had a smaller budget to work with for her micro-wedding so for her rehearsal dinner she just had pizza and beer at the Airbnb they rented for the weekend. If you're limited by budget then a great option would be to host a BBQ rehearsal dinner at your home if you have the space!

Honestly, it is better to have the actual rehearsal at the venue otherwise the people rehearsing and the officiant won't know the space so having everyone there and practicing within that space is kind of the whole point. Otherwise, I think the rehearsal is rather pointless.

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Agree with this. The entire point of the rehearsal is to practice at the venue, with placement of everyone involved, how long it takes for your music down the aisle, etc. If the venue is not available, skip the rehearsal.

My ILs hosted our rehearsal dinner, and they literally did a big Costco run and cooked for us. They had it in their apartment, and we just had a super chill dinner.

It is not remotely required to be fancy.

If you have space in your home, I would suggest having it there. Possibly have some finger foods and drinks...Keeping it light.

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Wow! $850 is absolutely absurd!

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I know thats what I was thinking ...I staying to stay within budget

View Quoted Comment I don't blame you not one bit