Rehearsal Dinner Suggestions

What about a local Italian place for pizza? You're right, the RD doesn't have to be fancy, just hosted.

Open Table has a list of restaurants with private rooms for many cities. You can search by size of guest list, cuisine, and price.

FMIL wanted to invite all the OOT as well as WP and their families so we had to rent out a whole restaurant to accommodate 100 people. We ended up choosing a farm-to-table restaurant that's also a distillery.

Do I need to provide alcohol? We figured if we went to a restaurant we could do a specific menu of 5-10 items we chose before, with select salads and apps and then offer soft drinks and water but if someone wanted to drink they could pay for their own alcohol.

30 people is a lot, we’re looking at spending 1k easily on this, and I wanted a small, laid back BBQ or taco truck at our air bnb but FMIL says it’s too far from the hotel, and it’s a hassle doing all the plates, and buying plastic cutlery and what not.

Im just trying to save costs..

Our rehearsal dinner will probably consist of about 12-14 people so we're planning to go to a nicer, probably more expensive restaurant in the area around our venue. @Ashley, I think generally whoever is hosting the rehearsal dinner typically covers the cost of alcohol too. At least that's what we plan on doing.

Beverages should be included in the hosting of the dinner -- at least beer and wine. Of the options you've listed, BJ's might be the least expensive. We did a grad party there for about 40 people. We did the buffet that included pizza, salad, and pasta, and hosted all beverages. They let us bring in our own cake. The total was around $800 -- maybe a little under. However, even though they originally told us on a Saturday afternoon we could "stay as long as we wanted," on the day of they were suddenly insisting we be out in 2 hours. For a RD, that's probably more than enough time, but it wasn't what we planned for based on what they originally told me. We were on the patio, but they also squeezed two other large, private parties into the space. Just be sure you get everything in writing so you know up-front what the arrangements will be. (We're expecting about 40 for RD, and will likely do it at a local family owned Italian restaurant where we've had other parties, and expect it will be in the $800-1000 range for food & beverage.)

We are having roughly 32 people for our rehearsal dinner, and we chose a small farm to table restaurant about 15 minutes from our venue/hotel. I think choosing a select menu allows you to have more control of the cost, but you should also plan to cover to cost of alcohol for your guests as well. I think BJs would probably be the most inexpensive of your choices..

Ours will be at an Italian place where we get a separate room. I've heard that it is around 40 people; they are including the grandparents and I think a few others? There will be 4 different pasta dishes to choose from. Daughter, fiance, and fiance's parents went there to try it out and get it set up. Daughter was very excited by the food and atmosphere!

Back in the day, (1984), I self-catered my own rehearsal dinner at my parents' house with a baked potato bar, and a whole bunch of toppings, including 2 hot meat sauces, etc.... That was our situation then, with finances, and so on. I enjoyed it, really. But I can understand others not wanting the stress of that! I had a lot more energy back then.

I've seen pizza and soda, served at the church afterward; very budget-friendly. I've been to a groom's parents' house where the mother hosted and made the meal.

We looked at a couple of brewery around us but decided to host it at our house. We are having about 20 people and having it catered by a local taco place. We are getting a few cases of beer, some bottles of wine and some DIY fiesta decorations. When I priced everything out it came to just under $350.00.

You should definitely provide alcohol...at least beer and wine. Can you cut the guest list at all? Who makes up the 30 attending? I would try to limit this if you are trying to cut the budget. I would look into bringing your own wine - sometimes inexpensive bottles + corkage fees are cheaper than the inexpensive bottles on the menu. It is worth looking into. I would definitely look into a local place and see what they can do as far as lowering the budget by offering a limited menu - they will be more flexible than chains.

We didn’t have a RD per se but hosted our OOT guests which were mostly family. Some local family was invited as well so they could spend more time with OOT family. Our total was about 35 so we had it at our home and catered in from a Kosher deli (I’m in NY). We had corned beef, pastrami, brisket and turkey sandwiches, cole slaw, potato salad, pickles, knishes and falafel sandwiches for our vegetarian guests. We had Dr. Browns soda, wine, beer and hard cider and finished it off with classic NY desserts - babka, rugelah, and black & white cookies. I believe total cost was about $600. Our guests really enjoyed being able to mingle and be relaxed and were super excited about the food!

We did a casual but catered dinner in the party room at FIL's condo--it was relaxed and relatively affordable. we had pizzas and salads and beer/wine.

We have 34 adults and 7 kids for ours. Since FH's parents are paying we left up to them. They chose a restaurant right on the river which is nice and went with their pizza patio. So I nice atmosphere but saying affordable with their pizza and salad option

We were considering having our rehearsal dinner at our venue. We had rented it for 2 days and will be there rehearsing anyhow but we haven't made a decision. If we do this, we will most likely get catering from an italian place to make it easy and set up a buffet but we are looking into restaurants too.

Maybe find a place that will let you BYOB, then you can bring just some beer and wine, you are still hosting but won't leave you open to a big bar tab at the end.

We have no idea if it's in our budget yet, but we really want to do bowling! There is a very cool bowling alley downtown that does rehearsal dinners that we knew was out of our budget but we really like. Then we found out the local Elks Club has 10 lanes that they can rent out. Bowling, chili cheese dogs and beer.

We’re having the rehearsal dinner in our backyard and having it catered by a fire burning pizza oven place