Rehearsal dinner?

We are getting married in a Catholic church, so we need to have a rehearsal. I would love to host a rehearsal dinner, but I also want to limit COVID exposure. We will decide when it gets closer if it’s possible.

Most rehearsal dinners are pretty casual with pizza and soda so they're not expensive. Some people feel more comfortable practicing with a rehearsal and others don't feel the need. They are not required but they are handy. If you have a rehearsal, you should provide a very simple dinner afterwards.

Because of Covid we are probably just going to order pizza or get takeout.

I really don’t care if we have a rehearsal dinner. I agree - it’s kind of a waste. But, it’s a great time for the wedding party to get acquainted with each other too. We’re still having ours but I totally want to send out E-vites instead of actual invitations! Lol!!

Me and my fiancé were just discussing this! We’re having a smaller wedding around 30-35 only one maid of honor and one groomsman. We wanted to thank everyone since they are all traveling but we are having a small wedding to save on money ( parents can’t help out really) so I feel like the rehearsal dinner would be defeating the purposes of saving money! I’ve never been in a wedding where there wasn’t a rehearsal dinner though so I wasn’t sure the generally rule of thumb on this but happy to read a lot of people are skipping it!

View Quoted Comment It is traditional to thank your wedding party and give small gifts. But equally okay for bride and groom to each take their own people for lunch/dinner/ whatever, or spend a few minutes with each, privately giving gifts ( especially when some are larger than others,) or to give them at a rehearsal dinner. On WW, in many threads everyone insists you must have an RD, but that has never been true. And many always say, if people come to a rehearsal, you have to feed them because it is proper etiquette. But that is not true, no more than for dress shopping or if you ask them to help with something else. Etiquette does require some kind of meal if you take people substantially out of their way, across a meal time. But for many local weddings, for example. People may go to a local church for a 1/2 hour rehearsal on a Tuesday night. They do not need to be fed for that. You may still have a dinner, and call it an RD or wedding party dinner, on any of the previous weekends, or the night before the wedding, your choice. This is one area where the advice on WW runs completely contrary to etiquette often, and I have never figured why. But an RD is an optional time/ way to thank your WP. And for brief rehearsals, not covering a meal time, there is no requirement in etiquette that you feed people. ( No requirement that you provide refreshments after a wedding, particularly a city hall or courthouse wedding either. It is an option. Not a necessity.)

It’s a personal preference! BTW congratulations! Rehearsal dinners is not just about practicing walking down the isle , it’s also about your bridal party and both immediate families getting together and getting to know each other to a certain extents. Especially if the bridal party. It’s also a time to have out of town guest traveling to spend a little time with the couples and etc. So my personal answer would be it’s necessary . ( if it falls within your budget.

Our wedding is next year and we decided on have our rehearsal at the venue in the morning and a BBQ movie night for just those involved in the ceremony and toast. Most of my family has yearly BBQ's so we figured it would be nice to do a two days before the wedding since we are staying at a hotel the day before the wedding to avoid traveling time to our venue. I didn't want to do a rehearsal dinner because of how expensive it could be at a restaurant so we decided on having it at our parent's backyard

I feel the same way. We are not doing with either as well love you.

I wanna run through things just to make myself feel better.... I feel like it will make me less nervous. We plan on going to my aunts house afterwards to eat roast... something easy that feeds everyone- nothing too fancy. I have a feeling my MOH will put together a slideshow or something special, but the overall night will feel relaxed, casual.

We are having both a rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal is because I’ve seen too much go wrong at weddings that didn’t have one and because none of the bridal party has been to our venue. We need them to know where to go and when. The rehearsal dinner is because only my parents and two bridesmaids are local. The rest of the wedding party, my siblings, and FH’s parents and siblings are all traveling at least two hours. Most have to fly in, though, and one is coming from another country. We’re having the dinner to thank them for their travel, support, etc. It’s going to be a super casual barbecue, nothing fancy. We just want to spend time together.
We can’t include all of our out of town guests since most of them are from out of town, and feeding the majority of our guest list twice just isn’t in the budget.

My rehearsal is 2 days before the wedding(Thursday). We're going to grill and prepare dinner at my home. I'll have out of town guest so it's the least I could do

We are doing one. We will run through twice then follow up with a taco/mexican buffet. My mom and Jason's mom are going to do some items to help spread the cost and workload. There will be about 35 people there 22 are from more than 60 miles away so they will either staying with me at the venue if they are my part of the bridal party or the hotel if they are Jason's so they all need to eat and they already have paid enough between attire, gas and accommodations that we felt we should do that and a brunch day after.

I don’t think a rehearsal dinner is necessary. My fiancé and I aren’t doing one because we don’t have a bridal party and our ceremony will be less than 10 minutes. The only thing we might do is meet up with our officiant the night before to go over the details.

My venue requires us to do a rehearsal with the officiant and day of coordinator present.
I’m having us all go to dinner afterwards because we are going to be coming basically straight from work or have traveled at least 6 hours to get there.
The downside from reading everywhere is I’m supposed to include the immediate family and wedding party plus their guests and invite the doc and officiant. If all those people show up with their guests, we are looking at 28-30 people aka half the wedding. Trying to find anywhere to fit that many people without having to pay a room rental fee was beyond frustrating. One place wanted to charge me 1250 to use their patio (in November) and that was the cheaper COVID rate. All I wanted to do was order a bunch of pizzas and soda. It ended up being cheaper to go to an Italian restaurant and have an actual sit down meal.

We have our venue from 10 am Friday to 10 am Sunday so we’ll be there in the morning to set up and decorate and fill the coolers with our alcohol, then the wedding party will arrive, we’ll rehearse then all drive to the hotel we have a block of rooms st, shower, and have a rehearsal dinner for parents, grandparents, and bridal party/spouses at the restaurant in the hotel. I’m really excited because our families haven’t spent a ton of time together yet so it will be nice for them to get to do that.

View Quoted Comment Omg, the gif is perfect!!

We're going to do a rehearsal dinner with a lot less emphasis on the "rehearsal" part and more emphasis on enjoying a casual and exciting night before with close family and bridal party. You can call it a "rehearsal dinner", but I think for us it will be a nice thank you to family and bridal party and will be a fun way to enjoy time with them before the big day. I've been in a few weddings and they've all had rehearsal "dinners" in different ways. Some were sit down dinners, one was a lunch and one was just cocktails and desserts. For ours we were thinking something casual because our wedding will be a formal sit down dinner. We are planning on doing it at one of the big craft brewery/restaurants near us and then just ordering a ton of apps buffet style for people to eat as they like and they can order whatever drinks they want. My fiance's dad offered to pay which is great, but even if he didn't we were going to do something anyway. Doing something the night before always makes you feel so excited for the day ahead!

We're not having a rehearsal dinner, and still undecided on whether or not we will have a rehearsal for the ceremony - I feel like for some people it may be necessary lol

We are planning to just do a run through and then I plan to relax and make sure everything is set for the next day with my bridesmaids