Friday, May 8, 2009

Rehearsal Dinner Ideas???


Over the last couple of days a small corner of my mind has been meditating on the Rehearsal Dinner. I know that traditionally the groom's family takes care of this part of the wedding planning, but Mike & I are trying to keep the burden on our parents as light as possible. After all, we are in our 30's, for pity's sake & have been mostly on our own for years. Anyway, I got together a guest list yesterday & I was shocked to discover that there are nearly SIXTY PEOPLE on it! I was not really prepared for that big of a number. However, I do think there is major potential for it to be a fun time ;-)
Here's where I need your help. We were thinking we would just have a huge pizza party at the church. We plan on eating before the rehearsal or we will have families with small children waiting way too late to have their dinner. The kafoffle with having the dinner at the church is that I truly hoped to have the Fellowship Hall Reception Ready that afternoon (or even the day before). My other thoughts were to have the dinner at a city park or even at our house, since lots of folks will probably want to see the house while they are in town for the wedding. Of course that means that the house will have to be in tip-top shape. No more remodeling/moving/organizing/yard sale mess left anywhere. I just got exhausted typing that sentence!
So, your help please. Any inexpensive, creative Rehearsal Dinner ideas that I've overlooked? What did you do for your Rehearsal Dinners? And for those of you whose Rehearsal Dinners I attended, please still respond. 'Cause I don't remember a thing! Don't be offended...
Thanks for your help! And thanks for your comments - I'll admit that I love your feedback!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Pizza party sounds great! Especially for families with kids - pizza is always a winner. And you could do easy side dishes to go along with pizza fare.

We held our rehearsal dinner at a nearby park. We rented an indoor cabin-y type building on the premises that had it's own bathroom (a MUST if you're at a park with that many people). The best part was that we were outside for most of the festivities and did a piƱata (we both have Mexican heritages) and the everyone LOVED it! Way fun and way cheap.

Coming from the mommy perspective a park with a playground or some kind of open area for kids to run around would be ideal. They'll be expected to sit and be quiet for much of the wedding so blowing off some steam beforehand would be helpful.

Let us know what you end up deciding! It's be so fun to follow your plans online!

Anonymous said...

We did our rehearsal at the church in the same room as our reception. I had a lady from my church doing the decorating, but we had the room almost totally ready. We had to take out larger tables and replace them with the bistro tables, but with all the family there, we had lots of people, so it made it quick work. We did salisbury steak, pork roast, veggies, etc., but we didn't want anything too greasy that could upset stomachs the night before our wedding (of course, I came down with the 24-hr stomach flu that night!) Anyway, that's what we did and it went well.
Rebecca (Potts) Mockbee