How to Host a Successful Wedding Rehearsal Dinner

While planning a wedding rehearsal dinner may seem like a small step in planning an overall wedding, there are a lot of factors that go into the planning. To host a successful wedding rehearsal dinner, you'll need to choose a venue, choose the food, choose an appropriate time and date, and make sure that your guests and officiant can attend. Also, you need to make sure you can afford it, along with paying for the rest of the wedding festivities! Hosting a successful wedding rehearsal dinner can be tough, but it can also be fun and rewarding when done right.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. First, keep in mind that a wedding rehearsal dinner is just that - a rehearsal and a dinner. You need to do both. You can have one without the other, but if you do, make sure your guests know about it.

2. Discuss the wedding plans with your officiant before the rehearsal. You don't want to work out kinks at the rehearsal, you just want to have a successful run through.

3. Let your wedding party, family and other guests know in advance when you'll be having your wedding rehearsal dinner. You'll need most, if not all, of the wedding participants, in order to have a successful rehearsal.

4. Try to have your wedding rehearsal in a place that is laid out like your wedding venue, or even better, at your wedding venue. This will limit confusion about the time it will take to walk down the aisle and other details.

5. Tell your guests to arrive a half hour before you plan to begin your wedding rehearsal. This way, people can be late but still really be on time. It's a bit sneaky, but it's very effective.

6. Plan the dinner after the rehearsal, especially if you'll be serving alcohol. You don't need drunk groomsmen and a plastered maid of honor falling everywhere and forgetting everything that they learn at the wedding rehearsal.

7. Run through the wedding in full. Give your bridal party, family and friends a sense of timing, so they understand how things will work. Run through all of the details - a missed detail could mean a mistake during the ceremony.

8. Speak to your bridal party about your wishes after you have the rehearsal. It's okay to critique their walking speeds and such. Just be nice. Don't be a bridezilla!

9. Enjoy dinner after the rehearsal! Everyone needs to have some fun, especially before the wedding jitters kick in. If you have your bridal party in their outfits, ask them to change before eating. You just don't need a spaghetti sauce mess on a pink dress.

[jenng]

on 6/21/2009 Great article 5*