Rehearsal dinner... HELP!!! PLEASE!!!

[Kelli]

My fiance and I are paying for our own wedding. We chose a three hour dinner cruise which is not overly expensive EXCEPT for the fact that we will have a LOT of guests. We both have very large families and a large group of friends and are sending invitations to about 200 people. My mom has helped out with some things, such as my dress, the flowers, and the bridal party''s crystal jewelry she had made. His mom is not able to help us at all, which is totally fine except that we''re having a very hard time figuring out what to do for the rehearsal dinner. We both have several people coming in from out of town, and we have a large bridal party. Between family, the wedding party, and out of towners, we could easily be looking at 50 people! The wedding (and rehearsal) are two hours away from my house, so the option of a backyard BBQ or pizza party is kind of out the window.

The rehearsal is on a Friday at 5:00 and because of people having to leave work even earlier, lunch is not an option. My fiance wanted to skip the rehearsal dinner all together, which I am not in favor of. The problem is, we simply cannot afford to feed that many people twice. There are several kids in the party as well, so I didn''t want to just do drinks. I''m running out of ideas though.

I''m wondering if there is anywhere in Clearwater Beach that would allow us to have a BBQ and beer type party. I don''t have a hotel booked yet, and I need to get on it! I just don''t know where to go! Starting to panic!!! Any help would be SOOO very much appreciated

 

[Green with Envy]

We are also paying for everything so for us that means... we are NOT inviting out of town guests to the rehearsal dinner. Since they are traveling from far for our wedding- we figured they might want to site see the day before the wedding and we are including dinner and evening options for them on our wedding website. Another thing you could consider is ONLY invite family who is actually In the wedding- thus making it a true rehearsal dinner and only for those who needed to attend the official rehearsal.

 

[violet02]

Date: 12/29/2009 12:49:38 AM
Author: Green with Envy
Another thing you could consider is ONLY invite family who is actually In the wedding- thus making it a true rehearsal dinner and only for those who needed to attend the official rehearsal.

Ditto this.

We only invited people that were IN the wedding, we didn''t even invite my DH''s sister and my stepbrother although in retrospect we should have because the rest of the family was there but we only had SO much room in the dinner room and we had a wine and appetizer meet and greet afterwards so they came to that. My grandmother, our parents, and my cousins (and their parents) plus the rest of our bridal party. Our two cousins were ring bearer and flower girl so that''s why they were invited. This kept costs down a ton.

Everyone who showed up the night before the wedding was invited to the meet and greet and that in itself didn''t wind up costing us a ton of money. It worked out pretty well. I think having feeding a bunch of people the night before you''re going to feed them again at your wedding is a bit much.

 

[monarch64]

Date: 12/29/2009 2:30:51 AM
Author: violet02

Date: 12/29/2009 12:49:38 AM
Author: Green with Envy
Another thing you could consider is ONLY invite family who is actually In the wedding- thus making it a true rehearsal dinner and only for those who needed to attend the official rehearsal.

Ditto this.

We only invited people that were IN the wedding, we didn''t even invite my DH''s sister and my stepbrother although in retrospect we should have because the rest of the family was there but we only had SO much room in the dinner room and we had a wine and appetizer meet and greet afterwards so they came to that. My grandmother, our parents, and my cousins (and their parents) plus the rest of our bridal party. Our two cousins were ring bearer and flower girl so that''s why they were invited. This kept costs down a ton.

Everyone who showed up the night before the wedding was invited to the meet and greet and that in itself didn''t wind up costing us a ton of money. It worked out pretty well. I think having feeding a bunch of people the night before you''re going to feed them again at your wedding is a bit much.

Yup. True rehearsal dinner=those dining/invited are those who are actually in the wedding party. If this is NOT an option, then you need to reconsider hosting a rehearsal dinner with alcohol. Can you JUST have dinner and a cash bar or no alcohol instead? If your heart is set on absolutely offering alcohol, my suggestion would be to find a bar/restaurant in the Clearwater area that will host a gathering with kids and let you or your guests set up tabs.

 

[sunnyd]

Would a local park be an option? Somewhere where you could bring your own food/drinks and set up on picnic tables or something.

 

[Amanda.Rx]

I would vote for the "true" rehearsal dinner (with just people in the wedding) or go for a local park.

You can always do just heavy HD''s and beer/wine instead of an all-out dinner. With parks, though- they may not let you bring in alcohol- you may want to check the rules if you go that route.

If you want to do something special for your out of town guests, you can always make welcome baskets with mini-bottles of liquor/wine and throw in some snacks, etc. and let them know of good places to go eat nearby.

 

[zoebartlett]

I was going to suggest the same thing that Green suggested.

RD''s can easily become very expensive things to plan! We went round and round with our guest list for our RD, and in the end, we had 30 people there. I had wanted to invite friends who had traveled far to attend, but that would have been so expensive. As my mom told us, at that point, we would have been essentially hosting two receptions.

We decided to invite family only (immediate and extended). You could have a very nice dinner with immediate family and people in your wedding party. That could be great because then you''d be able to spend quality time with everyone and your time wouldn''t be so divided.

 

[Kelli]

Thank you ladies!! I really appreciate your input. There are 19 of us in the wedding party, including us and our officiant, who is a close friend. Including parents and spouses of wedding party members takes us to 27. This still leaves out several immediate relatives (thanks to my fiance being the youngest of NINE children!). How does this sound?

Our rehearsal is on the yacht at 5:00 and I was told it would take 30-45 minutes. How about I treat those 27 to a six o''clock (ish) rehearsal dinner and not include alcohol? Our wedding is not until 6:30 P.M. the next day so we could have a seperate late night outing for drinks afterwards and invite anyone staying in the area. Of course, this would only work if we paid for the rehearsal dinner ONLY and not the night of drinking to follow. does that sound fair, or still tacky? I''d LOVE to spend the time with everyone, I just can''t pay.

 

[sunnyd]

Whoa, 19 people in the wedding party?

I guess that's one benefit to having a small party - less people to pay for at the rehearsal! I'm curious though, why are parents of BP members invited?

I don't think dinner minus drinks is tacky at all. I mean you're already paying for their drinks at the wedding.

 

[Kelli]

19 includes me, my fiance, my mom who is walking me down the aisle, and our officiant who is a good friend of ours. We decided to have all of the kids in the family be involved as Jr bridesmaids and groomsmen, so none of them would feel excluded. The only parents invited are the parents of the kids in the bridal party, who are my aunts and uncles and siblings.

 

[Kelli]

In hindsight, I may not have included all the kids, but they''re all somewhat close in age and all equally close to us. It would have been too hard to not include them. Kind of like "pick your favorite niece." It just didn''t seem right at the time!