How to Plan a Rehearsal Dinner

A rehearsal dinner is the meal after the ceremony run-through, the evening before the wedding. It runs two to three hours, it is hosted by the groom's family by tradition and by whoever offers in practice, and it is planned in about three months: the host and the budget first, the room second, the invitations six weeks out. It does not have to be at a restaurant. A venue room with your own caterer gives you the hours, the toasts and the quiet a restaurant cannot. At The Museum at Hoppenville the room starts at $2,200 for five hours and the Bank Barn seats about 150 under hand-hewn timber.

This guide is for the parent or the couple who has agreed to host, and for the planner trying to fit the dinner into a wedding weekend that is already full.

Checklist by weeks out

Twelve weeks out

• Settle who hosts. One household owns the dinner, its budget and its guest list. The couple approves the list.
• Settle the shape: a seated dinner, a buffet, a family-style meal, or dessert and drinks after a rehearsal that ends late.
• Count the guests. The wedding party and partners, both sets of parents, grandparents, siblings, the officiant, the readers, the children in the ceremony with their parents. Decide now whether out-of-town guests are in or out.
• Pick the room. If the wedding is here, the rehearsal is here too and the dinner can follow it without anyone driving. Schedule a tour and tell us the wedding date.

Eight weeks out

• Confirm the room and the window. Five hours covers a 45-minute rehearsal on the lawn, a two-and-a-half-hour dinner and the setup and pack-out either side.
• Choose the menu with the caterer. Every event here is catered by Robert Ryan Catering & Design or Tosco's Catering; the bar comes from a licensed bartender or the caterer. Pick something the wedding menu is not: if tomorrow is plated, tonight is family-style or barbecue.
• Decide on toasts. The host opens, the parents who are not speaking at the reception speak tonight, the couple thanks the room at the end. Tell each speaker the time limit: three minutes.

Six weeks out

• Send the invitations, separate from the wedding invitation, with the rehearsal time and the dinner time both on them. Email or a card; an insert in the wedding invitation only for people who are also at the rehearsal.
• Book lodging for the family that needs it. The Cottage on the grounds sleeps six and is often taken by the couple or the parents the night before.
• Plan one thing to do besides eat: a slideshow of the two of them growing up, a short game, or a welcome bag table for out-of-town guests.

Two weeks out

• Collect the RSVPs and give the caterer the number, rounded up.
• Print place cards if the dinner is seated. Seat the two families together, not across the room.
• Confirm the rehearsal time with the officiant and the planner, and the arrival time with the room. Social events here may arrive two hours before the start.
• Buy the thank-you gifts for the wedding party if they are being given tonight. Tonight is the right time; tomorrow morning is too busy.

The day

• Arrive early enough to set the dinner before the rehearsal starts, so there is nothing to do in between.
• Run the rehearsal first, in the order of the ceremony, twice if the processional is complicated. Forty-five minutes, no more.
• Sit down to eat within twenty minutes of the rehearsal ending.
• End on time. The couple leaves first, by 9:30 at the latest. Everyone else follows.

Who pays and etiquette

The groom's parents host and pay, by tradition, which began as a way for the second family to contribute when the bride's family paid for the wedding. Today the couple pays about as often, or both families split it, or the bride's family hosts because they live near the venue. Any of these is correct. The one rule is that the host is agreed before the place is chosen, because the host sets the budget, the guest list and the tone.

When the groom's family cannot host, nobody says so out loud. The couple hosts, or a grandparent, or an aunt, and the dinner shrinks to fit: a family-style meal at a relative's house, a pizza and salad night in the barn after the rehearsal, or dessert and drinks for an hour. A rehearsal dinner is a tradition, not a requirement, and a small one hosted with ease beats a large one that strained a family. Guests never pay for their own meal, so a dinner the host cannot afford for the whole list becomes a dinner for a shorter list.

The guest list is everyone at the rehearsal plus their partners. Out-of-town guests are the open question, and the answer is all or none. Inviting some of them creates a tier nobody meant to create. If the answer is none, name a bar or a coffee shop where the couple will stop by for an hour afterward, and put it on the wedding website.

Invitations go out six weeks before the wedding, separately from the wedding invitation, and carry the rehearsal time as well as the dinner, because the wedding party will lose the email with the rehearsal time in it. Dress code goes on the invitation in plain words.

Toasts are the point of the evening. The reception has room for two or three; the rehearsal dinner has room for everyone else, the godparent, the college roommate, the grandmother who will not stand up in front of 180 people but will in front of 35. The host opens, the parents follow, the couple closes with a thank-you. Three minutes each, said in advance, and the microphone passes rather than opens.

What it costs

The room at The Museum at Hoppenville starts at $2,200 for five hours in the Celebration Half-Day package: tables and chairs, access to the outdoor lawn (where the rehearsal itself usually happens), coffee and soft drink service, and a photography backdrop. The package covers the rental window; the meal, the bar and any rentals beyond the house tables and chairs are quoted per person by the caterer. Every rate the venue charges is published on the event packages page.

What moves the total:

• The meal per person. A family-style or buffet dinner costs less per head than a plated one, and it suits the evening better. Barbecue, pasta, tacos and a pig roast are all rehearsal dinner food.
• The bar. Beer, wine and one signature drink for two and a half hours. A full bar the night before a wedding is a mistake everyone pays for at noon the next day.
• Guest count. Thirty people and ninety people pay the same room rental here within the same window; the caterer's bill is where the count shows.
• Night of the week. Most rehearsal dinners fall on a Friday before a Saturday wedding or a Thursday before a Friday one. Friday is a published rate on the room card; the package price is the starting figure.
• Extras. A slideshow (the Welcome Center is A/V ready), a musician, flowers carried over from the shower, welcome bags.

Compared with a restaurant: a private room usually has no rental fee but a minimum spend, a two-hour limit and a menu you did not choose. The venue route costs the room and gives back the hours, the lawn, the quiet for toasts and a caterer you pick.

How long it runs and a timeline

Two to three hours of dinner after a 45-minute rehearsal. Start the rehearsal at 5:00 or 5:30, sit down by 6:30, finish by 9:00. Ending early is the gift the host gives the wedding day.

A Friday evening, rehearsal on the Bank Barn lawn and dinner in the barn:

If the rehearsal cannot happen the night before, hold the dinner anyway and rehearse the morning of; the dinner is about the people, and the rehearsal is about the walk.

What to wear

One step below the wedding, and the host says so on the invitation. For a black-tie wedding tomorrow: a suit and tie, a cocktail dress. For a barn or garden wedding: a blazer with no tie, a sundress or a jumpsuit, shoes that handle a lawn at 5:00 and a barn floor at 8:00. The couple wears something other than what they will wear tomorrow, and the bride traditionally wears white or near it tonight so the wedding dress is the first white of the weekend only for guests who did not come to the dinner.

Guests who are unsure should dress up rather than down. A rehearsal dinner photograph ends up in the wedding album more often than people expect.

Where to hold it within an hour of Pennsburg

The Museum at Hoppenville, Pennsburg. If the wedding is here, so is the rehearsal, and the dinner follows it without a drive. The Bank Barn seats about 150 under hand-hewn timber and string lights, with the lawn beside it for the run-through; it suits a dinner of 25 to 80 and is a spring-through-fall room because it is not climate-controlled. The Welcome Center holds up to 220, is A/V ready for a slideshow, and is fully accessible, which matters for grandparents. For a party of six or eight, the Cottage has a full kitchen and a porch, and the couple or the parents often sleep there the night before. Both event rooms have an indoor rain plan at no cost. Our rehearsal dinner page has the photos; the room starts at $2,200 for five hours. If the wedding is elsewhere and the dinner is under 20 people, a restaurant will feel fuller.

A restaurant private room. The traditional answer and still right for 15 to 40 when nobody wants to plan a menu. Food and room on one bill against a minimum spend, usually two hours, limited room for toasts over the noise of the main room. The inns with private rooms, such as the Joseph Ambler Inn in North Wales or the Blue Bell Inn, and the restaurants of Skippack and Doylestown are the kind to ask. Ask about a microphone and a screen before you book.

A family home or backyard. Free, warm, and right when a parent lives within twenty minutes of the ceremony site. The costs are the caterer, the rentals and a tent if the yard is the plan. Parking is the usual problem.

A brewery taproom or a golf club room. Right for a larger, louder dinner where the out-of-town guests are all invited. A taproom handles 50 to 100 standing with food trucks or a catering package; a golf club room handles a seated dinner with its own kitchen. Ask about noise and whether toasts can be heard.

For the wedding party coming from a distance, the Cottage sleeps six and the hotels in Quakertown are about 15 minutes away; the room-block list is in hotels near Pennsburg. When you are ready to see the barn and the lawn together, schedule a tour. The bridal shower guide and the engagement party guide cover the two gatherings that come before this one.

The download

The Rehearsal Dinner Planner is this guide on one printed page: the twelve-week checklist in columns, a guest list grid with the rehearsal roles down the side, and a blank run-of-show from the rehearsal to the last toast. It is free, it prints on letter paper, and it is the sheet the host and the planner should both have.