r
Our rehearsal dinner wasn't a traditional one. Typically, only the immediate family and idal party members are part of the rehearsal dinner, but it was really important to my parents that their siblings were at the dinner. Additionally, because we had some other friends and family that had flown in for the occasion, we wanted to include them.
Because of this, we had 55 guests at our rehearsal dinner! Because there were 88 guests at the actual wedding, it was a good chunk of people. However, I'm really happy we did it this way. There just wasn't enough time to have an actual conversation with many of the people at the wedding, so I was able to chat with people the night before the wedding. At one point, my dad remarked that he felt like the rehearsal dinner was the wedding!
This could have been because we had a great location.
See that circular patio and grassy area in the back? That's where our rehearsal dinner was held.
It could also have been because it was kind of set up like a wedding.
Or it could have been because we had a live band (something we didn't even have at the wedding!)
It was a local jazz band, The Sonoran Jazz Project, and it was awesome to have them at there. It really set a nice, ambient mood, and later, people started dancing a bit.
Of course, we also had some good food and drink -- red wine sangria and coors light for the latter, and a really mixed-bag menu for dinner. I chose the dinner menu, but looking back, I'm kind of wondering ... "why?"
We had a variety of gourmet pizzas and salad, as well as some Tex-Mex items: Empanadas, tacquitos, chips and salsa, and queso. It was all good -- the little of it I got to eat -- but it was quite of hodge-podge of items!
Clearly, it did not stop some of the idesmaids from digging in!
At the rehearsal dinner, we gave our idal party their gifts -- that' s coming up next!
Up Next: The Bridal Party Gifts
Looking back: Rehearsing for the Big Day
