We are having ours at home and are planning on an italian dinner... spaghetti w/ meatballs and lasagne with 2 types of salads (spinach and our favorite restuarant's signature salad... we are getting their large take out servings of salad and spaghetti, but are making everything else ourselves...) various appetizers (garlic bread, bruschetta, etc...) and cheesecake and cookies for dessert.

Our "rehearsal dinner" is open to all of the out-of-towners, which is the majority of the guestlist, so we are planning a large meal... Lasagne is easy to make early and then freeze...

Hope this helps :)
-DuckyHead

Duckyhead - Friends of mine had a similar dinner at home in their basement. They had a number of small tables with white and red check tablecloths and candles dripping in wine bottles.

It was so much fun, and not too expensive.

Duckyhead, ours will also be open to many out-of-towners as well as the wedding party, and for the life of me, why didn't I think of lasagna?! I make a great one! I could do a couple: a meat one and a vegetarian one(my favourite!). We love bruschetta and our fresh garden basil will be so wonderful by then, esp for the lasagnas! And yes, we could order salads in from our favourite restaurants, too!
And they DO freeze well! I'm also decorating the wedding cake that day, too, so it'll save me tons of work if I make them way ahead and freeze them! I love it! Also, I was worried about the weather in early Sept as far as a bbq goes, so this will be perfect! As for desserts, I think a nice, rich ice-cream with our fresh home-made strawberry sauce and real whipped cream. Thanks, Duckhead!! What a great idea! :-)))

Glitter... YUM!!! I'm so glad that I helped spark your culinary creativity :) I love fresh basil from the garden... mmmmm.... strawberrys and ice cream... yumm... :)

Ours is in 2 weeks, so I will let you know if we find any snags in the plans!

-DuckyHead

We had our son's rehearsal dinner in our back yard and it was a great success. We prepared sloppy joes in the crock pot so that they could cook while we decorated at the church and had the rehearsal. Everything was ready to serve when we returned home. It was June, so we had watermelon for dessert. We invited a number of "extra" people too, including the pianist and wife, the soloist and her husband, the minister and wife, and any out-of-town relatives who were already here. We hung a pinata in our apple tree for the children and they had great fun with it. By being at a private home, everything was relaxed and there was no need to feel rushed.

I discussed the menu with my DH, and he said we'd have everything catered by an Italian restaurant here! Woohoo!! Love it! But the ice-cream, home-made strawberry sauce and real whipped cream stays! ;-D Good luck with your wedding Duckyhead....and yes, please let us know how everything turned out!
Sweet-Pea, that's exactly what we thought about having it at home: casual, mingling of new relatives, out-of-towners...and much praying for sunshine! ;-D Thanks for responding! Nice to have it all over, hm?

Speaking as an old married woman (17 years) I always vote for an at-home rehearsal dinner. We were married in January and my rehearsal dinner was a barbeque - complete with a hayride from the church to the groom's family home.

My cousin was married in August and had a backyard luau - the guys all wore grass skirts - it was hoot!

My sister had an Italian dinner - lots of candlelight, yummy food - very relaxing and fun.

I think we tend to make too much of a production of the rehearsal dinners - they should be fun and relaxing for everyone, there's enough stress the following day!

Our rehearsal dinner turned out very nicely, despite a few snags... here's a couple things I learned:

- When making all of the food for both the rehearsal and the wedding (Including the cake!!) make sure to be *EXTREMELY* organized and in communication with all people involved with the cooking. We had some major miscommunications with my mom (who seemed to beleive that she could do everything herself and didn't realize she was "crazy" until the morning of the rehearsal!) so the rehearsal dinner food wasn't made until the day of, when it was supposed to have been made a week ahead of time and frozen... my brother and I ended up making the food with some help from other people while also making sure that the house got cleaned and decorated!

- A coordinator of some sort is very useful when it comes to rehearsing... we had people sitting around waiting for one thing to happen while others were outside waiting for the people from inside to come out... we ended up starting the rehearsal more than an hour late! And once it started we really didn't know what was going on... our officiant was my "Hubby"'s uncle and he didn't really have anything to say about the order of things...

Anyway, despite the snags, I think everything was wonderful... I'm sure that it could've gone more smoothly, but it was still very beautiful and a wonderful meal! :)

(We ended up having a spinach salad with meat lasagne and vegetarian mushroom penne - no dessert - mom forgot to make the cheesecake and remembered 30 minutes before the rehearsal...)

-DuckyHead

For my stepson's wedding rehearsal dinner, I rented a shelter at a nearby park. I put checkered tableclothes on the tables and served barbeque with all the fixings. Borrowed an old cold drink cooler for the cold drinks. It went over great!

I am having a chocolate fountain with berries and cookies. A variety of fine wines and spirits. Now we are going to be totally formal for the go through because I know suits and such can get so hot. Now everyone is allowed 1 pet if they must. We will have food for the pets in crystal bowls. All of this we will have in a full view aquarium. Hope you gals have luck