Thursday, November 12, 2009

Practice makes...the perfect excuse for another party

One of the really fun things about having a rehearsal dinner is that it's almost like a chance to throw your "other wedding"--the wedding you almost had! Our guest list is about 35-40 people, so it really is a little like a small wedding. We plan to take full advantage by throwing a party that will be very little like the wedding itself. We did briefly consider a rehearsal dinner at the venue's separate restaurant, but they only had an outdoor space available. We weren't really comfortable with that for a March evening--there was no established rain plan!--and we wanted a little more gastronomic variety, so we decided to keep looking.

As an aside, I really love doing my planning primarily online. I didn't even look at venues for our wedding that didn't have a banquet menu (and prices!) available on their website. Choosing a rehearsal dinner venue for a much smaller party and trying to score a deal was a lot more work! We called and ate at restaurants all over Malibu and the San Fernando Valley before we finally found The One--in fact, I'm sure we did more research for the rehearsal dinner venue than we did for the wedding venue! But once we ate there, we knew it was it!

We ended up settling on a Persian restaurant in the Valley recommended by Papa Spaniel. The kebobs were delicious, the prices were reasonable and include a full, premium open bar (which we are not able to provide at our wedding, unfortunately), family style meal service (yay! because we're going to be family! ;), a private room, and awesome, colorful decor.

Persian family style feast
(source)

Conveniently enough, our wedding (and therefore our rehearsal dinner) fall pretty darn close to the Persian New Year. Methinks we have a party theme!

Top row, right to left: source, source
Middle row: source
Bottom row: source, source, source

Was your rehearsal dinner's atmosphere very different from your wedding's?

6 comments:

  1. I love everything about it! I have given little thought to our RD, just because I have a feeling that 150 of our guests may be from out of town. If we do one, it's going to be an awesome, low-key pizza party with the pie contest our venue won't let us have because they are afraid of guests getting food-poisoning!

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  2. Those pics are making me drool! We aren't having a rehearsal dinner. Its not something that takes place in Cyprus.

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  3. This looks like a lot of fun! We want the dinner to be a lot more casual than the wedding, but I never thought of it as its own party with a theme. Though we are definitely putting as much time into the restaurant search as we did into the wedding venue search.

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  4. Great sounding theme! We're doing the same thing, having a different color scheme, different decor than our wedding for our rehearsal. It's always fun to have another excuse to throw a party!

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  5. We don't do rehearsal dinners in Australia. Although we are having dinner with our parents the night before. How fun to plan two parties - or is it more stress?

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  6. It sounds like you'll have a wonderful evening together. Be able to connect with all the main people before the ceremony. And be in just the right mood for the big event.

    (I've been trying to write more comments on your blog, but some get rejected)

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Comment moderation policy: I delete spam and comments in languages that I do not read.

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