There are many facets to getting married and one of them is the wedding rehearsal dinner.  As a bride and groom, you want to have fun at this special occasion, spend time with family and close friends prior to getting married and naturally, make this dinner about the two of you.  Here are some rehearsal dinner ideas that you can incorporate into your wedding weekend.

First, like any party, you should try to theme the event and make sure to carry this theme throughout from the invitation to the party.  For us, we love to take jump shots from around the world.  We have us jumping from the beaches of Florida, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris to Half Dome in Yosemite.  Thus for us, it was natural to theme our wedding rehearsal dinner Jumpin' for Joy.

Look to yourselves as a couple and think of the fun aspects about the two of you. Are you both skiers, computer or music geeks, sports fans, beach bums?  What as a couple are you two known to be by your friends and family and literally bring that to the party. Use these personality traits as part of your decor whether it is displayed in your dinner menu, the party favor or even the table centerpiece.

Also, consider the venue as a part of your theme.  One wedding rehearsal dinner I coordinated was at the beach and we had a BBQ.  The invitations, centerpieces and party favors all included some aspect of the sand and sea.  There are many websites that you can turn to such as your local city's dinning guide.

When booking your venue, a few aspects to keep in mind are the time of year because of weather issues, number of guests you are hosting, location in proximity to the wedding and whether or not you will be in a private dinning room. 

A few rehearsal dinner ideas to save money are to make your own invitation, centerpiece or dinner menu.  Also, if the dinner is outdoors, hang some inexpensive lighting or lanterns to add atmospheric lighting to the venue.  We used different photographs of us jumping and made our own invitations and menus and then played off the French theme of the restaurant and created our own French styled-centerpieces.

And don't forget on your rehearsal dinner invites to let your guests know about parking availability, whether or not to bring a sweater and time and date.  It is amazing how often people make mistakes and confuse the day and time with the wedding versus the wedding rehearsal dinner.

Hope you picked up a few tips for your wedding festivities.  Until next time, remember the Budget Bash mantra:  make it simple, stylish, fun and economical to all!