Rehearsal Dinner Decor: How to Tie in With Your Wedding Theme

For many brides, planning your rehearsal dinner can often go to the wayside in relation to planning your actual wedding (which, yes, is way more important)! Often times, brides are not even thinking about their rehearsal dinner, especially if the groom's parents are hosting. If you have future in-laws who would love your input on the style and vibe you wish to shoot for, I'd suggest taking advantage of it! Tying in your decor with your wedding is not only fun, but it sets the tone for your wedding decor; all the while providing insight on your sense of wedding style.

I recently planned my own wedding and wanted to share my rehearsal dinner experience. I was married at an outdoor wedding venue in the North Georgia Mountains. We decided to also hold the rehearsal at the venue, due to lack of space and options in a small mountain town. While I feel this was the absolute best decision for us to host the dinner in the same space as the wedding, I knew it was important that both events were not alike. I wanted each night to be completely different from the other, but at the same time tying in the same sense of style into each night.

My now Mother-in-law did an amazing job being involved and truly caring about every detail for her son and I. If it weren't for her, we would have not been able to pull together such a beautiful and well decorated dinner! The photos below show the type of style and vibe we were aiming for:

Open, airy, and lots of greenery was our common theme. Gold + green were the colors we showcased for the rehearsal, while our wedding was blush pink, gold details and greenery. This is the first difference we knew we wanted for Friday night. I felt it was important to leave the pink out and save it all for the big day!

Other differences we made to separate our rehearsal night from our wedding night:

- Casual food. My husband's family owns a small family restaurant and catering business. We thought it would be 110% magical to have the food truck cater our dinner. Cooking all the food fresh on the food truck, we had catering lines full of fried chicken, catfish, crab balls, hushpuppies, mac and cheese, etc. with a whole bunch of sweet tea and blackberry cobbler to top it off.

Does it get any more Southern?

- Layout. The table arrangement was determined early on, because we knew it would look very different than the wedding day layout. We made one large rectangle where everyone would face each other. I loved how it turned out!

We played a slideshow that we created, had a table setup with pictures of Justin and I, and used white roses, gold candles, and other decor just for our rehearsal. This helped to set apart Friday night from Saturday.

I wrote this post with the intention to provide inspiration to brides who are also planning their wedding/rehearsal dinner. It IS possible to create a dream rehearal dinner setting without breaking the bank, sacrificing decor and style; all while keeping the look separate from your wedding day look!

Any comments, opinions, or feedback? Let me know below. :)