There are countless preparations, costs and pressures that go hand in hand with planning a wedding. If couples aren't watchful they can get so consumed with planning the wedding day and attempting to get all the details right that there's little time to enjoy the experience. When my niece was preparing for her wedding day she had three bridal showers to be at, reception plans to finalize and was attempting to nail down a location for the rehearsal dinner. The third wedding shower was located at my house. You see I'm her godmother so I had wanted to have it be really special for her. Several days before the wedding shower we talked on the phone. She sounded very stressed. She and her fiance were also having challenges selecting the best wedding songs for the ceremony. I suggested that she get here the night before the wedding shower and stay overnight and we would chill out and I would help her create a list of what needed to be done prior to the wedding day. She thought this sounded like a great plan.

I did the majority of the planning for the bridal shower prior to my niece getting there so that we could concentrate on her requirements. She stated that the rehearsal dinner was her greatest stress because of the fact that the place they had reserved had double booked, so they needed to find a different location. We started off by working on finding the best wedding songs for the wedding day so we could get one stress out of the way thereby giving reassurance that the other would be managed as well. As I imagined finding the best wedding songs was just a matter of searching the web, listening to samples, ordering and that was that. Now on to the rehearsal dinner.

The wedding day rehearsal banquet is historically done by the groom's family; as a matter of fact most people refer to the event as the groom's banquet. My niece's fiance is from out of state so his family is willing to pay for the rehearsal dinner, but they are not able to take over making the plans. My niece had contacted the restaurant where the wedding reception will be at, but the only room they have was the area where the wedding reception would be taking place. My niece said that the plan was to decorate the wedding reception area previous to going to the church for the rehearsal.

We called two local restaurants to see if they could host the rehearsal dinner. Both had other events booked. Her fiance's father and mother are divorced, also both have remarried. This meant that there were more people to incorporate in the rehearsal dinner. This was also adding to her stress for the reason that she was doing her best to suss out the etiquette for seating. She had the seating chart arranged for the wedding, but not knowing the spot the rehearsal dinner would be held restricted her capability to plan a chart.

I asked my niece if she had contacted the church to look into if the fellowship area would be open. Everyone could just mix and have a light catered meal. This would be quite a bit less formal and would be relatively easy to plan. The fellowship area was not being used that day. We called two delis and ordered food. My niece called her fiance and told him the revised plans for the rehearsal dinner. He thought this sounded wonderful. He would make preparations to have a friend of his tend bar and would organize for the drinks.

The rehearsal dinner was a fine relaxed evening. The guests were able to visit and mingle and the bride and groom didn't feel pressured to sit in one spot while everyone ordered their food and had it served. With having a buffet line the environment was very casual and the out of town guests didn't have to try to find another location in an area that they were not familiar with.