Rehearsal Dinner Dreams

I’ve had this blog post written and saved for a while now but it never felt like the right time to share with all the coronavirus news out there. I decided today that I would share anyway in case someone is looking for a distraction from the news or looking to read about something other than corona. Enjoy!

Any excuse to plan something (birthday, night out, weekend with friends, vacation, etc.) gets me excited and this was the same for our rehearsal dinner. We decided to have our rehearsal dinner at our wedding venue at Trinity Tree Farm since we could easily do our wedding day walk through and then enjoy the rest of the time with our closest friends and family.

Rentals: Our venue supplied the tables and chairs for our outdoor dinner. We used Miller’s Rent-All in Edmonds to rent our dishes, silverware, napkins and tablecloths. Super easy to pick up/drop off and would recommend if you ever need to rent something for a party or event.

Flowers: One of my bridesmaids mom is a Master Gardener (her yard looks like something out of The Secret Garden, it is seriously so magical and so amazing). She offered to make centerpieces with flowers picked from her garden and they turned out BEAUTIFUL!

Catering/Bartender: We used Crescent Moon Catering and decided on The Pacific North West Feast. We had salmon tarts (my fav item), caprese bites, green salad, roasted potatoes, mixed veggies, salmon fillets and rolls. The food felt elegant, healthy and was affordable. We had the bartender set everything up in warming trays to save money. She also helped break everything down, cleaned up and gave us boxes of the leftover food. I would definitely recommend this catering company! They have a lot of options to choose from and prices that reflect delicious food. For drinks we bought beer, wine and champagne from Costco and had our bartender serve that.

Glassware: I just love those classic little champagne/martini/cocktail glasses (not exactly sure what they’re called) and wanted to use them at our rehearsal dinner. I went to Goodwill and found a bunch that were mixed for about $8.00. (I told the clerk these were for our wedding and he gave me a discount. They typically give a discount if you ask and are polite). I loved how they looked on the table. We used these mini glasses for a champagne toast and my mom said the most loving and heartfelt words (made me cry). You could probably find some on Offer Up or Marketplace as well.

Decorations: My sister-in-law surprised us with a bulletin board full of pictures of Tommy and I growing up. There were lots of hilarious photos and in some pictures it was hard to tell who was who (since we were both chubby, curly blonde hair, blue eyed babies). For the dinner menus I used the same design template from our wedding and just changed the food items. Template found here. I had some fresh lavender from the weekend before when I went to the Lavender Festival and tied it to the napkins. My father-in-law built us a Corn Hole set for our wedding day and we brought that as well.

Gifts: I also gave my bridesmaids part of their wedding gifts. I purchased plain denim jackets from Target. Used my Cricut to design and cut out “Babe” letters and ironed on the gold vinyl. Then I hand painted the flower in different colors and similar designs (I just used acrylic paint from Michaels). I remember being so excited to give them these jackets and loved how they turned out!