How to have the best rehearsal

Before we started planning our wedding (possibly before we were engaged), I read some posts on A Practical Wedding about people who invited all of their guests to their rehearsal dinner and/or brought their photographer to their rehearsal.  The people who had done this couldn't say enough good things about these decisions, and I knew I wanted to do them as well.

Let me also highly highly recommend this for anyone reading this who might plan a wedding someday!  While these things might take a bit more work and a bit more money, they were TOTALLY worth it.

We got our photos yesterday and I am especially in love with the rehearsal photos.  Our photographer said it was hard to get the type of candids we wanted of the guests mingling during the day of our wedding because people kept tensing up when they saw the camera, but at the rehearsal and dinner people had other things to focus on so they didn't notice they were being photographed as much.  And for the rehearsal part, the colours were brighter and I think we were just all more relaxed which made for some really cool and fun photos:

 (Brother and sister, not dating)

We had our dinner in Brahm's parents' yard.  The weather was perfect for an outdoor supper and the yard looked amazing!  Brahm's mom and her friend Mary Jane really went all out with the decor and food (catered by some of the merchants at the Saskatoon Farmers' Market and neighbours of Brahm's cousins) and it was such an awesome event.  It was really great to get to see a lot of our out-of-town friends and relatives that evening as well since the wedding day really flew by and we didn't have much time to visit with all the guests as much as we would have liked.

 

So once again, two things about the rehearsal to make it the best rehearsal:  bring your photographer and invite EVERYONE if you can.  Originally we were going to just do like a wiener roast or a chili potluck to keep it affordable, so it's doable even if you don't have extra money to spend on another big dinner.  I'm sure all rehearsal dinners are fun and happy events, but I think this one was especially awesome because it was so relaxed and informal and exciting to get to see all our friends and relatives who had traveled for the wedding before the receiving line.

All photos by Organic Photography