Your Wedding Rehearsal And How To Swing It
Your wedding is fast approaching. You’ve made your final vendor payments, everyone has their dresses, you’ve finalized the menu, gone over the play list with the DJ, the shot list with the photographer, printed the programs, printed the place cards, and scheduled your hair, make-up for your wedding day, and a relaxing trip to the nail salon that week.
What else, what else?
Oh. The Wedding Rehearsal.
Time to learn how to herd cats, y’all. One of the brides that called into my 15 minutes of Wedding Planning session last week pointed out that there isn’t a lot out there about organizing rehearsals. She’s right. Let’s change that, shall we?
Traditional Christian or Non-Denominational Ceremony - Girls on the Left, Boys on the Right
First things first. Who needs to be there? Bridesmaids and Groomsmen, yes. Officiant? If they can make it, it wouldn’t hurt. Your parents? If they are participating in the processional, definitely, although odds are they’re going to want to be there, anyway. Here’s the processional worksheet I’ve been using with my couples this year. It’s public to everyone, so download it as an excel sheet onto your computer before editing it.
So, when can you schedule the rehearsal? Call your venue and find out. Don’t assume that you’ll be able to do it the day before. I’ve been running into venues lately, that, because of their event schedules, can only have rehearsals in the middle of the week or weekday, which isn’t terribly convenient. Once you get the times, figure out when most of your wedding party can be there. “Most”, not “all”. “All” is a miracle, and if it happens, send thanks up to the Wedding Gods .
The day’s arrived and (almost) everyone is there. Now what? Give yourself enough time to run through the processional (up the aisle) and recessional (back down the aisle) twice. This takes about an hour. Usually the officiant is either standing at the end of the aisle when the wedding party arrives, or is the first to walk up. The groom, with or without his parents, is usually the second.
Speaking of parents, if they’re part of the procession, where are they coming in? Is he escorting his Mom down the aisle to her seat in the front, before taking his place? If your mother is not walking down with you, who will be taking her to her seat? In a Jewish wedding, both sets of parents walk their children down, and then take their places under the chuppah. But I’ve seen this a lot in Christian and non-denominational ceremonies, too. It’s a nice touch.
Traditional Jewish Ceremony - Girls on the Right, Boys On the Left (Courtesy of Wedding Yentas and Kokoro Photography)
Now, line up everyone at the end of the aisle in the order you want them to be there. Bride and groom at the front, of course. Generally, the Maid of Honor is behind the Bride and the Best Man behind the Groom. Bridesmaids behind the Maid of Honor, Groomsmen behind the Best Man. Okay, how are they getting up there? Are they walking together, or separately? Are the rest of the bridesmaids and groomsmen walking together or separately? Fill out the bottom of the worksheet according to the order they’re going up the aisle, so they get to where you want them to be, without having to cross in front of each other. In other words, the couple closest to where the Maid of Honor and Best Man will be standing walks first. The exception – exception – to this, is that the Maid of Honor and Best Man are usually the last ones up the aisle before the bride, if they are walking together. If it doesn’t look right the first time you do it, feel free to change it up. Maybe he wants his Best Man to walk with him, or you want your Maid of Honor to walk alone, right before you. That’s cool, Harry and Pippa did it. Just remember, you can do whatever you want, but try and make it look smooth Does the pacing need to be slowed down or sped up? What are the cues for everyone to start walking? If there are wedding party members missing at the rehearsal, let the folks that are going to be in front and behind them know about it. Run through it a couple of times, including the recessional. Twice, at the most. I’m serious. You don’t want the crowd to get ugly, and they will.
Is your head ready to explode, yet? No? Excellent, then let’s move on.
Rehearsals are also the perfect time to quickly go through the schedule for the day. When is everybody meeting up and where? When does hair and make up start? Photography? What is your wedding party doing after the ceremony – more pictures, or do they get to join the cocktail hour? If you’re making a “grand entrance”, are they being announced during it? If you’re going straight into your first dance, are they hanging out around the dance floor or going to their tables? Either way, tell them what their table numbers are.
Printed schedules are great for this, as is google docs, something they can pull up on their smart phone and reference. You and your mate should make sure that everyone has your cell phone numbers, and that between the two of you, you have all of theirs. Some of this will not stick in their heads – it’s a lot! But if they all hear it, the lost ones will be able to find someone else who knows what’s going on.
And you’re done. Remember, the world will not end if someone walks down in the wrong order. For one thing, only you will know. Now go to your rehearsal dinner and have fun. And if you drink too much, remember – water and/or Gatorade the next morning, and ibuprofen. Coffee will, unfortunately, dry you out even more. You’re welcome!
Any questions, or stories to tell about your own rehearsal? I wanna know in the comments below!
See you at the end of the aisle (especially since you now know how to get there),
Thank you for posting!
I'm only now (less than a month away) realizing how important the rehearsal is. I have had a plan for awhile now of how everyone is walking down the aisle … but the only catch with our situation is that my dad, also a minister, is also our officiant! So we will be officiant-less up until the moment he walks down the aisle … and then does a 180 and starts the ceremony. Any experience with this Liz? Any tips?
Thanks for posting this, Liz! It's been on my mind lately but my fiance and I haven't talked about it yet. This will be a great jumping off point!
My question is…what do we do if we can't rehearse in the space the wedding will be held in? We can get rehearsal time for a fee at our place, but I honestly want don't want to pay extra for it. Our ceremony will be relatively casual, and I don't really care if we have to fade the music out before the song's over. But we're still going to have a rehearsal dinner. Do you think it would work to show a layout of the space and explain to everyone the logistics?
We will be in the hall for a few hours before the ceremony/reception (both in one place), so we could do a quick run-through then. Does this sound like a recipe for disaster to you?
I couldn't get the link for the worksheet to work. And I'm in terrible yearning for it!
I've only just begun thinking about the rehearsal, and now that we're down to 2.5 ladies of rad but still stocked up with all 4 homies of cool, I'm wracking my brain trying to make sure no one is stuck by themselves … and having a wretched time doing so.
I can't get the worksheet to open either. Says I don't have permission.
Yes, please fix the worksheet!
Liz, as the bride who called you for this information – THANK YOU!!! Seriously, there is NOTHING out there on this (even for our super casual wedding). Thanks so much.
I kind of like that, actually. He walks you down, hands you off, and then marries you. The officiant doesn't have to be at the end of the aisle, it just has to look smooth.
Okay. So, I'm not QUITE the Google docs expert that I thought. I changed the link so everyone can access this, but you need to download it onto your computer as an excel sheet. It's public. If it's any consolation, it has been one of those days.
Thank you, Liz!
Refresh the page, click the link,and then download into your computer as an excel sheet https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiKJDC7j…
Refresh the page,it's now public. So, you need to download it as an excel sheet to your computer.
You're welcome. Sorry for the static. On the other hand, it's very gratifying that everyone likes it.
You're welcome! Thanks for the blog topic. I hope this helps.
No, I would say that getting a layout and going over it beforehand is the best idea, and then doing a quick run-through – if you have time – before everyone shows up. Does this mean you and your guy will be seeing each other before the ceremony?
Got it. Saved it. LOVE it.
Thank you, Liz!!!
Yeah, I don't think there's any way to avoid seeing each other – we're going to do some pictures before the ceremony anyway! But I might be able to do a "first look" sort of thing if I wait to change until we're ready to do pictures.
I am now officially less than 4 weeks away from my wedding date and this is exactly the post I needed to be reading right now! We are lucky enough to be able to hold our rehearsal the night before the wedding, and it sounds like everyone will be able to make it to the rehearsal. I'm not overly concerned with the rehearsal/wedding ceremony itself, but coordinating all of the day-of shenanigans has me pulling out my hair. Our ceremony will be at 12:30 p.m. (Catholic church), so that means the morning will be spent getting ready. Our reception begins at 5 p.m., but we can't get into the reception space until 1 p.m. the day of the wedding. So I think I will probably be recruiting friends/relatives to help set up the reception… and trying my best to keep my micro-manager's personality in check!
Here's a kinda-cool idea: A friend threw me a bridal shower and she had a friend take all of the tissue paper and bows as I opened the gifts and tuned it into a makeshift bouquet to practice with at the dress rehearsal! Mine turned out HUGE and super cool… can't wait to walk down the aisle with it the day before!
I agree having the rehearsal the night before the wedding would be okay but I love your ideas. Thanks for sharing them!
It's also a good idea to invite whoever is in charge of your music (organist/cantor/choir director) to the rehearsal. As the choir director at an Orthodox Christian parish (where the wedding ceremony entails several hymns and sung responses) I've found it invaluable to be present at the rehearsal. It gives me a chance to see if anything different is being done, ask questions to make sure there is no confusion on the big day, and confirm if the musical choices for the procession and recession will work.
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