When we started researching options for rehearsal dinner locations, I was absolutely flabbergasted. It seemed anywhere decent I found cost nearly as much as the food at the wedding. I had a hard time wrapping my head around why a large amount of money is going to be spent the night before the wedding. (Where a large amount of money had already been spent.)
Then a thought popped into my head about our venue. Our venue is fairly popular and tends to get booked up every weekend pretty quickly. There is a good chance that there will be a wedding the day before ours. I decided I should check with them on this because if that is the case, then a rehearsal dinner the evening before was not going to work. Sure enough, there is a wedding that Friday evening before ours. Our options are either to hold our rehearsal Thursday evening or a 10am rehearsal Friday morning.
Well shoot. I was thinking, that stinks big time. We are a good hour away from our venue, so it seemed like quite the drive to have to take two days before the wedding. Also to be completely honest...I wanted the traditional "day before the wedding" rehearsal. Then I started to contemplate the idea of having a Friday morning rehearsal...is it really that bad? Our bridal party was planning on taking that day off work anyhow...so what's the big deal?
As it turns out, lunch menus are MUCH more affordable than dinner menus. We started to research our options and I came across a quirky little restaurant in Old Town Auburn called Awful Annies.
{Images via Awful Annies}
As you can probably tell from the pictures, this place is pretty down home casual. It's not your typical fancy schmancy restaurant where rehearsal dinners (ahem, lunches) are held. However, their food is out of this world fantastic. Isn't that what really matters? The cherry on top is that the owners are easy to get a hold of and are as sweet as pie. Instead of having a set menu, they told us we could choose a few options from their regular menu to serve at our rehearsal lunch. Their flexibility, responsiveness and helpfulness was so welcoming to me. I feel this place really fits the bill for us in more ways than one.
My only concern is that I have this guilty feeling that our bridal party will be expecting something more elaborate. Instead it will be a laid back and casual affair. In my eyes, I see this as a great thing. We can relax, drink, have a grand ol' time the day before the wedding. I honestly am not too interested in having two fancy shindigs in a row. I would rather have a casual rehearsal lunch, followed by a fancy wedding the next day.
What I have to remember is that our bridal party is made up of our friends. I highly doubt anyone will have issue with a casual rehearsal lunch. In fact, knowing our friends I think that they will find this even more fun.
What do you think about the idea of mixing things up and having a rehearsal lunch? If you were part of a wedding that did this, how would you feel about it?
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