Weddingbee Blog

Now that we know our rehearsal will definitely be taking place the Friday afternoon before the wedding (there was a chance it would be Thursday), it’s time to think about the rehearsal dinner!

Luckily for me, the thinking here is going to be done primarily by Mr. Guinea Pig’s parents, as they have generously offered to host the dinner. Mr. GP’s twin sisters started at university this year, and the drive there goes right by our venue - how convenient! That means FIL Guinea Pigs have had several opportunities to check out the restaurants in our venue/hotels area. At first, they figured on a sit-down dinner since we’re doing buffet for the wedding, and checked out the fanciest place on the island. They were obviously a little uncomfortable with the stuffiness of it but thought it was the ’right thing’ for a rehearsal dinner, and ran the choice by us. Fortunately, Mr. Guinea Pig and I convinced them that the rehearsal dinner in no way had to be formal! In fact, we’d much prefer a more relaxed atmosphere, which opened up lots of other possibilities.

A couple weekends ago Mr. Guinea Pig was home and we had dinner with his parents. They mentioned a restaurant they had really enjoyed, and said, “But if we did the dinner here, it would be more of a crab feast style, so I don’t know about that.”

(Delicious pile of crabs! Source)

However Mr. Guinea Pig and I immediately jumped on that idea - a crab feast! How perfect! We are in Maryland after all, home of the Maryland Blue Crab (our state crustacean! - what, your state doesn’t have one??), and oh so famous Maryland crab cakes. Also I absolutely love the seasoning used here, called Old Bay.

(Old Bay Seasoning)

In the Chesapeake Bay area, people even put Old Bay in their Bloody Marys!

FIL Guinea Pigs were worried we would think a crab feast was too casual for a wedding rehearsal dinner, but we love this idea. For those who are coming from out of town (my whole family and side of the wedding party), it will be an introduction to a very yummy, typical Maryland get together! And for those folks who are from around here (Mr. Guinea Pig’s family and wedding party), well - we all love crab! Of course, we’ll serve some other options too, since not everyone eats seafood (hello vegan sister Guinea Pig!) but I’m super excited about this semi-themed rehearsal dinner!

Plus it gets better - the restaurant (Harris Crab House) has an outdoor dock/gazebo area on the water that we can use for the dinner! So we can enjoy the sunset over the water as we feast on crabs! I’m so grateful that Mr. Guinea Pig’s parents are excited about planning the rehearsal dinner. Although I can’t help but let my mind wander towards decorations and invitations, I’m going to leave it in their capable hands and focus on the actual wedding!

Now my only concern is that I already have my rehearsal dress and there is no way I want to wear that to eat messy crabs… maybe I should show you this dress I keep talking about.

(Sorry for the just-out-of-the-box wrinkly and awkward stance/blurry picture!)

I got this Badgley Mischka dress on super sale at RueLaLa, and I love the color and bead detailing at the top! The skirt is perfectly swishy and the white top was my little nod to ’bridal’. So I have to decide - do I wear the dress anyway?? Or should I find a really cute top and jeans?

Did you relinquish control of events around your wedding? What kind of rehearsal dinner are you planning/did you have?

{P.S. I almost titled this post “Got Crabs?” but didn’t really want us to come up on any search engines for that!}