Rehearsal Advice from an Officiant
By Dr. Rev. Gay Lee Einstein
Everything is in place: you have your venue, your officiant, your musicians, your DJ. Flowers have been ordered, and the gazillion other things that are necessary to pull off your wedding ceremony are set.
Now it’s the day before the BIG day. If you are the bride, maybe you get your nails done, stop by the florist’s, and pick up those engraved gifts for the wedding party and take along those out of town bridesmaids to help you manage every day before the big day detail. If you are the groom, you spend the day with your best man picking up dry cleaning, the rings, and I don’t know, shoe polish, maybe? By 4 p.m. everyone is wiped. Yet you still have the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner to go. You get to the venue early to wait for the rest of the wedding party to arrive. And there, right in the corner of the bride’s dressing room, you, the bride, spy a box — it’s actually a case — a twelve bottle case of champagne.
Okay, technically, that’s for the wedding day — but no harm in opening one itsy-bitsy bottle early — just to give you a pep-me-up to get through the evening. You find some paper cups and the party begins! The rest of your wedding party arrives and you are really getting down when…In walks the OFFICIANT, me, who has NOT been partying. Dum de dum dum. You see where this is going, right? “Do we have to have a rehearsal?”
All anyone wants to do is drink more champagne. Whoopee! One wise bit of advice here: better to keep the champagne bottle corked until later. Otherwise, you’re in for a surprise the next day, and may find yourself asking if you even had a rehearsal dinner as you try to remember what to do.
While the sober rehearsal is most important, here are some other pieces of advice that you should consider—particularly if you are your own wedding planner:
- If your wedding is outdoors in a rustic environment, it is helpful to have some furniture in place (try an eclectic or vintage rental company). Sometimes the wedding party will arrive at the wedding site for the rehearsal, but instead of pre-wedding decorations, there is just a stretch of green grass: no cupola, no trellis, no chairs. It can throw the rehearsal off if one of your parties imagines that the center aisle will be here, but someone else imagines it will be there. Two chairs are enough to mark a center aisle. A rock, coat, or that now-empty champagne bottle can mark where the cupola or trellis will be.
- If possible, arrange for the musician or DJ to come to the rehearsal. This could be expensive, but if you choose one piece for the musician or DJ to play while the guests are being seated, another when the families are being seated, still another when the bridesmaids are coming down the aisle and a final number for the bride, it may be confusing as to who is going to be doing the cuing. Figure this out at the rehearsal. Is the musician or DJ giving the bridesmaids the cue that it’s your turn to walk? If that is the case, certainly they need to be filled in on the timing (with you there) to tell him/her exactly what you want.
But maybe your musician or DJ won’t be giving the cues. You have chosen someone else to do that.
- Ah! Someone else. If you don’t have a wedding planner and your musician or DJ won’t be coming to the rehearsal, choose someone else who is NOT in the wedding party to be the cue-er. Plan to give this person a gift as you do the members of the wedding party. Make sure that the cue-master is invited to the rehearsal dinner, as this is a nice way of saying thank you.
- Finally, shoes! At every wedding I have officiated, believe it or not, everyone has worn shoes! Most dress shoes are not made for walking in fields, or vineyards, or along the edge of a lake or pond. If the female members of your wedding party insist on wearing something other than flats, have them bring them along to the rehearsal so that they can figure out how to navigate grass, weeds, sand, or soft dirt.
Dr. Rev. Gay Lee Einstein is a wedding officiant with over 15 years experience. For more information visit www.weddingpreacherforhire.com.