Rehearsal Dinner Checklist: What to Book, and When
A rehearsal dinner checklist organised by how far out the wedding is: guest list, venue, seating and toasts, built on 2026 Australian wedding data.
Use this rehearsal dinner checklist against one variable: how far out the wedding is. Lock the venue at the four-month mark if the wedding falls in Australia's spring or autumn peak, and at six months out for any other season - reception venues in Australia book out 11 months ahead on average, and a rehearsal dinner room competes for the same finite Friday and Thursday nights.2 Everything else below follows from that one date.
Before: the rehearsal dinner with no checklist
Most rehearsal dinners go sideways the same way. The guest list gets copied wholesale from the wedding invite list instead of being built fresh, so a 20-person dinner is suddenly hosting 60. Nobody has confirmed who is toasting, so the first anyone hears of a speech is the host tapping a glass. And there is no document at all for the night itself - no seating plan, no running order, no time the mains actually come out.
The guest list problem is the most common one, and it is the same shape as the main wedding list: Australian couples plan for 108 guests on average and end up inviting 85, a cut of 23 driven by budget.1 A rehearsal dinner list built from "everyone coming to the wedding" inherits that same inflation, plus the cost of a second sit-down meal for everyone on it.
After: the rehearsal dinner checklist, phase by phase
A rehearsal dinner checklist works when it is scoped to a shorter list, on a set date, with a document for the night - not when it is treated as a smaller copy of the wedding checklist.
4-6 months out
- Set the rehearsal dinner guest list on its own terms: wedding party, immediate family, out-of-town guests, and the celebrant if there is a rehearsal to attend. This is not the wedding list with names removed - build it fresh.
- Book the venue or restaurant. Popular rooms attached to a reception venue, or booked for a Friday night before a Saturday wedding, fill on the same calendar pressure as the reception itself.2
- Confirm the rehearsal time with the celebrant first. The dinner start time is set from that, not the other way around.
2 months out
- Send invitations with a firm RSVP date, separate from the wedding RSVP.
- Decide who is toasting and tell them now. A rehearsal dinner usually has fewer speakers than the reception, which is exactly why the order needs to be settled early rather than assumed.
- Choose the catering style: seated, family-style or a shared menu. A restaurant booking usually sets this for you; a private venue needs it confirmed with the caterer.
1 month out
- Finalise the headcount from RSVPs and pass the final number to the venue.
- Decide whether the room needs a seating plan. Most Australian weddings run allocated seating rather than open seating - 83% assign seats, 9% let guests choose their own, and 8% run a stand-up event.3 A rehearsal dinner past about 20 guests behaves the same way: past a long table's worth, an assigned plan gets people seated faster than a free-for-all at the door.
- Build the seating plan if the guest count calls for one. The rehearsal dinner seating chart guide walks through picking a table shape and testing it against the real guest count before a single name goes down.
Week of
- Confirm the final numbers with the venue or caterer.
- Share the toast order and the run sheet for the night with the MC and every speaker, not just the host.
- Brief anyone handling setup - flowers, place cards, a small sign - on what time they have the room.
Night of
- Arrive ahead of guests to check the room is set the way it was booked.
- Hand the venue coordinator or host a copy of the run sheet for the evening.
- Cue the first toast once mains are cleared, or on whatever cue the run sheet sets - not by guessing the room has gone quiet enough.
| Milestone | Action |
|---|---|
| 4-6 months | Build the guest list fresh; book the venue; confirm rehearsal time with celebrant |
| 2 months | Send invites with a separate RSVP date; lock the toast order; confirm catering style |
| 1 month | Finalise headcount; decide on a seating plan past 20 guests |
| Week of | Confirm numbers; share toast order and run sheet with speakers |
| Night of | Check room setup; hand over the run sheet; cue the first toast |
What goes on the rehearsal dinner run sheet
The rehearsal dinner does not need a new tool, it needs the same one used for the wedding day. PlannedBy's run sheet generator builds a schedule from a single anchor time rather than a blank template, which works as well for a three-hour dinner as it does for a twelve-hour wedding day. Add rows for arrival, the toast order, when mains are served, and when the night wraps - the same structure as a wedding-day run sheet, just five rows instead of sixty.
If the guest count needs a seating plan, the same seat planner that lays out reception tables handles a single long table or a run of rectangles for a rehearsal dinner room, locking a shape and filling seats along it rather than starting from a blank grid. Both documents live alongside the rest of the wedding in PlannedBy, so the rehearsal dinner is not tracked in a separate app or a second spreadsheet.
Toasts at the rehearsal dinner
Easy Weddings' guidance for reception speeches is 3-5 minutes per speaker, and Bridebook's Australian edition puts the whole speech segment at 20-30 minutes typically, capped at 40.45 Those figures are written for the reception, but the arithmetic holds for a rehearsal dinner with fewer speakers: three toasts at 5 minutes each is 15 minutes, comfortably inside the 40-minute ceiling with room for a welcome from the host.
Put a real time on each speaker in the run sheet, not just an order. A toast round with no times attached is the most common way a rehearsal dinner runs 45 minutes past when the venue closes the kitchen.
Frequently asked questions
How far in advance should you plan a rehearsal dinner?
Start at four to six months out, matching the venue booking pressure the wedding itself runs on.2 A rehearsal dinner booked at the last minute is competing for the same Friday and Thursday nights every other wedding that weekend wants.
Who is invited to a rehearsal dinner?
The wedding party, immediate family on both sides, the celebrant if a rehearsal is happening, and any out-of-town guests already in town early. It is deliberately smaller than the wedding guest list - building it as a subset of that list, rather than from scratch, is how it ends up too big.
Do you need a seating chart for a rehearsal dinner?
Past about 20 guests, yes. Most Australian weddings run allocated seating rather than open seating3, and a rehearsal dinner room of any size behaves the same way once it passes a single long table. The rehearsal dinner seating chart guide covers picking a table shape before assigning a single seat.
How many toasts should a rehearsal dinner have?
Enough to keep the whole segment under 40 minutes.5 Three to four toasts at 3-5 minutes each is a comfortable night; more than that needs a firm running order with times attached, not just a list of names.
How is a rehearsal dinner checklist different from the wedding checklist?
Same categories - guest list, venue, seating, running order - on a shorter timeline and a smaller list. The full wedding planning checklist covers the wedding day itself; this one exists because the night before has its own date, its own venue, and its own guest list that should never just be copied from the other one.
The one thing to do today
Open a guest list for the rehearsal dinner that is separate from the wedding list, and set a number before a single invitation goes out. Every other item on this checklist - the venue size, the catering style, whether the room needs a seating plan - follows from that number, not the other way around.