Weddings from the Heart. Daphne Rose Kingma

Чтение книги онлайн.

      THE REHEARSAL DINNER AND OTHER PRE-WEDDING FESTIVITIES

      A rehearsal dinner is a celebration in itself. As hors d'oeuvres are to a meal, the rehearsal is the lighthearted prelude to the more serious main course of emotions that will follow. How ceremonial you want the rehearsal dinner to be will depend, of course, on what kind of wedding you're planning. If your wedding is small, a wedding-eve gathering of your two families and your attendants (and their partners) would constitute an intimate get-together that you could have at a restaurant or at the home of either the bride's or groom's parents.

      Since the bride's family traditionally pays the wedding expenses, the groom's family usually underwrites the cost of the rehearsal dinner. That's a nice tradition to follow, but for any number of reasons you may want to vary it—pay for it yourselves, or, as in at least one instance I know of, accept it as the gift from the best man or a friend of the family.

      For a grander, more formal wedding, you'll probably want to plan a larger, more elegant dinner with pre-wedding toasts, perhaps even a receiving line to introduce all family members. You may want to include the officiant and musicians, as well. Whatever the roster of guests, the rehearsal dinner is the time for you to give out the customary gifts or tokens you have provided for the members of your wedding party.

      In general, the rehearsal dinner is a wedding send-off, a sort of private cheerleading for the big event. It's a way of boosting the energy so everyone can bring a high sense of expectation to the ceremony itself.

      Of course, the rehearsal dinner is often replaced or accompanied by the “bachelor party,” which can follow (or precede) the dinner and is a symbolic “final” gathering of the groom and male friends. At this event (the exact nature of which is determined by the participants—a barbecue, an all-night drinking party, a camp-out) the groom is, as it were, sent out, with a final rousing hurrah, from the male-only community. This is his rite of passage from the world of single men to that of marriage and life with a woman.

      In addition, it is becoming more common for her women friends to create a special ceremony for the bride before the wedding. In such a ritual (and you can develop your own—a slumber party, a night out on the town, a water ceremony in the ocean or a pool) a woman is prepared by her sisters to leave the female community and embark upon life with a man.