The rehearsal dinner is the wedding weekend's softer opening. The headcount is sixty rather than one hundred and eighty. The room is smaller. The toasts are longer and slightly more personal. The wine should be calibrated to that intimacy. We discourage couples from using the same custom label for the rehearsal dinner that they will use for the wedding reception. The two events should have two visual identities.
One brand line, one family name
If the rehearsal is hosted by the groom's family, the rehearsal label can use the groom's family name. The wedding day, the next night, uses the couple's adopted name. The two labels signal the family transition across the weekend. The rehearsal bottle is the parents' bottle. The wedding bottle is the new household's bottle.
The forty-eight bottle order
A standard order is forty-eight bottles, twenty-four reds and twenty-four whites. For a rehearsal dinner of sixty, this is approximately right. Two reds and two whites per table of eight, with backup. The leftover bottles get sent home with the immediate family, or held back for the post-wedding lunch the following day.
The quote line
Use the quote line for a phrase that is specific to the rehearsal: the groom's father's standard toast, a single line from the proposal letter, a Latin tag the family has used at weddings for three generations. The wedding bottle the following night can carry a different quote, equally specific to that moment. The two quotes together become the family's wedding-weekend record.