Rehearsal Dinner Help

KLS123

All of my guest (about 150 ppl) are from out of town but I want to have a small, private rehearsal dinner for about 30-35ppl then have a cocktail hour after at which everyone is invited to stop by for a drink. We would like to rent a space that has space for a private meal for 30-35 ppl and a space for the potential 100ish people that may stop by for drinks. We would also love it if the cocktail space is a courtyard AND we want to be able to BYOB for the cocktail hour to cut down on cost.

Does anyone know of a spot near the French Quarter or CBD (our wedding is at the board of trade) that we can either rent and have food catered in OR a restaraunt that would maybe let us BYOB for the cocktail portion and just pay a fee to use the space or something along those lines.

 

Thanks for the help!

louisianablue

There are several lovely courtyards in the French Quarter: The Pharmacy Museum, Petite Bourbon, Beauregard Keyes.  Are you trying to bring in the alcohol or do you want your guests to BYOB?  It's possible that you could rent one of those spaces, bring in your own alcohol and hire a bartender, but I doubt that any of those spaces would allow all of your guests to just bring their own drinks.

I got married at the Board of Trade last year.  I love all of the updates that they have made to the space.  I'm sure it will be a beautiful wedding.

sonteram

I am doing the same thing, rehearsal dinner and then immediately following a welcome cocktail hour for all guests to join. We booked the Bourbon Orleans hotel, they have a small cottage that fits about 60 seated and it has an adorable private courtyard. I think you have to spend a minimum of $3k to use the space. The staff has been great to work with and I highly recommended it! I don't think byob would work here though, but they are giving us a discount on the last hour of the on open bar since we are doing the dinner there too.

OpenHeart0117

@KLS123

With our RSVP date approaching fast, we are having close to the same guest count as you (120)  & I thnk it will be challenging to find what you are wanting. Someone suggested the Pharmacy Museum and they have the most reasonably priced courtyard that I know of, but there is no inside space in case of rain & you would basically have to rent & set up tables & chairs, etc & either cater or bring your own food & BYOB. I am assuming that you want a place where you can bring in your own food & alcohol. It will be hard to find a place in the quarter that will basically "give you their bar" as that is the main way that they make money on these types of events. If its a restaurant with a courtyard, they most likely would not allow you to BYOB for a group of that size. You might try seeing if you could find a place restaurant/bar that would let you give your guests tickets to redeem (for one or two drinks) that you would then tally up pay at the end of the night. This is one way to control the cost & keep from basically having a huge open bar tab the night before your wedding, LOL  This is an idea my planner suggested.

The idea we came up with was to host both our rehearsal luncheon and an afternoon welcome party at a house we are renting for the entire week. We are having 35 at the reharsal dinner plus expect another 30-40 to come by for the welcome party (since not everyones flight/arrival times are conducive to making the welcome party), which made this feasible and more affordable for us. With the biggest expense being the alcohol, this allows us to host more affordably & we are not constricted by time and its as if we are hosting in our own home. It allows us to have a more intimate, private event. This might be a challenge for you if you have 100 people that are actually coming though. When I starting getting quotes from places in the  quarter for a rehearsal dinner/welcome party, my fiance was not going for it, because it was almost like we were hosting another reception the night before the wedding & he was ready to cancel all of that ! LOL. This was the compromise we came up with & it works for us.

 

Chogan12

We are having ours at Acme Oyster House.  Dinner first/Drinks after.  Pat O's also has a nice private room.  We considered there too.

Bestbank Bride

When do you need this?  I second the recommendation for the Pharmacy Museum courtyard- it is much bigger than the Bourbon Orleans (although that one is SO cute, and you can meander in and out of the two buildings attached to it).  It is also cheaper than the Bourbon Orleans ($1350 for 3 hours), but you do have to rent chairs and tables.  Chairs are cheap- you can easily get them for $2.50/each for your standard folding chair in white.  Tables aren't that much, either, so I wouldn't worry much about that cost. 

My other thought is Race & Religious, where you rent the entire property- I THINK it is about $1k a night.  They may have a minimum night's rental, but they also have rooms for people to sleep in, a swimming pool and courtyard, and an open kitchen plan that looks fantastic in photos.  They do book up, though, so it wouldn't be for anything soon.  You didn't mention when you needed this, so I thought it was worth throwing out there.

KLS123

We ended up hosting the Welcome party at the Loa bar at the International House Hotel. They only charged a $250 set up/rental fee and let us limit the bar tab to a selected menu of drinks (which they discounted from their usual menu for us).

I honestly thought there would only be about 50 or so people there at any given time and we actual had WAY more people show up than we thought would (there was at least 100+ people there at one point) but they handled it well and let our group spill out into the lobby which worked out perfectly. Originally we had planned on keeping the bar tab capped at $400 but with the surge of extra people we upped it to $1000, we only ended up spending $750 (before tip) which I thought was very reasonable for a bar tab open for 3 hours and over 100 people showing up.

KLS123

And to clarify, we did our rehearsal dinner at Acme Oyster from 3pm-6pm, did the rehearsal from 6:30-7pm (at the New Orleans Board of Trade) then the welcome party from 7:30-10:30pm (at Loa bar)