Wedding Rehearsal/Welcome Dinner Location Needed

kcandrsn

New member
Ciao Lourdes,

My fiance & I (based in America) will be getting married in Florence next summer - We are so excited!

To properly welcome our guests, we would like to host a welcome/rehearsal dinner for everyone. Any chance you might be able to recommend a restaurant or two?

A few more details...
Who: ~50 people
Where: Somewhere within Florence's City Center
What: Traditional Italian
Price: Something reasonable (not sure what that might be yet, but we know that we do not want this meal to compete with the actual wedding, both in terms of luxury & price)

One idea I had was a nice pizzeria where we could order lots of pizzas and house wine.

A few questions I have, besides where to go - Do you think a restaurant will be able to accomodate a group of this size? If I call to reserve the restaurant, is the idea of a welcome/rehearsal dinner common to Italians as well, or will this be difficult to convey in translation? Any idea if we will receive opposition to a "set menu"?

I'm sure these are very specific questions that are likely challenging to answer without having direct experience with such requests... so, with that being said, any assistance is greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!
 
Ciao Kcandrsn,

Hope you don't mind the delay in replying, I had seen your message but was thinking of what to reply and then the days have passed..... but you have time yet, so knew there wasn't a hurry to reply ;-).

The welcome/rehearsal dinner it itself is not a common tradition of Italian weddings. But food and big dinners are, so all of the restaurants that have space welcome large groups, whether they be for weddings, birthdays, baptisms, tour groups, business meetings... you get the idea. So in that sense, they are used to doing set menus, even offering various options for each part of the meal so that guests have more choices than they would normally have.

There are definitely many restaurants that are large enough to seat up to 50 people or even more. Most have separate dining rooms, and can reserve a whole area for your party.
Many offer great Italian and Tuscan dishes - I think the hard part will be deciding for one ;-).

Here are just a few examples - I suggest in any case to contact many of them to ask for menu proposals and cost estimate per person, and of course, to make sure they are free for your dates.

http://www.ristorantesabatini.it/
http://www.trattorianerone.it/
http://www.garibardi.it/
http://www.ighibellini.com/

There are so many restaurants, most offering similar type of fare... so I think you will have to select based on the menus they propose, cost and see if they will work with you to meet any special requests for guests (vegetarian, vegan, etc).

The first is more luxurious, the others very informal - the last one has a whole downstairs area that can be reserved just for your group. These are just to get you started, let me know if you want more and what type.... since once you get started you'll decide which ones you like better. That way I can look for more that might meet your needs better.
 
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