In this study, the effect of in-plane deformations on the dynamic behavior of laminated plates is investigated. For this purpose, the displacement-time and strain-time histories obtained from the large deflection analysis of laminated plates are compared for the cases with and without including in-plane deformations. For the first one, in-plane stiffness and inertia effects are considered when formulating the dynamic response of the laminated composite plate subjected to the blast loading. Then, the problem is solved without considering the in-plane deformations. The geometric nonlinearity effects are taken into account by using the von Karman large deflection theory of thin plates and transverse shear stresses are ignored for both cases. The equations of motion for the plate are derived by the use of the virtual work principle. Approximate solution functions are assumed for the space domain and substituted into the equations of motion. Then, the Galerkin method is used to obtain the nonlinear algebraic differential equations in the time domain. The effects of the magnitude of the blast load, the thickness of the plate and boundary conditions on the in-plane deformations are investigated.