Is it okay to not invite out-of-town relatives to the rehearsal dinner?

I can totally appreciate that Amy. The justification is that he REALLY loves these friends, and wishes they could be groomsmen but there were just too many of them so he went with having my brothers as groomsmen instead, even though he is not remotely as close to my brothers as he is to his best buddies. So I didn't want him to feel like he is missing out on having them at the rehearsal dinner. (my best girlfriends are all involved in the wedding in some way, so I am not missing out on having my besties with me at the rehearsal, because they will be there.)

Can he see them after the rehearsal dinner - ie: meet up at the local bar and hang out for a while? See them for lunch before? The rehearsal dinner really should be for those who are involved in the wedding party rehearsal.

I would eliminate the cousins. Traditionally you included OOT guests but I don't think people do as often now. Maybe have a welcome drink with them before or after rehearsal if you really want to include them.

We didn't invite OOT people except for close family-- grandparents, aunts and uncles plus people who were involved in the rehearsal. We had so many OOT people that otherwise it would have been like what you are describing--75 ppl at the RD and 100 at the wedding.

You have plenty of time to deal with this, so please don't stress out. We struggled with the same issues and decided to just go with it. 84 on the list of potential invitees. We're having about 45. What we didn't realize was that some people are flying in later and/or want to do something else so they aren't coming.

If you have to have a small party, I'd say to skip anyone but the wedding party and go out with the frat boys afterwards.

You don't have to invite all of the out of town guests. The standard is just to invite those that are in the wedding, parents, siblings, and their significant others. Anyone else is just up to you all. You have time to discuss this with him.

We have maybe 15 local non family people coming to our wedding. I am not extendeding invites to anyone last family. Our BP is just family so that is a help too.

Nearly all of our guests are OOT, so we came up with a compromise.

We rented a room at the restaurant across from the hotel (venue).

We will have the rehearsal dinner with just the people in the wedding, their spouses, and immediate relatives.

We are inviting everyone to join us for a welcome reception afterward. We plan on having a tray of desserts, and a few pitchers/bottles of drinks.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

We are doing the rehearsal BBQ at 6 at the hotel and telling everyone to meet at the hotel pool bar a couple hours later for a welcome happy hour. Just bridal party and their spouses. This way we will get to see everyone. We definitely did t want two weddings it's too expensive!

No, no, no. You can't make the rehearsal dinner into another wedding. More than half of our guest list is technically out-of-town because my groom's family lives in CT. However, we're only inviting the bridal party, parents, and the people from super-far away like NYC and Toronto, Canada.