Principal Sponsors- should be invited at a wedding rehearsal dinner?

I'm also having a Filipino ceremony but we probably won't have principal sponsors. If we did, we would invite them to the rehearsal dinner only if they attended the rehearsal, which they should also be invited to. If you want to save money, I'd suggest looking into cheaper rehearsal dinner options. I'm not sure how your family is like, but my family loves to cook and would be more than happy to just have a potluck rehearsal.

Also, they're just walking down the aisle, but you'd be surprised how, even after a rehearsal, people still don't know where to stand during the wedding (and this doesn't only apply to the ninangs/ninongs ^^;

View Quoted Comment I only have my mom coming from the Philippines, so we ordered food trays and will just have a buffet. Serve yourself with coffee, tea and water kind of rehearsal dinner. I just don't want to invite a lot too, because it will be night before the wedding. I want to rest early and take care of small details. Catholic wedding have a large wedding party though, so if I invite Ninongs and Ninangs it will be like 40, total guests.

View Quoted Comment Oo tricky~ I’m assuming that the problem is ending the rehearsal dinner early (or on time) so that you can sleep? (My family just loves to stay over till the morning sun)

I would still invite them to rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. If I were a ninang I’d feel embarrassed if I found out there was a rehearsal that I didn’t attend (even if I wasn’t invited). You can make it ‘optional’ to your principal sponsors and hope that not too many of them attend the rehearsal and dinner so that they can leave early and sleep

Maybe you can host your rehearsal dinner at someone else’s house (that’s okay with hosting of course!) that is not your own (or where you plan to sleep). That way, you can let your family leave that you have to get rest and if your family still wants to talk catch up, they can still do so.