Rehearsal dinner conundrum

A welcome bbq would be nice however you can limit the rehearsal dinner to bridal party and family. To me, a welcome bbq, rehearsal dinner and then the actual wedding day would be wayyy to much in one week.

In my experience, rehearsal dinners are only for people in the wedding party (and their dates) and immediate family members. For our rehearsal dinner it will be my bridal party and their dates (some are younger so their parents will come) and my FH's groomsmen and their dates or families (some have a wife and kids...but they are related to us). Then we have our parents and grandparents and our pastor and his wife. All together even that adds up! Our out of town family definitely isn't going to be invited but if you wanted to see them maybe go out after the rehearsal dinner for drinks or a late night meal. At the same time, if the groom's family is paying for it then they have a little more say in who comes.

I was just having this thought today! Putting the wedding party together with their significant others plus just direct family was already adding up to 25.. And if i add my grandparents, i may have to add my aunts etc and then my cousins and then it's just out of control! I'd say sticking with direct fam plus wedding party is a good way to go

I think it's OK to just invite the wedding party, their dates, parents and grandparents. Especially if that's what you can afford. Besides, like you said, if we invited every guest from out of town, we would be having another wedding! We're giving gift bags to the out of town guests though. It will be on their hotel rooms.

We did not include OOT guests either, nor have I ever been invited to (nor expected to be invited) a rehearsal dinner when I traveled OOT for a wedding. We already had 55 people at our rehearsal dinner, no way we could add more. We wanted to keep the rehearsal just people involved with the wedding and their families.

How big is your wedding? I wouldn't invite OOT guests to your rehearsal if it's going to be mostly the same people who are at your wedding. Also, they are adults. They can fend for themselves.

Yeah, we are not inviting our OOT guests (there's not that many) ours is already at 30.

Same here. It's 45 with just the people who'd "need" to be at the rehearsal. I would have liked to include OOT but that would be another wedding reception. FMIL's call here. I am planning to do a "drinks and dessert" meet and greet AFTER the rehearsal dinner back at the hotel for OOT. They'll be free to get their own dinner and such, but I wanted to "visit" with them and welcome them before the big day.

Usually it's bridal party (and plus ones), immediate family, and can be OOT. Honestly, if the rehearsal dinner will be too big with OOT then don't invite them to the rehearsal dinner, but it depends how far they're traveling. If it's a destination wedding you should have a welcome party for them.

I had a similar issue and what we decided to do is to invite bridal party and significant others along with parents/siblings to an early dinner and then hold a welcome reception around 8 p.m. in our suite with pizzas and beer for whoever wants to drop by. It would be kind of an "open house" type thing so people can come by, stay a while, pick up their welcome bag, etc.

Most of our guests are traveling, we are doing rehearsal dinner as just bridal party and family and then doing casual welcome drinks afterwards which is open to everyone (although not hosted). It feels like a good compromise to be able to spend time with OOT guests while not putting on another wedding.

We are having a lot of people at the rehearsal dinner. Our venue has a 5 bedroom house attached so we are going to party a bit the Friday before. Dad and I will be competing for best spaghetti and meatballs. I plan to win ;-)

Our solution is a pre-wedding bowling night after the RD. Since my family is all over the place RDs would be huge if we invited OOT guests for every family members wedding. Years ago the family started the tradition of bowling or a harbor cruise of other casual gathering for everyone after the dinner, and only bridal party and dates go to the dinner, everyone else is on their own.

We're renting a few lanes, buying a few pitchers, and did word of mouth/FB to let people know about it. Shouldn't cost too much, and it'll be a ton of fun!

To my knowledge, the rehearsal dinner is for the bridal party and immediate family. Inviting OOT guests is something I've only heard of on WW.

We are actually only doing bridal party and immediate family (no plus one's) we are doing rehearsal then dinner right after and I don't want random guests I don't know watching us rehearse. I think this should be an intimate dinner with just close friends & family.

We are also in a similar situation with a ton of OOT guests. We will be having a get together in the hotel lobby for "welcome drinks" after the rehearsal dinner for any guests arriving in town on that Friday night. It will be a completely optional and very casual event and on our guests' tabs if they want to drink.

Listen, this isn't Woodstock. Inviting OOT guests not only makes the RD bigger, more expensive, and longer, but it's more stress; it can become like a second wedding, and I can tell you that by that night? You're going to want to chill because you'll have last minute things to do and you don't want to be completely burned out by the next day.

I don't know how this trend started but it needs to end. The RD should be a short, casual dinner to thank the people who had to rehearse. Not a stand alone event that could come close to upstaging the wedding itself. And no, most people do not invite OOT'ers to it.

I agree, I don't know when the rehearsal dinner became a pretty wedding reception! We are doing a quick, laid back dinner outside to feed those who came to the rehersal. Wedding party and spouses, both parents, officiant and readers with their significant other....and that added up to 30 peeps!

We're not inviting OOT guests to the rehearsal dinner because that would be 85% of the guest list. We're doing immediate family, bridal party and their SOs. It's totally fine with a lot of OOT guests.

We are having a few OOT guests, but mostly its just immediate people. There needs to be a line drawn, however if your FMIL is paying for the rehearsal dinner like anything else she has a say. But if you are paying for it then it is your call. I don't know if anything formal is needed, if you have the ability to do a BBQ nice, but weddings are expensive as is so don't overdo it for your sake. Good luck.