Rehearsal dinner etiquette

Inviting out of town guests isn’t a necessity. If you do want to invite them, a casual party with pizza and beer is perfectly fine.

People will tell you it's nice to invite plus ones and out of towners but it really will inflate your list so much so if you're really tight on money then cut it down and people will understand. Or if you don't want that, then it's ok to do something casual like a big backyard potluck

Another thought is to have the RD earlier w/ the bridal party/immediate family & then meet up with OOT for a welcome cocktail hour.

Have it at home, and make it casual (BBQ or pizza)? We are having 120 guests, I'd say 100 are out of town and 60 are out of state. Our RD is costing $3000 and includes wedding party & significant others & kids, immediate family, aunts/uncles/cousins and that's it. We couldn't find a restaurant big enough or cheap enough to include everyone. After the RD (5 PM - 7 PM) we will be in the hotel bar hanging out casually for other guests in the hotel to come say hi. We mentioned that on our website & the pamphlet in our welcome bags.

We’re inviting everyone to a casual rehearsal dinner because everyone is traveling. I’m having them rsvp with the wedding invitation and we’re getting simple catering from Publix, it’s pretty cheap.

View Quoted Comment That is a great option, not looking to break the bank for sure!

View Quoted Comment That was my initial thought to have it in the backyard of my grandparents house but we had to switch our venue and it has thrown a little wrench in our plans unfortunately 😔

View Quoted Comment I didn’t even think of that!! That would definitely make things easier on us and cut costs! Thhank you!!

View Quoted Comment That is another option that im thinking about now!! Thank you!!

View Quoted Comment Yea about 90% of our guests are traveling, I think its so sweet to include everyone considering they want to be there enough to travel. I’m definitely going to look into alternative catering, I wish we had a Publix near me lol!

That's us too..our wedding venue is 15 minutes from our house ..so we opted to have a rehearsal dinner at our house after rehearsal and get a taco guy ..it was much cheaper then paying for everyone at a restaurant. We will have at least 50 people at our rehearsal dinner, and paid 350 for 2 hours of food..we thought that was much cheaper then paying at a restaurant for everyone

This is why we decided to have a welcome party. We’re having a small rehearsal dinner the Friday before the wedding. And then a welcome party with everyone from out of town (around 70 people) that’s just heavy apps and drinks (we’re doing drink tickets at this event rather than a full open bar). We’ve budgeted around $2000, as of now we’re likely to come in under that.

Not sure if somebody mentioned it already bit you could always just say "hey everybody, we're going to be hanging out at xyz bar after the rehearsal if you'd like to come and hang out with us"
That way it's more on the guests to pay for any drinks or food?

We didn’t have a proper rehearsal dinner (or rehearsal) in a large part because almost all of our guests were from out of town, and we weren’t prepared to host essentially 2 weddings.
As an alternative, we hosted a super casual “Welcome Reception” at the bar nearest the hotels (walking distance). We did it late (8:30 start time) and hosted only snacks and drinks. Not a proper meal, but we ordered appetizers and pizzas to share. It worked out nicely to keep costs manageable but still get to see people, and do so as they arrived and passed through. Also without a sit down meal, we didn’t have to pay for space (reserving tables or a room or anything), and just had a reserved section of the bar (so some bar stools and high top tables) to maximize mingling. We ordered rounds of food as needed, so we essentially probably did feed everyone “dinner” but pizza and app shares were way cheaper than a plated meal!