Rehearsal Dinner Etiquette

If you invite them to attend the welcome party/rehearsal dinner, you need to cover their expenses. A rehearsal dinner does not need to be and typically is not a fancy occasion. It is casual inexpensive yummy food such as pizzas and beer/sodas. Don't make it complicated.


Most guests will not be offended if they are not invited to the rehearsal dinner or a welcome party. It's a big event the wedding industry has created to pressure/guilt couples to spend more money than necessary or more than they have to begin with.

This is fine as long as it’s not portrayed as a hosted event and you don’t send formal invitations. Just send a text, email, whatever, and say “hey we’re going out to ___ for drinks if anyone would like to meet up with us!”

We faced this same situation. We are having a destination wedding (within the US), so all of our guests will be traveling. We will be having a rehearsal and rehearsal dinner the evening before the wedding. Initially we were going to invite everyone, but several people here on WW pointed out that if we did that our wedding reception would just feel like a re-do of the evening before - which of course we don’t want to do. So instead, we will only be inviting parents, siblings, and the wedding party to the rehearsal dinner; then after the dinner, we are planning an activity that anyone can join us for if they wish (at their own expense). We will then host a thank you/farewell brunch for all guests on the last day (which we will pay for).

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Thanks! That is a great option.

We’re having a rehearsal dinner with immediate family and bridal party only. Afterwards, we have an open invite for everyone to join us for drinks and live music.
Almost all of our guests are from out of town, too. Inviting out of town guests is becoming less and less common. I’ve never even been to a rehearsal dinner that included them. It was different back when it was uncommon for people to move far from their hometowns. Now, it just isn’t always realistic.

We're having our rehearsal dinner with the bridal party and immediate family. We're planning to have an open bar at our hotel that our out of town guests are invited to. That way we don't spend a giant amount on dinner, but we still get to have everyone mingle and spend time together!