REHEARSAL Dinner Invites/Responses

Are you inviting every guest to the rehearsal dinner as well? That could end up being a lot of people! We didn't invite everyone to rehearsal dinner, even if they were from OOT. . Just bridal party and their families and immediate family. If you invited everyone, it almost seems like you would be hosting 2 weddings. As an OOT guest, I have never assumed I'd be invited to rehearsal dinner either but maybe I'm wrong.

I wouldn't put the rehearsal dinner on the invite RSVP. I think you should decide who you really want at the rehearsal dinner and send them separate invites to that.

We are only having about 50-55 people and it's all close family and a few really close friends. So friends that are around the area we are not inviting but I always heard you invite out of town guests but now that you say that there are some I could probably cut out just hope my fiancé goes with that idea :/

I could be wrong. I just read this:

The rehearsal dinner guest list typically includes close family members and anyone participating in the wedding ceremony (including your officiant), plus their spouses or dates. But it is also considerate to invite your out-of-town guests to attend as a kind gesture of thanks for traveling all the way.

We didn't have a whole bunch of OOT guests so it never came up with us. But we actually did have 50 people at our rehearsal dinner and it worked out wonderfully. So if you did want to extend that invite, I think it would work if you were ok hosting the dinner.

We are sending out separate invites to the people that are invited to the rehearsal dinner.

It may confuse your guests, if they feel like they shouldn't be invited or it may make them feel pressured to attend both...

Thank you

We invited all OOT guests.... 95% of people were out of town since it was a destination wedding. We had 40 out of 90 show up. I guestimated 40 to the venue and it wound up being perfect. We told people by word of mouth and also included it on the hotel welcome bag and on our wedding website. Hope this helps some.

We are putting a separatr, less formal RSVP card with our invites for this with a hand written note saying that we would love it if they are in town and could join us and to please return it with the wedding RSVP

We didn't invite out of town guests. I've never heard of it done, in our area/social circle, unless it's a very close family member. I was invited to rehearsal dinners, as an OOT guest, for out of area cousins (FL) only.

I went to a RD not too long ago and the grandparents weren't even invited. I knew that one flew-in, to attend the wedding. I thought it was a bit much, but the bride made all the arrangements, at a restaurant she booked, and the MOG just paid the bill - didn't question it at all.

The majority of our guests are from OOT. We are not inviting them to the RD. That get really expensive really quickly.

The only out of town guests we are inviting to our rehearsal dinner are the ones staying with my parents (my aunt and cousin from Alabama).

We are having our RD on Thursday with BP/immediate family only, then a "welcome party" on Friday night with all wedding guests invited. We included an info card with the details about the welcome party in the same envelope as the real invite, then added an extra line to RSVP to it on our RSVP card. It worked perfectly!

No. Just no, unless you REALLY want to throw two weddings.

Your OOT guests do not get an invite to the rehearsal dinner. It is a dinner to thank those who are rehearsing; your BP, their s/o's, your parents, your siblings, the officiant and coordinator (if they are going to be at the rehearsal). That is it.

Invite them by word of mouth and keep it as small as you can. There is no need to throw two formal events.

This is what we did. We had 70% out of town guests (so a rehearsal dinner of over 100 people) and needed to have a headcount. My FILs were paying for it and it was there desire to invite all out of town guests. They weren't very interested in my opinion on the matter, even though I wanted just the "traditional" guest list.

We only invited those in the family processional and bridal party and the significant others.

We are only having the BP and their SOs plus the priest if he accepts. I have never been invited to the RD if I wasn't in the wedding party, including my two nephews! Some of our wedding party have never met other members, so we want to keep it more intimate.

Most of our guests were OOT and it would basically have been a second wedding reception if they were all invited to the RD! But if that's what you want to do, fine. Personally I think RD invites need to be separate invite but no matter what you definitely need a firm RSVP.

I am doing this because many of our guests are staying the weekend as well. We are getting married in the mountains and food choices are very scarce. We also have our venue from Friday afternoon - Sunday morning so we did not have to pay extra to use the venue and table/chair rentals for Friday night and FH's family is taking care of the catering costs for the food.

Our wedding is 170 people and our rehearsal dinner is 120, we decided to call it a Welcome Party instead. We just put it on the RSVP card as well because we needed a head count.

Edit: Attached a picture of our rsvp card in case you needed more ideas. But our wedding is a buffet so we didn't need to include meal choices.

And this is how weddings get so expensive. Because of things that don't need to happen. Except possibly for Semper

We are just doing wp, their spouses, and our parents

I think it's definitely a nice gesture to invite OOT guests to your rehearsal dinner. We're doing that as well since the majority of our guests are traveling (about half internationally). But ours is not a typical "rehearsal dinner." It's a few private lanes at a bowling alley and an inexpensive buffet. We wanted to do something interactive so that guests could get a chance to mingle and meet folks before the wedding. And also since our wedding guest list is on the larger side, it gives us another opportunity to mingle with folks who've made the effort to travel (which takes some of the pressure off for going from table to table during the reception). And we definitely didn't want it to feel like a second wedding, hence the bowling. There won't be any traditional RD toasts. All toasts will be at the actual wedding. I think you should totally include OOT guests if you want to and have the room in your budget.

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

Regarding your original question, I also think it's fine to include the RD RSVP on the wedding RSVP. We recently went to a wedding where they did this. Personally though I wouldn't do it (and I didn't do it for mine). I think you'll end up getting your RSVP cards late b/c people will want to have all their travel arrangements finalized before responding so that they could respond for both events. Whereas, if they know they're coming to the wedding but haven't yet booked flights/hotel, etc, they'll still send back the RSVP card (if it includes wedding only).

Also, if you do include it on the RSVP card, you'll have to create a second version of the rsvp card for people who aren't invited to RD. And be careful when assembling them that you don't get mixed up!