Rehearsal dinner

A rehearsal dinner is to treat the people who come to your wedding rehearsal to a meal. So it includes those in the processional of the wedding at a minimum. It is a good opportunity for people to meet before spending the wedding together. It's a good time to thank everyone for being in your wedding and people will sometimes give gifts then as well. Otherwise just have dinner and have fun with the people closest to you!

If your rehearsal is in the morning you could consider a rehearsal brunch or lunch instead

If you're doing a rehearsal, I strongly suggest doing a rehearsal dinner. Typically, anyone participating in the wedding ceremony (wedding party, readers, officiant, parents/immediate family, etc) would all be invited to the rehearsal dinner. You could give wedding party their gifts at the rehearsal dinner, and you can all just enjoy a meal together. It can be as casual or as formal as you'd like - anything from BBQ in someone's backyard, to going out for pizza at a casual restaurant, to a fancy dinner where everyone dresses up. It's totally up to you!


Here is an article I found with more info on rehearsal dinners: https://www.theknot.com/content/amphtml/wedding-rehearsal-basics

If you're rehearsing in the morning, then you have a rehearsal brunch or lunch. The purpose of the rehearsal "dinner" is to thank your family and bridal party for attending your rehearsal. If you expect them to rehearse, you should feed them. If you don't want to feed them, skip the rehearsal.

You don't have to do a "dinner" you could do a Brunch / Lunch. I went to one and it was so much easier and less hectic / stressful. I would think you would want yours and your FH's parents to meet before the actual wedding day.

Since your rehearsal is in the daytime, it does not have to be a “dinner“. You can totally go to breakfast/brunch, which is actually a nice alternative. It’s mainly eating and conversing. Since your parents haven’t met, it’s a nice setting for doing that. Additionally it’s a time to thank your wedding party and parents in a more intimate setting. You can even hand them their gifts at that time too.

View Quoted Comment So it’s just the bridal party. I keep reading things that say bridal party, parents, and immediate family! That would put us at about 25 people. If it’s just the bridal party and our parents it’d be 15.

View Quoted Comment If it’s just the bridal party and our parents I’d be fine. But I need seeing things that say immediate family. I have 6 siblings but only 2 are in the bridal party.

View Quoted Comment

Traditionally, most people do invite their entire immediate family because for most, it would be odd to have their parents and some siblings, but exclude the others. It's not a requirement though. The only people that have to be invited are those participating in the rehearsal and their significant others.

View Quoted Comment I guess I’ll just leave it up to my parents what they want to do. If the decide against it, we’ll take just the bridal party out for lunch instead

I feel like it’s nice to do it if the parents haven’t met yet

If his parents haven’t met you should definitely do it, usually the rehearsal is done around dinner time which is why there’s a rehearsal dinner. Since you’re doing a run through the morning of you should do a rehearsal brunch afterwards. The parents definitely need to meet before the wedding

View Quoted Comment This. Rehearsal dinners (you can have everything during the daytime to make it less expensive) are for your attendants at minimum and their spouses at most. A majority of dinners are casual with pizza and sodas which is pretty inexpensive on its own. There is no need to get fancier, especially if you can't afford it.

I agree with everyone posting about doing a brunch instead, it's much more casual and it will be a good non stressful environment for both of you parents to meet and for you to say thank you to everyone and just spend time together without the chaso lol. My rehearsal dinner includes my wedding party, the officiant, our parents and my FH's grandparents. I didn't include any of my siblings/ immediate family because I didn't find it necessary.

If you're having a rehearsal, then it's a good idea to have a rehearsal dinner. Especially in your case if your parents and FH's parents haven't met each other yet, and you won't even be paying for it! Rehearsal dinners typically include the wedding party, their significant others, and important family members such as your parents. You could do a brunch or a dinner! We had our actual rehearsal in the morning because the time was set by the venue and then had our rehearsal dinner that evening. Rehearsal dinners come in all shapes and forms. I've attended about 14 rehearsal dinners in the past few years. Some were at formal restaurants with full open bars, some were at more casual restaurants, one was in a rented party room (ours was also in a rented party room!) and one was even at somebody's house with Domino's pizza. You can make your rehearsal dinner as fancy or casual as you want it. I would definitely recommend having one though.

View Quoted Comment

I actually wouldn't agree in saying that the majority of rehearsal dinners are casual and inexpensive. 10 out of the 14 rehearsal dinners I've attended were actually very formal affairs! I would say that rehearsal dinners can be casual and inexpensive if that's what the couple wants. Some people have their rehearsal dinners in a fancy restaurant, others have them at their home with pizza. And both are great options! There are so many choices when it comes to rehearsal dinners and people should do whatever works for them

It's normal to do a rehearsal dinner where you guys will go over the plans for the wedding. Figure out where everyone will stand and how everyone will walk out. You could just have a dinner for the people who will be at the rehearsal. Also that is the time when most brides and grooms pass out their gifts to their parents and wedding party. If his parents and your parents never met that would be a good time to get them to meet as well. We are doing our rehearsal at the venue and then after the rehearsal we are going back to his parents house and just cooking hotdog and hamburgers for dinner. It will just be his parents and my parents, my bridesmaids and his groomsmen and my brothers at the rehearsal dinner.

Traditionally the groom or the groom side of the family hosts and pays for a rehearsal dinner. I would mention it to your fiancé to talk to his family. Of course nowadays anything goes. But a meal immediately following the rehearsal is a very nice gesture for people that are participating in the actual rehearsal. Maybe a brunch instead of a dinner?

For us, we are having our rehearsal at the venue, and dinner at a separate location. We invited the bridal party, immediate family, any out-of-town guests that arrive the night before, and the officiant.

View Quoted Comment

Yes, a lot of people include their immediate family (siblings) in the Rehearsal Dinner. But that's up to you (or rather your parents), and what you can afford. A brunch or lunch would be less expensive (since your rehearsal is in the morning). But traditionally, it's only the bridal party and parents of the bride and groom. Basically anyone who has a role in the ceremony.

The rehearsal dinner should really be a dinner, immediately after the ceremony rehearsal, for people who are in the ceremony and therefore need to rehearse, plus their spouses/dates. Typically you eat dinner and some people who are not planning to give speeches at the wedding, like the father of the groom and siblings who are not best man or maid of honor, give speeches. A lot of people make a whole big thing out of it and invite extended family and/or out of town guests (the last one I went to had about 40 people, and I went to one with 70) but you absolutely do not need to.

You really should provide food for people who rehearse/are part of the ceremony. Since you're doing the rehearsal in the morning, it would be nice to take everyone out to a rehearsal brunch afterward, but if you don't have an extra 60-90 minutes in your wedding day timeline (or don't want to have brunch with people that day for any reason), it's fine to just give them coffee/juice/pastries/fruit/something quick. Since your parents and your FH's haven't met each other, it could be a good idea to have dinner with all of them the night before. It would allow them to get to know each other and reduce some of the stress from the day of the wedding. I don't know what your family dynamics are like, but it would probably make sense to either invite all of your siblings or not invite any of them, rather than only including the ones in the bridal party.

Completely agree with much of above, but also rehearsal dinners are a great way for you to spend time with many of your closest family and friends during the weekend. The wedding day is such a blur with timelines and obligatory conversations with all guests, that the rehearsal is one of the few times I felt I got to really connect with my bride/groom friends when I’ve been in weddings. Plus it gives more time for speeches from (bc let’s face it, speeches from more than parents and MOH/BM at the wedding is pushing it!)