Welcome dinner and farewell brunch

Yep, we had both! Our rehearsal dinner was essentially a welcome dinner because we included all out of town guests, and we hosted a farewell brunch at the restaurant in our hotel block was the morning after. Both events are very common and definitely the norm in my family and social circle. However, while I'm from the east coast, my husband is from the midwest and he had never heard of a farewell brunch before he started attending weddings on my side of the family. I would imagine that our farewell brunch after our wedding was one of the first that his relatives attended, but they definitely seemed to enjoy it!

We are having a rehearsal dinner strictly for our wedding party the night before. We contemplated doing a welcome dinner for all our out of town guests, but it would have been 86 people, so we decided against it. We will be hosting a farewell brunch for all 200+ people the following morning though.

We will probably end up doing multiple gatherings around our wedding since all of our guests are from out of state/country and want to spend Tim with people outside the wedding. We have talked about taking the cousins all out for NYE and doing something for Boxing Day.

We had a destination wedding so we felt we needed to treat our guests extra well. We had a welcome dinner Friday evening before the Saturday wedding and then a pancake brunch Sunday before people left out of town. While a couple of our guests (mostly older) assumed the “welcome dinner” was a rehearsal dinner, they weren’t at disappointed to learn that it was simply a welcome dinner to welcome them into town for our wedding. They were however pleasantly surprised when they realized we were paying 100% for it. I assumed that was a given. 🤷🏻‍♀️
Everyone seemed happy to come back together for a the brunch Sunday as well but it was of course much shorter than the welcome dinner was.

My wedding is costing me 3/4 of my annual salary so I certainly cannot afford either of these for our guests. The closest we will be doing to this is having a pizza night/run through with the celebrant at my parents' place 2 nights before, and recovery brunch the day after, but this will just be for close family and we are only doing it because FH's family live far away and some members of his family haven't even met my family yet so it is more for introductions.

I had a farewell brunch for my first wedding. It was fine but also sort of a waste of time lol. We won’t be having one for this wedding. My fiancé and I decided that after two years of wedding planning and an intense week with family, we’ll be family’d out and will just want to spend time together.

I have been to 2 brunches, and one of them was mostly because we all stayed at the same hotel.

They aren't really all that common in my area, mostly because the cost of a wedding is so high.

My parents want a welcome dinner since their guests are all out-of-town. It will be about 30 people. We picked a more casual place next to the beach and I'm really excited for it just like for the actual wedding!

Yep they're pretty common for my FH's family! We're having a rehearsal dinner of course, but afterwards we're having a 'Meet and Mingle' with our traveling guests so we can spend some time with them and thank them for coming! Sunday after the wedding we're going to be having brunch and letting everyone know that they're welcome to join us if they want!

We had a rehearsal dinner (not a welcome dinner) for just those involved in the ceremony, and then 100% turned down any offers/pushing from IL's to have a day after brunch. We didnt' want anything the day after and H's parents were pretty adamant. We solved it by booking our honeymoon flights the morning after the wedding.

We are doing a welcome dinner/rehearsal dinner combo the night before. Only a few close family and family friends will be in town the night before, most of whom would be at the rehearsal anyway. The rest are driving down and back on the day of the wedding. Probably will not do a brunch but I am still considering it. I have no idea what is normal. That all went out the window when we chose to have a weekday wedding!

View Quoted Comment This is basically what my fiancé and I are doing, too! We have a space rented Thursday night (our wedding is a Friday) from 5-10. Seated rehearsal dinner will be 5-8 for our bridal party only (and parents), then any guests who are in town and invited to show up starting at 8. We aren’t serving dinner at this part, just some light apps and desserts, plus beer and wine.

Hello Michelle, we're skipping these because:

1- We're having a rehearsal dinner and our guests live in our area ( some of them are out-of-towners but within one-hour (or less) drive from our venue).

2-We both have out-of-state family members but none of them made the cut for various reasons.