Who all attends the Rehearsal Dinner?!

Out of town guests and the officiant.

I'm thinking about doing a small dinner with just BP and immediate family and then meet at the hotel for beer/wine/dessert for OOT about 100+ people will be from OOT so it would be really tough to afford to pay for them all.

The bridal party, parents, and the officiant.

Some people say out of town guests, but that can borderline on insane depending on the amount. I wouldn't invite them unless you had one aunt or uncle in from out of town, but that can cause issues in itself because others might be offended.

If I invited all my OOTG's I might as well skip the wedding and just have a rehearsal.

Bridal party, parents, immediate family, officiant and OOT guests.

We are inviting bridal party, parents, immediate family, the officiant, and our photographer. If we included our OOT guests we would essentially end up having two receptions.

Officiant... really? I only thought that was if you had grown up with your pastor, etc.

We mentioned it to our officiant and he said he wouldn't go to that.

My FMIL wants to invite the wedding (day of) coordinator, but I don't even think that's necessary.

Main people are wedding party (including all of the parents, grandparents, etc.), and the out of town guests that you can accommodate with your budget.

Ours will be: the wedding party and their dates, both immediate families and parents.

Yeah, we're not inviting OOT guests since 90% of the wedding guests will be from OOT. That includes 75% of our BP.

We're inviting:

BP and their significant other

Parents

Grandparent (we only have one left between FH and I)

Officiant and their significant other

Day of Coordinator and her husband

Godmother and her husband

Even with just those people, it'll still be 30 people for us.

Thanks guys. what im taking from this is wedding party/dates, immediate family both sides and parents/grandparents. i dont think i'm going to tinker with out of town guests because as someone mentioned people may get offended and that can get costly and i'm all about people being comfortable and i know if i was going to someones wedding that i dont see all that often i'd be a little awkward around all their close family/friends then just a handful of random out of towners. thanks everyone!

We only invited the bridal party, their dates & our parents. We extended an invite to our officiant, but he declined.

We will have so many OOT guests there's no way we could afford to invite them all, so it will be our bridal party, ushers, parents, and select few OOT family members and close friends (ETA: forgot about officiant and day-of planner). Whenever I had to travel to attend a wedding I was never invited to the rehearsal dinner, so I'm returning the favor.

If we would have invited OOT guests, it would have been the entire wedding. We just had parents and wedding party (with dates). We didn't have a FG or RB, but if we did, they would have been invited with their families as well. We casually invited our officiant, but he wasn't interested lol.

The point of the rehearsal dinner is to provide a meal to the people who are involved in the rehearsal (and their significant others). A rehearsal dinner can be as informal as pizza at someone's apartment after the rehearsal. For example, our rehearsal involves our officiant (my godmother), our siblings, our grandparents, two of my friends, and our parents. So that's who will be invited to the rehearsal dinner. I think my future in-laws are hosting; they'll likely find a restaurant near the venue.

In contrast my parents hosted my brother's rehearsal dinner, and they invited EVERYONE who was invited to the wedding. My cousin's wedding 7 years ago was similar: all out of town guests were invited. It's nice if you can invite out of town guests, who likely have nothing else to do the night before the wedding, but it's not necessary.

tl;dr: You must invite everyone who was involved in your rehearsal (including significant others). You may invite other people if you want, but it's not required. Commonly, out of town guests are invited, but it's not a requirement.

Stephanie, just to clarify what you were saying- is it customary to invite the spouses/significant others of everyone in the wedding party to the rehearsal dinner?

We are inviting parents, grandparents, siblings (siblings dates if applicable), bridal party, bridal parties' dates, and officiant

Those are the only people I believe you are required to invite, it is nice to invite aunts and uncles and OOT people as well. We are only inviting aunts and uncles ad everyone is from OOT and I don't want a second wedding as the rehearsal dinner.

I have one family that is OOT that isn't in my BP. I'm not inviting them to the rehearsal because that would require that they be in town with a hotel room for two more days. I am not about to ask them to pay for 2 extra nights in a hotel room.

We are doing bridal party and their dates/spouses, and immediate family.

Thats what im thinking. i can only think of one family that is from out of town that i would even want at my rehearsal and they have a baby and im not sure if they can even make it to the wedding or if theyre driving in the day of the wedding or what - and again i dont wanna offend anyone when they hear that so-and-so got to be at the rehearsal dinner and another family didnt. especially my inlaws, they get so easily offended it isnt even funny. so to avoid that i'm just going to invite my parents, brother, bridal party & their dates/significant others, hubby's parents & step parents and his two grandmas. even then we're talking 30+ people and im going to be so stressed by this point i dont want to have to deal with satisfying a zillion people, i know by that point there isnt much i can change so its worthless to stress buuuut - thats just how i am lol

Need to have:

Officiant (and spouse)

Bridal party (and spouse)

FG/RB and parents (if applicable)

Siblings/BIL's and SIL's (if not already in the wedding party)

Parents (and stepparents if applicable)

Grandparents

Nice to have:

Aunts and Uncles

Readers

Out of town guests

Mostly, the RD is a chance for the inner circle to spend time together before the wedding, as well as a thank you for being a part of the wedding. The only real rules are that it shouldn't be nicer/more formal than the wedding itself (because of the appearance of trying to upstage the bride's family, maybe?), and the "need to have" guest list.

My IL's wanted to do a shebang, so we had about 40-odd people at ours (we had a 90-person wedding). This included a friend who didn't want to be in the bridal party but was super helpful with the wedding planning, and three friends who were our ceremony musicians as a wedding gift to us.

@alexa Yes. The way to think about it is that I wouldn't invite my brother-in-law to something without also inviting his wife. She's not going to be in the wedding, but it would be rude to exclude her from dinner. By the same token, I was not in the wedding party for that brother-in-law's wedding, but my fiance was, so I was invited to the rehearsal dinner.

For mine we really just want us, our parents & grandparents and our bridal party. My FH family is 95% out of town and it would just be like having another reception. Plus a smaller, intimate affair will be really nice before the crazy of the wedding day!