How Many People Are You Inviting To Your Rehearsal Dinner?

We had just the wedding party & their spouses.

Plus our parents & the officiant.

View Quoted Comment That makes sense. Though the number of people participating in the ceremony can vary greatly - some people have 30+ people, others have around 5. Obviously, the more people participating, the more people to attend the rehearsal. How many people are you inviting to your rehearsal dinner?

View Quoted Comment This is similar to what we're doing as well! Plus anyone doing a reading during the ceremony and our officiant. I think we'll end up with around 30-35 people at our rehearsal dinner. Do you have a lot of people in your wedding party?

View Quoted Comment You can do whatever works best for you! I think significant others should always be invited, though if it's a truly single person, their plus one doesn't need to be invited to the rehearsal (unless you have the space and budget for them, then it would be nice to allow them to attend too).

View Quoted Comment 20 people seems like an ideal size for a rehearsal dinner!

View Quoted Comment Good to know!

View Quoted Comment We have 4 bridesmaids, 4 groomsmen, no significant others, no flower children, my adopted mom is the only parent attending. 9 plus us.

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We have 6 each, so with significant others, it'll be around 20-24 (a few are single), plus our parents and grandparents so another 9, and us and officiant. so we'll probably be somewhere between 30-40.

View Quoted Comment Very cool, that's generous of them to cover the cost! And we have close to the same number attending at our rehearsal dinner: somewhere between 30-35.

View Quoted Comment Great point on the reception dinner potentially feeling redundant! I hadn't considered that before. The thank you brunch is a fun idea for an alternative to a welcome dinner!

View Quoted Comment Awesome that your family is all so close! I totally understand wanting to include them all in the rehearsal dinner.

View Quoted Comment I hadn’t thought of it before either! I am so appreciative others pointed it out, because it makes sense! I’d rather save the magic for the big event ✨

View Quoted Comment 22 seems like an ideal number of guests for a rehearsal dinner!

View Quoted Comment Very cool! How many people do you have in your wedding party?

View Quoted Comment That makes sense! We're doing something similar for our rehearsal dinner - only wedding party and their significant others, parents, grandparents, and officiant and his significant other. The thank you BBQ sounds like a fun idea!

View Quoted Comment 7 each side so 14 all together.

View Quoted Comment This is what we're doing too! Wedding party and their significant others, parents, grandparents, and officiant and his significant other. For us, this adds up to somewhere between 30-35 people. How many people did you end up having at your rehearsal dinner?

View Quoted Comment It was a total of 15-we had a small wedding party.

I think this comes down to personal preference & wedding budget. I have somewhat of a large bridal party, with that being said we've decided to do bridal party, parents, bonus parents, officiant & our wedding coordinator. Lucky for me, all of my siblings/my fiance's siblings are in the bridal party along with our best friends. We are having a small intimate dinner together after rehearsing a bit.

If you decide to do a huge rehearsal dinner, I recommend a seafood boil! My best friend got married in 2019 & had a fairly large rehearsal dinner and the seafood boil was a hit! Great cost and everybody was full about 15 minutes into it!

Something I thought about was how exhausted I would be if I had to host a huge rehearsal dinner the night before my wedding & also if you're on a strict budget, that is a lot of mouths to feed just to turn around and do it again the next day! Then you also have to think about how you would invite everybody to your rehearsal dinner whether it was an online invite, separate invites, or programs etc. which would ultimately up your costs even more.

I hope this helps!