Rehearsal Dinner - Guest List

That is totally up to you. I've seen the following variations:

1) Wedding party only

2) Wedding party and Immediate Family

3) Wedding party, immediate family, and OOT guests

Personally, we did #3. Then again, we didn't have a lot of OOT guests. I feel if you decide to include OOT guests, then all OOT guests should be invited. If that sounds like more than you're willing to accommodate, then it might be best to just keep it wedding party and immediate family.

View Quoted Comment I want to do #3, but all my family and friends are from out of town. So it would be like a small lopsided version of our wedding. My mom wants to invite all her relatives but I want to keep it fairly small.

We’ll probably include OOT guests, but that’s only a few people that aren’t family and if we don’t include family, boy, will we hear about it. But you only really need to include your wedding party since it’s a thank you for taking their time for the rehearsal.

In your case, I'd probably go with just wedding party and immediate family. If you want to be able to spend more time with you out of town friends and family, you could meet up for brunch the next day.

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Well, your family will be your FH's family soon. The only OOT guests we had at our rehearsal dinner were my family, but then again...we didn't have many. If you want to keep it small though, I'd probably draw the line at wedding party, parents, siblings, grandparents, and nieces / nephews. Exclude any other family, OOT, etc. This keeps it simple enough to where no ones feelings would get hurt if they weren't invited. And unless your mom is paying/hosting your rehearsal dinner, she can express what she wants but has no final say.

We are getting married in April as well and our rehearsal will just be immediate family and wedding party. Trying to keep everything in our small budget.

We did not invite out of town guests, only bridal party and those involved in the ceremony (readers, musicians), and our immediate families PLUS all of their significant others/plus ones if they were given one.

The out-of-towners may be your deciding factor when it comes to space, budget, and who is paying. We're having immediate families, wedding party and guests, and FHs out of town family. My FFIL is paying for the rehearsal dinner so he had final say in their side coming to dinner.

Not that mine don't matter, they come out our way often enough and we'll probably them for after dinner drinks. FHs OOT family is coming from CA to MD, many for the first time in well over a decade.

View Quoted Comment Similar situation. My family is from MA and some have never been to NJ. I would love to invite everyone but we're paying for the dinner ourselves.

View Quoted Comment It may be best to keep it fair and only invite those directly involved in the ceremony.

Don't forget to include the SOs/dates of the wedding party and immediate family when you make your list. A lot of people don't invite out of town guests because it would be their entire guest list; other people do a "welcome dinner" where everyone is invited. We had a semi-DW so a lot of people drove in the day before the wedding. We had a welcome dinner for anyone who wanted to join us.

We have a good bit of OOT, but we’re just doing wedding party, their partners, and immediate family (plus grandma’s). The OOT guests are
getting a welcome bag with lists of places and the hotel has a restaurant in it.

The only people we had at our rehearsal and rehearsal lunch were those who were actually IN the wedding, and their significant others. We did let his sister bring her 2 kids who aren't in the wedding; their other 2 are and that's why they were there. Our parents were obviously there but our siblings (other than his sister, who was there because the kids are in the wedding) weren't even there. In other circumstances I'm sure we'd have invited them, but his brother is kind of only invited at all on a technicality, and isn't involved in the wedding itself, and my brother is on the other side of the world at the moment, so we knew he wasn't going to make it.

I too, think only those who need to be there to rehearse, NEED to be there. Including spouses, +1s and parent/s of minors.

But, I'm learning that how the Rehearsal Dinner is done now is very different from what I knew back in my day. There was no cost for formal invites; Everyone involved knew when and where to be as a result of initial and ongoing communications. And I've read around online, most sources taunt, "It sets the tone of your wedding", (so you should have as many people there as possible).

Really? Is 'tone' a needful thing twelve hours before the big event? Doesn't the Save the Date and Invitations set tone? Yes. They also create anticipation. Which, I think, together create plenty of emotion and excitement--for all your guests, more so than an event twelve hours beforehand. Don't get me wrong, I'm seriously not dogging these new ways, but I am dogging the logic behind presenting them as a 'necessity'.

Yes. need and want, are two different things, and that's why, of course, in most of these wedding choices--there is no wrong or right. I personally just see a lot of this new stuff as the vendors saying, "More, more, more! We want more!" Of your money--hahaha.

Well, one thing has not changed: It's all about what the bride wants. ;o)

No bride should feel less, for not wanting to, or being able to, make a huge event out of the Rehearsal Dinner.

I’m in the same case as you, all of my family except for parents and sisters are out of town. So we’re just doing wedding party and their guests and our parents and our children of course. When you have that many out of town guests the cost can get so high after you probably already paid a good bit for the actual wedding dinner.

I do believe from ones ive been to its just wedding party and immediate family like moms dads and maybe grandparents.. ive never seen guests at the rehersal dinner.. your already paying for their meals at your wedding so they should come knowing that and plan to go out to eat or something night before or order room service ....only thing for out of towners you need is a nice welcome bag with nice things like snacks and thank you letter or little things to make them comfortable that you know theyd like.

View Quoted Comment Well said , in know i didnt even send out invites for my rehersal i just told everyone time to be at venue to rehearse and then back at our place for rehearsal bbq lol ...i so wasnt paying anymore for more invites and there isnt alot of us for rehearsal so thats a plus lol