Rehearsal Dinner Stress

The only people that need to be at the rehearsal dinner are the people who are rehearsing and their spouses/significant others. The rehearsal dinner can be as casual or formal as you would like. Some people just do some pizza and beer/soda and a person's house. Others host a formal sit down dinner. It's really up to you. You can also less out of town guests know you'll be at the hotel bar the night before the wedding if they want to come and say hi, so it isn't a hosted event.

It's definitely not an etiquette thing to have all out of town guests at the rehearsal. If you WANT to invite everyone, that's fine, but the only people who need to be involved are people who are actually involved in the wedding ceremony and have a need to rehearse (and their SO's).

I disagree that proper etiquette is to invite out-of-town guests to the rehearsal dinner. Some couples choose to make their rehearsal dinners a bigger affair if budgets allow it, but that is above and beyond expectations and definitely not the norm. The rehearsal dinner is an intimate thank you to your wedding party for their investment of time and resources to support your wedding. As a guest traveling in from out-of-town the night before, I 100% expect that I need to feed myself dinner (I do expect you to feed me at your reception though, Lol). Keep it small, and save yourself the stress and expense.

In my family, it is expected that out of town guests be invited. However, many people don't follow this anymore, and it wouldn't offend me if I weren't invited.


On another note, I would focus on making FH happy over your mom. He is your #1 from now on and you two are a team. It's your wedding, not your mom's.
if your mom is bankrolling the rehearsal, that's a different story and my answer would be different

Jut because people are coming from out of town does not mean they get an automatic invite to the rehearsal dinner. No, that would end up being like having two wedding receptions. No, I've never heard any such etiquette. They know they are coming from out of town. Do you really think they expect to be invited to your rehearsal dinner? No, they don't.

Rehearsal and the dinner afterwards is for WEDDING PARTY ONLY. My wedding party members are all married already, so their spouses are invited to the dinner--that's proper etiquette. Not what you're suggesting.

We are hosting a rehearsal dinner for wedding party and immediate family (FH’s is large though) so the total is about 40. Immediately after, in the same venue BUT on the back deck with a separate entrance, we are having a drop-in style “welcome party” with beer and wine only, and small apps.


We’re doing 2 hours for the dinner and then 2 hours for the welcome party. Everyone who we invited to the wedding is invited to the welcome party, and anyone who was at the rehearsal dinner can hang out d’or the welcome party if they want (or head back to the hotel).
Might be a good option for your situation!

Proper etiquette says nothing about inviting out of area guests to the rehearsal dinner. Only those who are involved in the ceremony and their significant others, plus the officiant who often declines.

This is something you and fiancé need to decide on unless parents are footing the bill and then they decide. Many rehearsal dinners are very casual (pizza and beer or the local Mexican/Chinese restaurant for a small group) and you do not need to have a fancy event because the wedding day is fancy and not everyone has the budget to cover it.

Only those involved in the wedding and their dates need to be invited to the rehearsal dinner to basically thank them for being apart of your day. If you're inviting everyone from out of town, it's more of a welcome party.

We're getting married at a golf club, so we're having the rehearsal there followed by a sit down, plated dinner on the balcony overlooking the golf course. We have 65 guests coming to the wedding and 35 will be at the rehearsal dinner because my FH has a huge immediate family.

Some people do more of a welcome party than rehearsal dinner. If you want to do a true rehearsal, you just need your wedding party. If you want to have a welcome party then you should also invite his family even if they’re local.

Echoing everyone else; invite who you and your FH want and can afford, first and foremost. The tradition is the rehearsal participants and their SOs, But is seriously whatever you want. It can also be a casual pizza party instead of a sit down dinner if you prefer.

This is the first I've heard of out of town guests attending rehearsal dinners. I would keep that decision between you and your FH.

I was in a wedding party and the groom insisted on having his extended family attend the rehearsal dinner as he felt obligated to invite all of them. The bride didn't want to invite all the extra family members who didn't need to attend, but ended up agreeing to it. The rehearsal became so chaotic with so many family members and kids running around at the restaurant. The bride and groom looked visibly stressed and it was not enjoyable. My take away from the situation was to make sure that ours would be more relaxed and intimate by only inviting those who should attend.

Thanks to everyone for their input! The rub here is that while my parents are paying for the wedding (and likely the rehearsal) they're trying to say that it's whatever we want, even though it's definitely not truly how they feel. Hopefully things can get ironed out over the next year!

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Also in Texas. Our venue has a separate space for the rehearsal dinner; for a set price you get the event space, dinner and 3 hours of service for up to 45 people. As a result, we will be expanding our list beyond our wedding party to include some OOT guests, but can't include them all. My thought is that we're paying for 45, so we should get our monies worth - but we are also capped at 45. I thought about including suggestions for restaurants on the wedding website for those that are coming from out of town. I think it would be natural for them to coordinate amongst themselves going out to eat and gathering together. At least this is what we've normally done in my family for OOT weddings; I don't think it's tradition/expected in Texas to invite OOT guests to the rehearsal and I know my family would have the same thought as your FH, even though they're all local.

We're having our dinner at a local brewery that means a lot to us. The dinner itself will be just our immediate families/bridal party, but after the dinner (which will end around 7), we're opening it up to anyone who wants to join us for drinks!

So my FH and I had this same discussion but flipped. His family is out of town and mine is local, but I felt like if he invited his then I wanted to invite mine. Our wedding is in a month and we invited about 100. However, we have had some of his family and my family decline and our numbers are way lower than either one of us anticipated. Hope this helps!