Very small rehearsal dinner?

I didn't think it was traditional to invite OOT guests. We only did immediate family, bridal party and their dates. This kept it at 30 (still bit big to me) and we were able to keep costs affordable. Adding out of town guests was half of our list, practically another wedding! We also weren't paying for it so I didn't want my in-laws to basically pay for my whole side of the family as they were all OOT guests.

We didn’t invite anyone that wasn’t involved in the planning process. So it was just the wedding party and their SOs if they were out of state and then my parents and his. i preferred for it to be as small as possible otherwise rehearsing and talking about actual wedding stuff can get so so stressful

We are only inviting bridal party, SOs, and immediate family. We're at 50 people for that! After the dinner I plan on sending out a mass text to my oot friends saying I'll be at this bar for this long come say hi. For my family that's oot, I know I'll see them here and there during the weekend. Basically everyone I'm inviting to the wedding is all oot, so having a second wedding for the rehearsal dinner was out.


It's honestly whatever your budget is, and whatever your vision is.

That's what we are doing. After dinner though we are inviting everyone to come to the bar that is across the street from the venue for drinks if they choose to. We have a lot of out of town guests so we thought this was a good way to do it without spending an arm and a leg on it.

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Thanks for the reassurance! It's so easy to get sucked into thinking you "have" to do things a certain way based on what you read online/see other people do.

That's perfectly fine! We're doing the same thing for our rehearsal dinner

Only those rehearsing for the wedding should be invited to the rehearsal dinner.

We did the exact same thing (we did make an exception for a handful of people...aunt + husband and two family friends) who were very involved in planning the bridal shower. If you want to do something with your out of town guests, but don't want it to all be on your rehearsal dinner tab, I've definitely had friends who had a nightcap/after "party" where they met other friends and guests at a bar afterwards (even though I wouldn't stay up too late drinking the night before the wedding! lol)

The small guest list for the RD you are proposing is actually the way RDs have been traditionally done. I've only seen OOT guests being invited in the last few years. That's a fairly new trend, and one that a lot of couples cannot afford. I know we can't. So, we're doing what you are proposing: bridal party + SOs, parents and immediate family only.

It's traditional in my mom's family to invite OOT family members but we're bucking the trend on that one. We're only inviting immediate family, grandparents and wedding party. We'll have about 36 people at our RD.

I think that's fine. I didn't invite oot guests either because that would have bloated mine incredibly.

I think that's completely fine. Lots of weddings don't include OOT guests in the rehearsal dinner.

I don't think it is traditional to invite out of town guests. We didn't. We only invited those actually involved in the wedding and their significant others.

We only invited immediate family and bridal party with their SO's, basically anyone who rehearsed. Weddings are expensive, so we cut where we could.

We aren’t inviting out of town guests!

Inviting out of town guests makes it a welcome dinner, not a rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal dinner really is just you and your partner, your immediate families, and those involved in your wedding ceremony plus their SO's. It's totally okay not to have a welcome dinner and have out-of-town guests just join you for the wedding day itself.