Welcome Dinner

I don’t know about the etiquette, but we’re not doing one. Destination wedding with ~100 guests on a Thursday, people are already probably going to be coming in either late the night before or even the morning of so I’m not sure how many people would want to attend a welcome dinner anyway, plus it’s an extra expense that we can save and put towards making the wedding itself a better experience!

Never heard of a welcome dinner...

It's not necessary. We had our wedding in between both families so literally every guest had to travel for our wedding which would have meant everyone would've been invited to a welcome dinner so we just skipped it. I know my brother-in-law and his wife basically told his guest they were going to X bar after their rehearsal dinner so if they wanted to meet up at the bar they were welcome. But it was nothing formal and if people wanted food or drinks it was up to them to purchase their own stuff.

It's a new thing spawned from wedding tv. Many couples do not have one due to budget/space. They will often do a traditional rehearsal dinner for wedding party only. It is not bad etiquette to skip it.

Definitely not required. Only if you happen to have extra money in your budget. My friend had a casual welcome reception and invited all the guests that came into town early. They had hors d'oeuvres and an open bar. Only reason they had it is because their parents paid for the whole thing.

We had one, and it was a great experience! Well, we actually just called our rehearsal dinner a "welcome dinner" so it was all in one. We did not have a destination wedding but around half of our guests were from out of state. We rented a party room with a skyline view and had a caterer do heavy app stations, and we also had an open bar (but we only served beer, wine, and champagne). We had between 60-70 guests and the whole thing cost around $3000. It was a lot of fun, and it was a great opportunity to have conversations with guests who we weren't able to converse with at the wedding itself. Unless you're having a true destination wedding (i.e. super far from everyone or international) then it's certainly not in poor taste to not have some kind of welcome event for the out of towners. It's totally optional but something I'd highly recommend!

It would basically be like a second reception for us, so we are not doing it. I wish!

We did one! Instead of just having a Rehearsal Dinner, we did a Welcome Dinner since it was a stateside destination wedding with half of our guests traveling at least 2 hours each way and the other half was traveling from across the country. We held ours two nights before the wedding and had around 90 people out of 170ish people attend. We’re so glad we did it because it gave us an extra chance to welcome everyone and chat with them before the actual wedding.


However, it’s not necessary and some people opt to scale it down to just Welcome Drinks if they do want to throw a pre-wedding event for out-of-towhees.

We did one because we had a destination wedding (same state). I’ve been to several out-of-state weddings and a welcome dinner was common. It’s a nice gesture for guests (even if just pizza and beer), and it allows guests to mingle the night before the wedding.

Doing something the night before, even if it is just drinks at a bar, is a really nice gesture for any destination wedding- especially if guests have to fly in and likely will need to get there the day before.
We are doing an expanded rehearsal dinner and then a welcome party for anyone who can make it on the night before.

We had a “casual” dinner where we met up with some out of town relatives a couple nights before our wedding. We made it very clear we were just “meeting” at the restaurant for dinner so it was clear we weren’t hosting lol, since we were hosting the rehearsal dinner the next night. It was really nice! Then some friends that arrived a bit later showed up at the hotel and hadn’t eaten yet so we went out with them again too (we already ate so we just kept them company and hung out while they did haha). It was all super informal but it was really fun actually. There was so much formality that weekend, I actually really appreciated having some things like that, that were more laid back and we could just enjoy the company of the people we don’t get to see often

Never heard of this being a thing. I would probably offer snacks and punchduring a pre gathering outside but that's it

We will be inviting all out of town guests to our rehearsal dinner because that's the accepted etiquette in my family. So essentially it will be a rehearsal/welcome dinner combo. Our wedding is black tie, so we're going all out with an open bar and sit down meal at a fancy restaurant. I've been to many casual welcome dinners and they were great, but we decided to step ours up in order to match the formality of our wedding the next day. I've personally never attended a destination wedding without receiving an invite to some kind of hosted welcome event, whether that be a dinner or cocktail hour.

We're having a 'Welcome Event' at Dave & Buster's as an ice-breaker/optional event (IF things are looking up Covid wise) for our guests. A lot of them are my Disney roommates (I was in the Disney College Program), my FH's family and friends and they'll want to see us prior anyway so we decided to kick things off doing something fun. I don't think it is mandatory or proper etiquette to follow though.

We are having a destination wedding too, but not having a full blown welcome dinner. Since the resort is on the beach we are hosting a welcome s’mores party instead. We have to rent the resort’s fire pits, but the s’more ingredients are cheap and delicious! We are also offering 1 drink ticket per guest for the tiki bar for the welcome party.