who are you inviting to the rehearsal dinner?

[ficklefaye]

other than members of your wedding party and ceremony, are you planning on inviting additional family members or friends? i''ve been to rehearsal dinners where the bride and groom invited most of their family. it was like a mini reception before the actual wedding, but i was planning on keeping it just to the wedding party and their immediate families. would that be rude or is that what most people do?

 

[sunnyd]

BP plus dates, immediate family and any out of town family. It''ll be about 20 people.

 

[stephbolt]

I''m not sure on this actually. FMIL seems to think a lot of family will be in town the night before, but I kind of doubt it, seeing as how we have a Friday evening wedding and thus a Thursday evening RD. Any family who is there will be invited, but I''m hoping we can keep it on the small and intimate side with just immediate family and bridal party.

 

[rhbgirl24]

Just the bridal party plus their dates...... but you should invite anyone that traveled to your wedding too

 

[Diva0413]

Well, so far we''re at about 20 as well with immediate family (parents and siblings), bridal party and their spouses, and others (aunts, uncles, and grandparents. We''re on the fence about out of town guests because my FI''s parents don''t want to pay for them. Even though the out of town guests are their guests. Hmmm...

 

[meresal]

BP with dates (30), families (60), a few of my parent''s friends (4) and IL''s invited almost everyone they invited to the wedding (yes, they were OOT guests).... total invites.... 187. Total showed up, probably about 165.

 

[Tuckins1]

I had my bridal party (of course), plus their parents (aunts and uncles),my grandparents, and any family that was in from out of town. There were about 20 people or so.

 

[ilovesparkles]

This is a real point of frustration for me, really it deserves it''s own thread. I want just the BP and immediate family. We have a very large BP and I want the RD to be as intimate as possible. FMIL want to invite ALL family members and OOT guests. Well at that point, you might as well invite the 30 or less remaining guests and just have a wedding reception.

Ugh. When H told her that I wanted a small RD with just BP and immediate family, she replied, "Well fine, I will have dinner for MY OOT guests the following night!"

Why? Because there is a chance we will only have an appetizer or dessert reception and FMIL states to us "You have to feed these people!" She has clearly implied several times, that the type of reception we are able to afford would be a complete embarrassment and unacceptable. But does she offer to help us with the wedding, after we have repeatedly told her, we will only be doing what we can actually afford? But of course not! So, she is willing to pay for a huge dinner on Friday night, another dinner on Saturday night, but won''t give us a dime to help support our wedding on Sunday.

My anger is not that they will not help with the wedding, but that they cannot accept what WE want for our wedding, and accept that it will be a minimal reception due to finances. There is no pleasing this woman! Sigh.

 

[elrohwen]

My mom and dad, FI's mom and her boyfriend (his father passed away), our four attendents and their significant others. FI's sister is a bridesmaid, and I don't have any siblings, so this covers our immediate family. 14 people including us.

ETA: I'm paying for 70 some people to eat the next day (80% of whom are from out of town), so I didn't see the point in paying for 20+ people to eat dinner at a more expensive restaurant the day before the reception. FI and I were invited to his cousin's rehearsal dinner, but it was BBQ style so it made sense to invite extra people. Ours will be in a nice restaurant and I don't see the need to invite anyone outside of immediate family and wedding party.

 

[zipzapgirl]

We had wedding party plus dates/spouses (9), all of the family (16) and two couples FIL wanted to have there (4). We tried to distribute wedding duties to most of the family, so almost everyone there had some role in the wedding.

We got the word out to everyone that we would be meeting up at a specific bar afterwards, so anyone who is in town already could come by for a drink or two if they wanted to join us (we didn''t pay, no one expected us to).

Going back to the requirement to invite all OOT guests... I think this goes back to the days when this would have been much more unusual and guests would have been staying with the bride and groom''s families at home. Obviously, you wouldn''t want to leave houseguests out of the dinner, but now that there are so many people traveling, I don''t think people expect it. I''ve done the Meet for Drinks after RD thing at most of the weddings I''ve been to (OOT) over the past couple of years and everyone gets it.

 

[zipzapgirl]

Have it at the hotel bar--a lot of them are going to be hanging out there anyway!

 

[ficklefaye]

thank you everyone for your responses. initially, we thought a lot of our family wouldn't be able to make it to our wedding (we are having an out of town wedding) so we had planned on a larger rehearsal dinner locally so they could go, but we have received a majority of the rsvps and they are all yes's, so i figured just a few days ago, that there was no point in having the large rd we were planning on having, so currently we are at 20 which is just the bd and their immediate family

ilovesparkles, from your previous threads and this post, your FMIL certainly sounds interesting...

maybe you should start this as another thread

 

[Luckyeshe]

Date: 7/28/2009 8:43:41 AM
Author: rhbgirl24
Just the bridal party plus their dates...... but you should invite anyone that traveled to your wedding too

Anyone that is from out of town that arrives for your wedding should get an invite if they will make it in time for your rehearsal dinner. For us it''ll mainly be family and our bridal party.

 

[charbie]

i tend to agree that it should be a smaller event for just the people in the wedding (plus SO of course)- the RD is just that- a dinner following the REHERSAL- so it should be for people who were required for the rehersal. I have a lot of OOT guests, so many that actually, we would be having mostly a second wedding. We are doing a simple cookout at his aunt''s house about 30 mins from our church anyway- it would be a long drive for most OOT guests. We are supplying them with a list of fun things to do in the area, and including on there the bar where we first met

All in all- we are having BP plus dates (not all have SO, so it will be ~20), our parents + their SO''s, and then of course our readers/soloist and their dates if they end up attending the rehersal. So hopefully only a total of about 35- wedding has 200 guests.

 

[ficklefaye]

charbie, 35''s not too bad, we are at 20 plus one baby for now, i''ll see how it goes

how''s the planning going, wedding date twin?

 

[DMBFiredancer]

we did bridal party + dates + immediate family = 20 people....perfect number for us!

 

[ms.halo]

We did bridal party + family + out-of-town guests. We had more than 100 people at our rehearsal dinner! I''ve seen them all ways though, including just immediate family and bridal party.

 

[Bjedifish]

Date: 7/28/2009 9:35:17 AM
Author: Diva0413
Well, so far we''re at about 20 as well with immediate family (parents and siblings), bridal party and their spouses, and others (aunts, uncles, and grandparents. We''re on the fence about out of town guests because my FI''s parents don''t want to pay for them. Even though the out of town guests are their guests. Hmmm...

LOL!!!

 

[ficklefaye]

Date: 7/28/2009 8:20:28 PM
Author: ms.halo
We did bridal party + family + out-of-town guests. We had more than 100 people at our rehearsal dinner! I''ve seen them all ways though, including just immediate family and bridal party.

all the ones i''ve been too were large, so having a small one would actually be unusual for our family, but there''s a first time for everything

 

[ficklefaye]

Date: 7/28/2009 8:55:33 PM
Author: Bjedifish

Date: 7/28/2009 9:35:17 AM

Author: Diva0413

Well, so far we''re at about 20 as well with immediate family (parents and siblings), bridal party and their spouses, and others (aunts, uncles, and grandparents. We''re on the fence about out of town guests because my FI''s parents don''t want to pay for them. Even though the out of town guests are their guests. Hmmm...

LOL!!!

haha! that is funny!

 

[redfaerythinker]

The whole guest list, so 35 people.

 

[charbie]

Date: 7/28/2009 6:41:04 PM
Author: ficklefaye
charbie, 35''s not too bad, we are at 20 plus one baby for now, i''ll see how it goes

how''s the planning going, wedding date twin?

hello twinnie

its going fast! we finished our second of 2 registries...which was a relief as i want to get invites out next week and figured i probably should have it all updated by that time. my mom gave me some grief because she wanted us to have an "upscale" store added like pottery barn or crate&barrel. i went with kohl''s (FI''s fav store) and bb&b- those two stores literally had everything we needed to register for- good enough for me.

finally remembered to pick up stamps for rsvp''s (the king and queen of hearts stamps) so got invites assembled yesterday- was hopingt o get FI to help but he did laundry instead- said he wanted to take care of other things around the house apparently. i''m going to make him lick the envelopes i''m handwriting 100+ invites, so got started with at least names yesterday. i ordered photo-stamps for the outside of the envelopes, waiting for them to come in.

tonight we are ordering BP gifts- personalized coolers for the guys with their favorite beer in it, and personalized totes for the girls with all the wedding day goodies inside. working invites i''m sure.

tomorrow getting FI and a GM fitted for the tux, finalizing tux decision. hopefully then finishing up invites!

then meeting my florist on sunday for the first time...i''ve had nightmares about flowers, so let''s hope for the best!

HOWS IT GOING FOR YOU!?!?!