Our parents are deceased and there's no one to help pay for our wedding, so we're on our own. We figure we can scrape together enough money to pay for an outdoor ceremony with no bridesmaids or groomsmen -- just a BM and MOH -- and a nice dinner reception for about 50 close friends.
We will have to limit our rehearsal dinner to just the wedding party and their spouses, because that's all we can afford. And we won't have an after-party at all.
I feel badly that we can't do more, because all of our guests will be traveling from out of state. Fortunatelly, we live in Las Vegas, so they'll have plenty of other things to do. (In fact, they might be happier partying on their own than hanging with us all weekend.)
My concern is this: Are we breaking any etiquette rules by not including all the out-of-towners at the rehearsal dinner? We don't want to start our marraige in debt, and it seems to me that it's more important to put our resources into the ceremony and reception.