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Who are you inviting to your rehearsal dinner?

bdrflybdrfly member
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in May 2014 Weddings
I know it is customary to have the Bridal party and immediate family of the bride and groom at the rehearsal dinner. My fiance is one of 9 children and none of our bridal party includes any of our siblings. Our bridal party, including the two of us, is already 24 people.  If we invite our siblings and their spouses and children, we are looking at close to 75 people.  That's a wedding in itself!!! We are paying for our wedding ourselves, so would it be rude to have the rehearsal dinner for the bridal party and our parents only?  We don't want to pick and choose certain people to come so it would have to be all or none.  Please help!
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Re: Who are you inviting to your rehearsal dinner?

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    iloveotters2014iloveotters2014 member
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    Oh man that is a tricky situation! I feel like you are typically supposed to invite immediate family members to the dinner, but in this case I can definitely see your point. Perhaps you have the dinner with just the bridal party and parents and then have some sort of get together at your house or one of your parents houses after with drinks for everyone who couldn't attend the dinner?
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    chibiyuichibiyui member
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    If none of your siblings are in the wedding party (and are not parents of anyone in wedding party, Flower girls, Ring Bearers) then you do not need to invite them. Really, only people who are actually at the Rehearsal need to be invited to the Rehearsal Dinner.


    And you don't need to go overboard for the Rehearsal Dinner, you can order some pizza and soda and call it a day.
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    swood9614swood9614 member
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    I had I same issue as I am one of ten children myself.  We are only inviting members of the wedding party and our parents.  There will be time for family the day of.
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    charlotteetiercharlotteetier member
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    We are only having members of the wedding party, their spouse, and our parents. This adds up to 25 people, which is plenty. My FSILs may not have liked not being invited, but it is what it is a certain point. We are paying, and our money only goes so far.

    I think sometimes I worry too much about NOT including people and forget how relieving it is to not always be invited to things. We have friends getting married three months after us who are in our wedding, but did not ask us to be in their's - and we are SUPER relieved. It's expensive, it's another thing to go to, get ready for, take time for .... so do what feels right, and know your family should understand.
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    sarahsmiles326sarahsmiles326 member
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    We are only inviting the wedding party (none of them are engaged/married), the mother of our flower girl, our parents, my grandmother who lives with my parents, and the pastor and his wife (they are friends). That's 26 people (FI's parents are divorced and remarried), which is a good number if you ask me lol.

     

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    bdrflybdrfly member
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    Oh good!  It's great to know that I'm not alone in this situation.  @charlottetier you are so right. I am the same way; I always want to make sure I include everyone so no one gets offended.  Thanks for the insight ladies!  I'm feeling more secure in my decision now. :)
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    garnetandgold60garnetandgold60 member
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    We're having members of the wedding party and their SO's, our parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles. It adds up to about 60 to 70 people. Which is actually really small for us. 

    In our family, rehearsal dinners usually include all of your relatives (my cousin's was a 130 person rehearsal dinner) and so we've gotten some backlash about just doing aunt/uncle as the "furthest relation" instead of my great aunts and uncles and their kids (of which there are about another 70 total between the two families).
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    Kristen625Kristen625 member
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    Omg. I'm so happy we only have a total of 16 people for the rehearsal dinner. And that list includes FI and I. It will be 4 grandmothers, three sets of parents (cause mine are divorced and remarried) my brothers and their SO, FI's brothers, MOH and her spouse, and BM.
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    lluzzi0923lluzzi0923 member
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    I think at a certain point people understand. I know there is an etiquette, but it seems like this day and age, people who are getting married/have been married understand that not everyone can be invited. I think that  you can get away with just the people in the rehearsal to be invited and it be perfectly OK. No one should give you a hard time about it.
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    ddvirtsddvirts member
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    Well did you know that you're supposed to invite anyone who arrived from out of town? I sure didn't! lol My FMIL was insisting on inviting those relatives, but then she saw how huge the number was and understood that it will be too expensive (they're paying for it). So now we agreed to just wedding party with their SO and parents, which comes out to 27 people. Already not a small number. I say, do what you have to do. Rehearsal dinner is supposed to be intimate and, in my opinion, another way to thank your bridal party for participating. There should be no hurt feelings because everyone can't be invited. You'll see them the next day.
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    whitjoywhitjoy member
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    ddvirts said:
    Well did you know that you're supposed to invite anyone who arrived from out of town? I sure didn't! lol My FMIL was insisting on inviting those relatives, but then she saw how huge the number was and understood that it will be too expensive (they're paying for it). So now we agreed to just wedding party with their SO and parents, which comes out to 27 people. Already not a small number. I say, do what you have to do. Rehearsal dinner is supposed to be intimate and, in my opinion, another way to thank your bridal party for participating. There should be no hurt feelings because everyone can't be invited. You'll see them the next day.
    No, actually you are not required to invite all out of town guests. But if you do, it should be all or none. When you pick and choose certain people (aside from wedding party and their SO's), that's when you start getting into trouble. My FMIL wanted to invite her sister. But we are only having wedding party at our rehearsal dinner. I had to explain to her "ok, so what happens when FFIL's sister finds out that FMIL's sister was invited and she wasn't?" Solved that problem.
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    ddvirtsddvirts member
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    Right. Well when my FMIL realized that she would have to invite all out of towners, she realized that it would be too many people.
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    KayDeeeKayDeee member
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    We have a fairly small wedding--84 invited.

    We just finalized the rehearsal dinner restaurant and the number of people expected: 28ish.

    Which is roughly 30% all all invited guests to the actual wedding.

    We have A LOT of out of town guests, and if we were to invited all of those people--it would be over 50% of all guests.

    So yeah, you've got to draw the line somewhere.

    And if you want to spend more time with out of town guests, give everyone a bar or coffee shop or some place to all meet up after the dinner. Let them know that's where you'll be if they want to catch up.

    And keep it simple if you can.

    We are doing Chicago deep dish at a pizza place, not fancy. But that's what the wedding is for!

    Good luck!


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    ArtTeacher23ArtTeacher23 member
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    @KayDeee we're having a pizza party too!! But it's going to be at our place to help save some more money; we're ordering the pizza form one of our favorite brick oven/Italian restaurants.
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    dlubertsdluberts member
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    Pizza here too! All of my bridal party, my parents,  and siblings are going to be helping me set things up for the reception the day before. Since well have that room, we can just bring food in and have rehearsal dinner then. Non formal, no extra room fee, just cost of drinks and pizza. Then we'll be able to go outside to the ceremony site and have our rehearsal.  Worked out great for planning!
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    Kristen625Kristen625 member
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    lol Pizza was the original suggestion from me to FMIL, but instead it will be catered from this place called Just Kababs.  They are cheap enough that they won't cost much more than pizza, and the food is awesome.
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    tammym1001tammym1001 member
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    FI and I decided to nix the entire rehearsal. We're having a small wedding and almost everyone invited to the wedding would end up at the rehearsal. We decided it would be silly to basically make everyone come to two parties so we are just going to run through the ceremony with the officiant earlier in the week.
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