Rehearsal Dinner Guest List

erinc125

For our Austin wedding, most of the guests will be from out of town.  We went to college in San Antonio and after that our friends scattered.  Our families are coming in from Missouri, Florida, Dallas and California (very few in Austin even though that is where I was raised) - in short, even though it is my hometown, it is kind of like a destination wedding for most of our wedding guestlist.  I have been trying to figure out who to invite to the rehearsal dinner.  I've heard that traditionally you are supposed to invite out of town guests, but this would mean that pretty much everyone is invited.  What do you all think about this?  If the people are throwing down for a hotel and a flight, should they be guaranteed an invite to the rehearsal dinner?

erollis

I guess if you can afford it I don't see a problem. That is if everyone is ok with it. The only thing is if 90% of the people are from out of town that other 10% may feel left out. If you want to invite more then the wedding party I would maybe opt to only inviting out of town family. That way it becomes more of a personal family thing (with the wedding party included of course even if they aren't family). But there is nothing saying you have to invite all out of town people that I know of. Every wedding is a destination wedding to someone.

SarahPLiz

Not necessarily.

We are in the same situation and have come up with this compromise:
We aren't having an actual rehearsal because, well, its not rocket science. We will have  nice lunch with just our parents and my siblings the day before, as it will be the first time they meet each other.

That night, we will have an informal get together, possibly at the hotel where we blocked rooms or a local bowling alley so that everyone can be casual and relaxed and we can all just spend time together. I envision us hosting food and drink, but if we are doing an activity (putt-putt, bowling, etc), then that part will not be hosted. This way we can have in and out of town guests and not exclude anyone, but not break the bank either. Also, there won't be any structure so people can come and go as they please.

There is also the option for us to just tell everyone that we will be hanging out at X that night, and they are welcome to join us. This way, we don't have to host anything but can still hang out with our friends and family. Not that I want to be cheap, but this is just an informal way to get everyone together for some fun.

jedaniel

The only people we are inviting to our rehearsal dinner is the bridal party, parents, and grandparents. It would get way to expensive to invite out of towners also.

Mrs.Purdue

we had the same situation (except that we had 0 family in town, as neither of us were from here when we moved).  we did the rehearsal and dinner for only bridal party and immediate family (parents/grandparents), and then opened up the room for 'dessert and drinks' and invited all the out of towners to that portion.  we had about 125 ppl attend that portion and it was a really great way to do things... we just couldn't imagine trying to do a dinner with 125 ppl (since that's what the reception would be), but it was great to see all the out-of-towners in a more casual situation than at the reception, where your attention is going to be divided in about 1000 places at once. 

cmcmore

I had this same problem actually. Almost everyone is out of town and our guest list is super small to start off with. So we are only inviting wedding party, parents and grandparents. 

Then after dinner we are going to have a little cocktail hour at our hotel bar to meet with all of our of town guests. We are buying a round of drinks for everyone and that is how we worked it out. Our rehearsal was almost going to be wedding number 2. NO GOOD! 

Go with what works best for you and your family. 

Future Ramsey

We're only having immediate family & bridal party at the rehersal dinner. I guess the biggest question is if whoever is footing the bill can afford to feed all of your out-of-towners too. Although, I wouldn't want to have a dinner the night before the wedding that would end up being like the wedding reception. I think it's probably understood that the tradtion is that the rehersal dinner is for bridal party & family.

nicoleflores2005

I'm in the same boat.  We decided to go ahead and invite anyone coming in from out of town, which was like 85% of the 200 people we invited. 

I think my FFIL originally wanted to host a nice Rehearsal Dinner.  I had to point out to him that it was going to cost an arm and a leg to do it that way.  We eventually decided to do BBQ at the County Line and we are telling people to dress casually.  I think our guests will appreciate getting to wear flip flops and chill by the river rather than getting dressed up for yet another stuffy event.  But I could be wrong.

I think hosting a laid-back Rehearsal Dinner is the way to go!  Good luck to you.

kelseymw

90% of our guest list is OOT. It would be unreasonable (for us) to have a dinner with them all because it would essentially be everyone that was coming to the wedding. In our circle, large RDs aren't usually done.

For the RD we are just having parents, grandparents and siblings. We are having something laid-back on Lake Austin.