Rehearsal Dinner Question

phunkydreamer

I am an only child and am only having one bridesmaid--just a maid of honor.  She is my cousin and we are both only children; she is single and lives out of state.  My fh is having his married friend as his bm.  So coming to the dinner for sure will be me, fh, priest, priest's wife, moh, bm, bm's wife, my mom, fmil, fmil's boyfriend, fsil, fbil, fh's niece, fh's nephew.  Noticing a trend?  It's all his people.  So I'm thinking I should also include my cousin/moh's mom and dad since they are coming from out of state.  My mom feels funny only having one of her siblings come since she has five others and even two more coming from out of town/state.  Would it be asking too much of my fmil to invite all of my mom's siblings and their spouses (but not all of my cousins) knowing that they probably all won't come since my wedding is 45 minutes outside of Columbus, and they'll have to drive back the very next day?  My one uncle would be coming from the other side of the country, so I would feel weird leaving him and his wife and two small kids that I've only met once across the street in their hotel while we all eat.  Basically I just want to know what etiquette is or what you would do!   

[Deleted User]

You can invite whoever you want to the RD as long as you can afford to feed everyone and it is in the budget. Some people invite all of the out of town guests, some do not. Our RD was quite small (my IL's paid) and that was perfectly fine with me. As long as you have all the people that will be involved with the wedding there (which is sounds like you will), then you are good to go. The rest is up to you and whoever is paying/hosting.

Our wedding was also about 45 min west of Columbus, and we simply just did a heavy appetizer/hor'dourve RD. A few people decided to stay a hotel nearby, but most did not. Our church rehearsal didn't end until about 7:30 and our wedding was at 1pm the next day. So we just did a lot of finger food, provided red and white wine and called it a night. We did a toast, gave the WP their gifts and that was it. It was small & intimate, just the way I liked it.

green795

I would have bring it up and see if there's any way to invite some of your close family, or if the budget would allow for some of your closest family to come. And if you feel more comfortable having your FI bring it up, then have him do it. Did you MIL ask you for a guest list of who you think should be there? If so and you didn't list your aunts and uncles, then I see why she'd only put her family. But I would mention it's important to you to have them there, and if she says the budget doesn't allow for more, then offer to pay for them (or your mom might offer to pay for them since it's her family). Our RD was a little-one sided, but it's because the majority of our out of town family came from my father-in-law's side, but I made sure we picked a place where I could make the budget work for all out-of-town family, closest in-town family members, and our BP and their significant others.