My Complicated Family/Rehearsal Dinner

[Deleted User]

I'm having problems with the rehearsal dinner guest list, which my FMIL has asked me to come up with. I have an incredibly complicated family, plus a lot of OOT family that I wanted to invite to the rehearsal dinner (they are all flying in by plane). 

My family looks something like this:

two half-siblings from my father's (who is deceased) 1st marriage

two adult half-neice/nephews

two teenage half-neice/nephews

two step-brothers from my mother's 2nd marriage

one adult step-neice/nephew

three "aunts"/"uncles" (Not related, but were a big part of my life growing up. I actually call them aunt/uncle ______.)

My half-siblings and I are not super close, but we live far away from each other. There is no bad blood, we've just moved apart. I would like us to have a better relationship, and they are coming in from out of town. My step-family and I get along famously, but they are also all from out of town so I don't see them that often. My step-father is hosting the wedding with my mom, but he didn't raise me (they married 10 years ago).

So who actually gets to go?

I'm inclined to invite all of the above, because I can't pick and choose (eg: invite the teenage half-neice/nephews that will be attending with my half-sibling, but not his adult child). But FMIL is worried that the RD will be half the wedding guests--which isn't totally wrong, it will be slightly less than half. I would like to ask her if I could pick up the cost for these folks, as long as she isn't offended by their attendance. I don't think that will be a problem.

I know your general advice is "either let the FIL's pay and do it their way, or pick up the cost yourself", but I didn't even want to have a RD--the FIL's insisted on it. So how about some other advice?

melb2013

My gut reaction is to either have a rehearsal dinner with all the people listed above or have a rehearsal dinner with the WP only.  I think you need to talk to your FMIL about the dinner and explain why these are the only two options and see what she says.

MrsGandthebeag

For our RD, the people in attendance were: me, dh, his parents, my mom, my MOH and her bf, his BM and his wife, my grandma aunt and cousin from Italy, and dh's sister.  He also has a step bro, step sis, and foster sister who we didn't include.  

Peledreamsofrain

Etiquette only stipulates that you invite the wedding party and their SOs.  Everything else is grey area.

I would council you not to turn the rehersal dinner into a giant party.  My in laws did (their money, their decision), and it was a nightmare.  I tried to get the WP to show up early so that we could actually rehearse, but of course everyone showed up late, and I had to fight a crowd of 60+ people to round up and coordinate the WP.  Then we had to get everyone to move, THEN we enjoyed the privilage of everyone staring at us while we tried to concentrate on learning the ceremony.

Of course I'm introverted and type-A, so I'm sure that shaded my view of things.  But it did seem highly inefficient and unecessarily stressful.

arendiva

do 2 separate events. What I'm doing for my wedding is having a rehersal dinner with wedding party + dates, and both sets of parents. That's it. This will be hosted by the groom's parents.

Then later in the evening we will host a casual welcome dinner of pizza and beer for all OOT guests who are chosing to stay at the B&B the night before the wedding.

G2SoccerTaz

We did two separate events. We did the RD with on WP and their SO. But because we had so many OOT we wanted to see them and spend time with them, we decided to do a bon fire on the beach. The bon fire was a hit. Everyone enjoyed it and we got to spend time with out OOT.