Who are you inviting to your rehearsal dinner?

TeamBaby · January 2011

Hi Ladies!

FI and I are not agreeing on the rehearsal dinner guest list.

I say immediate family and wedding party (along with their guests) only, but he wants to include most of his side that is coming in from OOT (about 20 more ppl). Even though most of my family lives in the NKY area, I still have a good number of other family and friends who are traveling- but I didn't plan to invite them.

We're paying for everything ourselves. He also insists on paying for the majority of his guest list's accommodations (hotel and food) for the entire wedding weekend. But don't get me started on that one...

Michele45419 · January 2011

Wow! Your fiance is generous with paying for the majority of his guest list's accommodations for the entire wedding weekend!

We invited our wedding party, their guests, family members who were in-town already, and then the out-of-town guests.....which sounds like a lot, but we had our wedding on a Saturday night and the rehearsal dinner was on Thursday night. So in reality, it turned out to be only a total of 20-25 people (I forgot the exact number).

Maybe change your rehearsal dinner to a few days before instead of the day before? Maybe sit down and actually plan out the cost difference ..... that usually solved money disputes between me and my husband. In the end, he usually also cut some costs as well once he saw the difference it made.

muamanda18 · January 2011

We are just inviting members of the wedding party, our readers, and their significant others...If we invited oot family we'd practically be inviting everyone coming to the wedding.

jollygreen · January 2011

This is going to be tough for us too because we have a lot of out-of-towners coming in, plus local people who wil want to come.

We purposefully picked a venue that will only hold our wedding party and their immediate families, plus anyone who has a role in the wedding. We're going to tell anyone who's in town who wants to come out to come at 7:30, after we've finished dinner.

mrs.dilligaf · January 2011

We did bridal party/signifigant others, ushers/usherettes, the officiant and his family, and that was it. I did not want to get involved with OOT guests. That was what we did the day after. Granted we did not have a ton of people coming in from OOT, but wow. There has to be a line drawn somewhere.

GoBucksOH · January 2011

Wedding party, their guests, our parents, and the pastor and his wife. 24 total.

Vendygirl921 · January 2011

The rule is wedding party and any out of town family members, which means we would be broke if we did his whole family coming from out of town. We are only doing the wedding party, their wifes/husbands, immediate family and grandparents with the pastor.

You fiancee is insane for paying for his out of town guests... good luck on that battle.

efitzsi · January 2011

Parents, grandparents, wedding party & their guests, and our pastor.

If we included OOT guests.. it would be everyone at our wedding. You need to draw the line somewhere.

hpak · January 2011

We are just planning on inviting our parents, wedding party and their guests, our pastor and his wife. So in the range of 20-25 people. I have tons of out of town guests coming in, too, and really wanted to invite them but looking at the $$, we decided to exclude them.

I would like to spend some time with OOT guest, though, so I'm trying to figure out if there's a place we can go for coffee or tea after dinner......any suggestions on this?

clearheavens · January 2011

I think that culture may play a role in this situation. (If I'm not mistaken, you have Filippino heritage.)

For our Vietnamese wedding, it is a good gesture to provide some sort of get-together before the wedding to welcome OOT guests. If that's not possible, then at least we would have had to host an after-wedding brunch. Same with offering to provide hotels for them. But keep in mind, the gifts we would get from said guests would most likely be a generous amount of money. This is the norm for my circle.

I would bring this issue up with the people in your extended family to get a feel for what is their idea of the cultural norm for your situation. You may be following the exact etiquette to the "t" according to manner gurus. But when it comes to the values and expectations of your own social circle's culture, I recommend following that.

TeamBaby · January 2011

Thanks Ladies! I'm pretty much on the same page with all of you. Clearheavens, yes you're right- it is a culture thing (FI is Filippino). Unfortunately I think this is one arguement that's not going to be worth me getting worked up over.

hsnodgra · January 2011

We are pretty much just doing immediate family and those involved in the wedding in some way... but then after dinner we are inviting anyone else that is in town to come meet up. We are doing dinner a little earlier - like 6:30ish - then at 8 or so anyone that is in town can meet up with us. But our dinner situation is a little unique - we have the whole floor of the restaurant, with our own bartender, for the entire night - so it works out well!

Could you guys maybe compromise and do something like that? Maybe for those that come late you could even have some light appetizers or desserts available and pick up a round of drinks? Good luck!

newsgrl39 · January 2011

We are going to have a pretty big group at the rehearsal dinner..probably close to 60-70ish...We have a pretty big bridal party and a decent amount of oot guests. We are having our rehearsal dinner at my sisters house and its really casual and laid back.. if we were doing something fancier, we would probably limit it a little more..

Who are you inviting to your rehearsal dinner?

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