August 2013 Weddings

Rehearsal dinner dilemma- Help!

I need to vent a little... and receive some advice from my fellow August 2013 brides. 

In short, my fiance and I are solely planning and paying for our wedding. His family lives about 2 hours from where our wedding will take place. We've planned our rehearsal dinner, set the seating chart, sent invites to the bridal party, parents, and grandparents who are invited, etc. As it turns out, many of his family members are making a weekend of it and coming into town on Friday prior to the 5:30pm Saturday wedding.  I'm perfectly fine with this. If they want to come into town for the weekend and shop, attend local events happening, etc, cool. Come to find out, my fiance's mother has invited approximately 8 family members (that we know of) who are arriving a day early to the rehearsal dinner... not only does this completely mess up logistics (the room can only hold 40 people... her extra invites have us at 42!), it also is a budget nightmare. I'm still a little shocked and not quite sure how to handle the situation. I wouldn't be as opposed if 1) she was helping plan/pay for the dinner and 2) if the room could hold everyone. Do we just set a cap on who's been invited (and try to squeeze people in) and accommodate the extra people in order to avoid any awkward family drama? Or do we ask her to "uninvite" people... especially when this is going to bust our rehearsal dinner budget completely and add unnecessary stress (for my fiance and I) to the evening? I'm trying to stay positive and be thankful that we found out now rather than having "surprise" guests show up at the dinner, but this is definitely not a welcomed situation. Any advice would be great! 

Re: Rehearsal dinner dilemma- Help!

  • How did you find out that your FI's mother invited the extra people?  If it is really going to blow your budget could your FI talk to her and explain the situation.  Have him tell her that you two budgeted for X number of people and those 8 people weren't invited, so you don't have the room capacity or the extra budget for them.  She can either cover their costs since she invited them without consulting you first or uninvite them.

    I am lucky that my FI's parents offered to host the rehearsal dinner but we are less than 2 months out and they keep changing their mind about who to invite.  I've literally reworked the rehearsal dinner guestlist 4 times in the past week, while I was in the process of moving to a new apartment and she's still not happy.
  • She causally mentioned it on the phone yesterday to my FI, "Oh, by the way, I told so and so they can come to the rehearsal dinner since they will be in town.." I think once the initial shock wears off, I can deal with the budget part (it'll run us ~$500, but honestly I'm at the point where I'd rather just pay then create unnecessary wedding drama- but asking her to help cover the costs is a good idea. I hope she can understand and won't take the request the wrong way). My main concern is the space issue and the fact that we're not 100% sure if she has invited anyone else. I really just don't want any surprises the night of to the point where all of a sudden we don't have a seat/enough food for any potential unexpected guests. She got the invitation that requested an rsvp. I just don't get why she thought it was okay to invite people without consulting us first... 

    okay, vent over. This helped. :) 
  • Does the room hold 40 comfortably, or did the venue tell you the room holds 40 - like that's the maximum for the fire code? If it's the latter, the venue really can't let you squeeze people in and FMIL will have to be the one to tell people that she's sorry, but she made a mistake.
    Wedding Countdown Ticker
    140 invited -- 118 are ready to party! -- 27 can't make it

  • We are hosting our own RD as well, and limited it to just the bridal party and their significant others.  I know it is awkward, but I would have your FI tell his mom, "I'm so sorry for the misunderstanding, but we are only able to have our immediately families and the bridal party at the rehearsal dinner for space reasons.  I do hope those you invited will understand..."  You did nothing wrong here, she did.  I wouldn't try to squeeze people in, because that is a slippery slope that could end in hurt feelings.  If you're up for staying up late, maybe you could let people know by word of mouth that you'll be hanging out at a pub or something similar afterwards. 

    Good luck, and let us know how it works out!
  • I agree that I would have his mom uninvite them. I wouldn't want everyone to be crowded and uncomfortable, and I also wouldn't want to only invite those certain extras. If you are going to invite more than the wedding party I think you need some sort of clear cut off to avoid hurting any feelings, like all OOT family or something. And at that point you'd be way over your room limit.
    Image and video hosting by TinyPic

  • We worked things out. At first his Mom didn't completely grasp why we needed to cap the dinner and leave the guest list as originally planned, but once my FI explained a couple times that the room couldn't hold everyone (and we didn't want any feelings hurt), there's a seating chart, etc AND that we could certainly meet people out afterwards since the dinner ends at ~8:00pm... she started to understand and agreed to talk to people. I think the whole "let them meet us after" helped a bit. Whew. Disaster avoided. 
  • So glad you were able to sort that out!
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