My fiancé and I are getting married where we live (instead of where either of our families live) so about 80 of our 125 person guest list will be coming from out of town. We are paying for most of the wedding ourselves so we really can't afford to have a big welcome dinner for all the out of town guests. Would it be appropriate to invite our guests to join us at the hotel bar for a cocktail hour (on us) after the rehearsal dinner? I'm thinking having an informal invite on the wedding website for it, something like 'Join us for welcome cocktails at the hotel bar from 9-10PM on Friday evening.' I would love to be able to greet everyone and thank them for coming for the weekend; thoughts as to whether this would be ok?
I would also love other suggestions, just keep in mind that we live in a small apartment not conveniently located to the hotel where we are getting married and it's also a pretty pricey area in general.