Wedding Etiquette Forum

Rehearsal Dinner

Lavender123Lavender123 member
25 Love Its 10 Comments Name Dropper
edited December 2013 in Wedding Etiquette Forum
My FI and I have been arguing about this recently - would love some input... 
My FI wants to invite Bridal party, their partners and family only to the rehearsal dinner - once i've deducted this from people traveling, there's about 10 people left over and considering they've travelled all this way, I feel like it's only polite to invite them to dinner. He on the other hand doesn't want to. Just to preempt, it's nothing to do with the money for buying them dinner. 

Re: Rehearsal Dinner

  • The only people that need to be invited to the rehearsal dinner are people that are involved in the ceremony and/or processional (BMs, GMs, parents, etc.) and their SOs.  You are not obligated to feeding and/or hosting people for the whole weekend.
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  • I think your FI's reason for not wanting to invite these 10 people is silly. Are you required to host them? No. But it sounds like you want to. Personally I'd be pissed if my family/friends were traveling from such a long distance and my FI didn't want to invite them to the rehearsal dinner because his friends, who from what it sounds like live considerably closer, might get offended. If his friends are offended they need to get over themselves.

    I also don't think it's fair for him to decide who is special enough to be there. You offered to let him invite the people he thought would be offended. He doesn't want to. That shouldn't mean that people you want to be there shouldn't be. A lot of people invite OOT guests to their rehearsal dinners its pretty common.


  • The only people you need to invite are those who will be at the actual rehearsal plus their SOs. It is nice to invite OOT guests but definitely not required. All our guests are OOT and we are only inviting our bridal party (parents, BMs, brothers and sisters). A good compromise might be meeting up with OOT guests after. I know we plan to meet a lounge after the rehearsal dinner with any guests that want to come say hi. My Dad plans to pick up the bar tab for these guests as well. 
  • Thanks so much for your thoughts! Meeting up after could definitely be an option and I know we aren't obligated to do anything but I just figured with such a small number of people, I really want them to know how grateful we are that they came all this way, if the numbers who would be left out were bigger I would definitely consider another option.

    Bethsmiles - you're saying exactly what I was thinking but wanted to check I hadn't hit a Bridezilla phase of the planning! If it was for a serious reason then I would understand it but I feel like "people may talk about it and get offended/we may as well just have a second wedding if we're inviting everyone" are not great reasons!
  • I'm with Beth; yes, technically you only NEED to invite those involved in the RD, but for every rule there is an exception and this is the exception: you want to, you can afford to, so why not?

    Your FI's reason is silly; even if one of your friends mentions to one of his friends, SO WHAT?! I guarantee-damn-tee you his friends will be like, 'Oh, that was nice of them to entertain the OOT people.'

    Invite them. Tell your FI TK said so :)
    Anniversary

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    I'm gonna go with 'not my circus, not my monkeys.'
  • Neither of you is right here, and neither is wrong.  One position is not inherently better than the other.  This is one of those things that you're going to have to discuss together and come to a compromise or agreement on.



  • I think your FI's reason for not wanting to invite these 10 people is silly. Are you required to host them? No. But it sounds like you want to. Personally I'd be pissed if my family/friends were traveling from such a long distance and my FI didn't want to invite them to the rehearsal dinner because his friends, who from what it sounds like live considerably closer, might get offended. If his friends are offended they need to get over themselves.

    I also don't think it's fair for him to decide who is special enough to be there. You offered to let him invite the people he thought would be offended. He doesn't want to. That shouldn't mean that people you want to be there shouldn't be. A lot of people invite OOT guests to their rehearsal dinners its pretty common.

    I'm with Beth here (if she'll have me). She put this very well.
  • Tell your FI TK said so :)
    Haha I will, thanks!
  • PS - sorry my font was so weird. Maybe it was because of the iPhone. I don't know. 
  • Viczaesar said:
    Neither of you is right here, and neither is wrong.  One position is not inherently better than the other.  This is one of those things that you're going to have to discuss together and come to a compromise or agreement on.
    Just wanted to echo this. That being said, we are hosting all of our guests at a "welcome dinner" the night before the wedding. Everyone is traveling in from out of town and while certainly no one is required to host everyone, we're talking 24 people total and it just made sense on so many levels.

    We're actually not calling it a rehearsal dinner and FWIW the invitations read "please join us for a gathering of friends and family"...
  • Lavender123Lavender123 member
    25 Love Its 10 Comments Name Dropper
    edited December 2013
    Thanks everyone! 
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