Wedding thread- Rehearsal dinner?

[Donald13]

We invited the bridal party and dates, iirc. And the readers for the church. I think that was it. It was about 30 people in all. I’d be pissed if I was In a wedding and my husband was not invited to the rehearsal dinner.

 

[aprilgail]

Wedding party, grand parents and out of town guests in for the wedding. Dont feel significate others or spouses need to be included.

 

[frog3101]

In my area it is usually the people who are at the rehearsal (as a poster stated above). The rehearsal is usually held the day or night before the ceremony. The meal itself is anything from very casual to super "fancy"..even being "nicer" than the reception. Anything goes and there is definitely no hard and fast rules people follow, other than it's most common to have all those who are at the rehearsal itself attend along with significant others. (I do think when there are family members who have traveled from a long distance they are also invited to attend, but not non family members, unless they are in the wedding)
At ours we had:
* Our parents
* Our Siblings and their significant others (All of our siblings were also either in the bridal party or had other "jobs" they did during the ceremony)
* Bridal party and their significant others
* Flower girl/Ring Bearer and their parents
* Friends who did did various "jobs" (ie: sang, played the piano, played the violin, read scripture, did the wedding message, sat at the guest book, etc) and their significant others (Though i don't think all of them attend, but were definitely invited)
* My grandma and his grandma and his great aunt (My grandpa was the only other living grandparent and he was too ill to attend the rehearsal or actual ceremony)
* Minister and his wife
* Our candle lighters and their parents
* Our reception hosts and hostesses (Candle lighters parents were also reception host/hostess)
It seems like a lot when I right it down, but it was really a nice size group, not too big
At the end of the day, I think it's more important for everyone to be one the same page and enjoy the moment.
LeeBee, I hope you have a much better experience this time. Best wishes to you and your daughter.

 

[Donald13]

Wedding party, grand parents and out of town guests in for the wedding. Dont feel significate others or spouses need to be included.

And that’s fine if none of them are invited. If only the groomsmen bring dates/so, that’s weird and rude IMO

 

[Pooh2]

We have two sons and hosted both rehearsal dinners.
I cooked the meal and hosted in the church hall for one son.
The bride's mother had about a dozen out of town guests that we included.
They were appreciative since they had not all been together in awhile.
The other son married in a different state.
The bride's family told us to count in about 8 out of town guests and suggested the venue.
Since we only had 9 guests coming from our side, we included them as well.

 

[Welsh_Dragon]

I have never known anyone in the U.K. have a rehearsal lunch/dinner. Please keep it over your side of the pond.

 

[Kittyblue]

Years and years ago -

Bridal party and their SOs and family on both sides that traveled from out of town (there were only a few on each side). It was more of a big family get together/get to know each other, as most of the bridal party was family anyway,

 

[aprilgail]

And that’s fine if none of them are invited. If only the groomsmen bring dates/so, that’s weird and rude IMO

absolutely!! That is totally insane!

 

[SandyinMonterey]

My situation when I got married was a little different, I guess. We got married at WDW (wedding pavilion). It was a small wedding, about 20 people. After rehearsal we went to The Yachtmans Steakhouse for dinner. Party consisted of me, husband, my parents and sister, MIL, BIL, and then BIL and his wife and 2 children. My MIL payed for the dinner. But my husband and I did have a dinner and show (luau) at the Polynesian for everyone before the wedding (we paid).

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Our rehearsal dinner was wedding party and their significant others (some were in the wedding party), our parents, our grandparents, husband's family who came from out of town (mine are all in town) and my side of the family (aunts, uncles, cousins) along with my husband's side of the family (the aunt or two) from in-town.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

As far as the should you invite significant others (includes spouse, partner, boyfriend/girlfriend,etc) or not I've always preferred significant others be invited to most events. Some don't make sense but a rehearsal dinner to me is one that does. Feels arbitrarily excluding especially if they are a significant other to someone intricately involved in the wedding. Just seems considerate to me.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

I have been invited to 2 wedding rehersal dinners:
when I was a bridesmaid and when my family was from "out of town"
I myself married in Las Vegas, no rehersal dinner there!

 

[neverlandsky]

+1 for bridemaids and groomsmen. When DH was best man there was a lot that I did with DH behind the scenes for bachelor party, wedding day, and errands after the wedding. I did bow out of the bachelorette party and instead voluteered to be one of the designated drivers for the groom's bachelor party for dropoff and organized designated drivers for pickup/return home since I was massively pregnant with our oldest. I was included in the rehersal dinner. Personally I wouldn't want any of the bridemaids/groomsmen to feel leftout by excluding their SO/Partner. To me, it's proper etiquette to include a +1 for bridemaids and groomsmen with reharsal dinner, wedding ceremony, and reception. Those afterall are "coupled" or "date" events.

 

[tvguy]

Traditionally it is just the Bridal Party. Some include the Bridal Party's spouses.
When my son got married we had a lot of out of town guests that were invited. We had 35 at the dinner.

 

[BayouQueen]

I've hosted two rehearsal dinners in the last 5 years (2 sons got married).

We invited the bridal party and significant others and any out of town guests and close family members such as
grandparents.

This is how we did ours, too.

 

[huskies90]

We paid for our wedding 100% ourselves. It was a destination wedding so we invited all our guests to our rehearsal dinner (we called it a welcome dinner). The welcome dinner actually had more guests than our actual wedding because we did not invite our friends' kids who came to the destination to the actual wedding but invited them to come to the welcome dinner the night before. Why did our friends bring their kids? Because we got married at Walt Disney World!!. We had our welcome dinner at 'Ohana, our ceremony at Sea Breeze Point on the Boardwalk, our reception at Top of the World Lounge in Bay Lake Tower and our dessert/fireworks party at Italy Isola in EPCOT. Kids were invited to the dessert party, too.

 

[NAB]

We don’t really have rehearsal dinners here either. I’m in Canada . Maybe it was just my circle of family and friends.

We just had the wedding party come over to my parents for drinks and food in the backyard.

Funny part to is that we usually don’t have a cocktail hour before the dinner at the wedding. Only seen these things on tv or talked about here. I guess we are plain Jane people. Maybe it has changed but don’t think so .

 

[mjkacmom]

We don’t really have rehearsal dinners here either. I’m in Canada . Maybe it was just my circle of family and friends.

We just had the wedding party come over to my parents for drinks and food in the backyard.

Funny part to is that we usually don’t have a cocktail hour before the dinner at the wedding. Only seen these things on tv or talked about here. I guess we are plain Jane people. Maybe it has changed but don’t think so .

Cocktail hour is my favorite part of a wedding reception!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Cocktail hour is my favorite part of a wedding reception!

We never had one, we just had an open bar as soon as the ceremony was done and the room was being flipped. Our ceremony was in the same place as the reception and the place just swapped it all out for us while we were upstairs signing the documents, getting my bustle up, taking a few photos of the rings, flowers, etc. It was about a 20-25min time period in between the ceremony and the reception. We did photos beforehand and I am so grateful we did.

All the cocktail hours I've been too people are just hungry and want to eat even as they booze it up. One time the cocktail hour lasted 1 1/2 hours because of the pictures being done. Guests were quite grouchy about 45mins in lol.

 

[GreatLakes]

For ours we invited the bridal party including the kids (flower girls and ring bearers), anyone coming in from out of town, and the immediate family of both of us.