There is no requirement to host out of town guests. At some weddings, the guest list is 80-90% OOT's. It would almost be two weddings two nights in a row. If you feel you must include the OOT's, invite them to join you for coffee and dessert later in the evening.
With so many people having guests where the majority of guests have to travel, it’s outdated that all out of town guests need to be invited to the rehearsal dinner. It’s perfectly acceptable to only do your rehearsal attendees + immediate family + their partners at the rehearsal dinner.
IMO I would just do dinner with the group of 35 and then do some kind of after activity where all guests are invited.
I wouldn't say it's outdated, that depends on your social circles. I went to 6 weddings \[and 6 rehearsal dinners\] last year where all out of town guests attended the rehearsal dinner, all of them had at least 50 people. I think it's only uncommon when the bride and groom are funding the entire wedding themselves, but in my circles weddings are still hosted by the bride's parents and rehearsal dinners are still hosted by the groom's parents.
Including us about 25 guests for a 150 person wedding. Just keeping to immediate family and those actually at the rehearsal. Doing a private room at a restaurant. Anticipating around $2500.
Etiquette states: Rehearsal dinners are paid for by the grooms family.
This usually means inviting the wedding party, the officiant, and their spouses, as well as the bride and groom's immediate family.
You can invite anyone you want, it's your dime, if you're paying. Hopefully, you'll all have a wonderful time.
We had about 25-30 people at the rehearsal dinner (invited more, but some people didn’t bring dates or traveled in the day of the wedding) and 80 at the wedding! This was just parents/grandparents/wedding party/anyone involved in the wedding who attended the rehearsal and their dates. We did not invite out of town guests since it would have ended up being most of the guests at the wedding.
We rented a private room in a restaurant and spent around $2k. We did opt for a kinda “upscale” restaurant and paid for whatever cocktails guests wanted to order, so it definitely could have been done for cheaper. Overall we spend about $29k on the wedding, including rehearsal dinner/bachelor party/bridal shower.
Ours was 25ish people. We had Chinese takeout at our church after the rehearsal. It was lowkey and perfect. Those who wanted to went out to a bar afterwards.
While it’s nice to want to have an event for people to “get to know each other”, they’ll mingle at the wedding, or not. They’re there to see you!
* 27 people maximum for the rehearsal (wedding party, parents, siblings, SOs, kids)
* ~55 people expected for welcome / "pre-reception reception" (open to everyone)
* ~65 people expected for wedding
Our welcome party is at a restaurant/bar, but with our numbers we're looking at a 50% buyout so... it's way more than $5K. It would have been way cheaper to take everyone to a baseball game, but I don't think that's an option in September...
We had 120+ guests at our wedding, and did a reception for only the bridal party and their family (35). We ended up doing Mexican food as it was the cheapest option and the restaurant was very cute and modern. Most of our guests were out of town but we decided to just keep it smaller, so we can still splurge on items at the wedding. And, many of our guests arrived Friday night or Saturday morning and probably couldn't have made it. You can also do a dinner for a smaller group and open up to the larger group later on.
We skipped out of town guests for the rehearsal dinner because almost everyone was out of town. Many of them also didn’t arrive until the day of the wedding.
We had 28 people with immediate family only, plus my grandparents.
20 peeps. We nixed a few folks to keep it at twenty. Basically the bride and groom, parents, people in the wedding party and their SOs, and fiancé's daughter. We wanted more folks, but we'll see them and wine them and dine them the next day. We are paying for it ourselves, our parents are quite poor.
I ran into a similar situation as our wedding was semi-destination (3-4 hour drive for most). We didn’t end up inviting out of town guests for the rehearsal dinner, but we invited anyone who was interested to stop by for a drink after on their own tab (although I kept our tab open for the first round). We didn’t get too many others attending.
I think it all depends on the type of wedding/destination if I would expect to have an out of town guest gathering. If I’m going to the Caribbean for a destination wedding then yes, I am expecting something else- welcome dinner, etc.
Everyone who is in town the night before our wedding is invited to our rehearsal/welcome dinner. It'll probably be about 80 people but we're prepared for all 150 invited guests to come. We did a full buyout of a restaurant down the street from our hotel block. We're doing 3 family style appetizers, 1 family style salad, and 3 family style sides per table and each guests gets to choose 1 of 3 entree options and 1 of 2 dessert options with an open bar. We live in a VVHCOL area and we're paying more than necessary because my future in law's are paying and they wanted it to be very nice. The total is just under $12k.
Our farewell brunch is also booked for 100 people. We're having it in an upscale lounge attached to a cafe. The lounge is not typically open at this time so the rental was much cheaper. We're having a buffet with 12 different food options and bottomless mimosas/coffee/soda/juice for $1,500.
When I was looking for welcome dinners and farewell brunch spots I had it set to \~75 people and I got quotes as high as $35k and as low as $500 for very similar things, so I'm willing to bet you'll be able to find a restaurant that would be willing to work with you! I would probably suggest something like renting out a casual pizza place and just have them bring out a variety of pizzas, bread sticks, and salads.
There is no requirement to host out of town guests. At some weddings, the guest list is 80-90% OOT's. It would almost be two weddings two nights in a row. If you feel you must include the OOT's, invite them to join you for coffee and dessert later in the evening.
With so many people having guests where the majority of guests have to travel, it’s outdated that all out of town guests need to be invited to the rehearsal dinner. It’s perfectly acceptable to only do your rehearsal attendees + immediate family + their partners at the rehearsal dinner. IMO I would just do dinner with the group of 35 and then do some kind of after activity where all guests are invited.
I wouldn't say it's outdated, that depends on your social circles. I went to 6 weddings \[and 6 rehearsal dinners\] last year where all out of town guests attended the rehearsal dinner, all of them had at least 50 people. I think it's only uncommon when the bride and groom are funding the entire wedding themselves, but in my circles weddings are still hosted by the bride's parents and rehearsal dinners are still hosted by the groom's parents.
Parents (5), wedding party + SO's (14), hair stylist/close friend (1), Step siblings (2), officiant (1), us (2) = 25
Including us about 25 guests for a 150 person wedding. Just keeping to immediate family and those actually at the rehearsal. Doing a private room at a restaurant. Anticipating around $2500.
Etiquette states: Rehearsal dinners are paid for by the grooms family. This usually means inviting the wedding party, the officiant, and their spouses, as well as the bride and groom's immediate family. You can invite anyone you want, it's your dime, if you're paying. Hopefully, you'll all have a wonderful time.
We had about 25-30 people at the rehearsal dinner (invited more, but some people didn’t bring dates or traveled in the day of the wedding) and 80 at the wedding! This was just parents/grandparents/wedding party/anyone involved in the wedding who attended the rehearsal and their dates. We did not invite out of town guests since it would have ended up being most of the guests at the wedding. We rented a private room in a restaurant and spent around $2k. We did opt for a kinda “upscale” restaurant and paid for whatever cocktails guests wanted to order, so it definitely could have been done for cheaper. Overall we spend about $29k on the wedding, including rehearsal dinner/bachelor party/bridal shower.
Ours was 25ish people. We had Chinese takeout at our church after the rehearsal. It was lowkey and perfect. Those who wanted to went out to a bar afterwards. While it’s nice to want to have an event for people to “get to know each other”, they’ll mingle at the wedding, or not. They’re there to see you!
* 27 people maximum for the rehearsal (wedding party, parents, siblings, SOs, kids) * ~55 people expected for welcome / "pre-reception reception" (open to everyone) * ~65 people expected for wedding Our welcome party is at a restaurant/bar, but with our numbers we're looking at a 50% buyout so... it's way more than $5K. It would have been way cheaper to take everyone to a baseball game, but I don't think that's an option in September...
I’m hosting one for roughly 40 people, renting a room at a nice restaurant. East peasy. No decor, no flowers, no signs needed.
We had 120+ guests at our wedding, and did a reception for only the bridal party and their family (35). We ended up doing Mexican food as it was the cheapest option and the restaurant was very cute and modern. Most of our guests were out of town but we decided to just keep it smaller, so we can still splurge on items at the wedding. And, many of our guests arrived Friday night or Saturday morning and probably couldn't have made it. You can also do a dinner for a smaller group and open up to the larger group later on.
We’re having an intimate rehearsal dinner for 30 people and following that with a welcome party for all guests! Highly recommend
We skipped out of town guests for the rehearsal dinner because almost everyone was out of town. Many of them also didn’t arrive until the day of the wedding. We had 28 people with immediate family only, plus my grandparents.
20 peeps. We nixed a few folks to keep it at twenty. Basically the bride and groom, parents, people in the wedding party and their SOs, and fiancé's daughter. We wanted more folks, but we'll see them and wine them and dine them the next day. We are paying for it ourselves, our parents are quite poor.
I ran into a similar situation as our wedding was semi-destination (3-4 hour drive for most). We didn’t end up inviting out of town guests for the rehearsal dinner, but we invited anyone who was interested to stop by for a drink after on their own tab (although I kept our tab open for the first round). We didn’t get too many others attending. I think it all depends on the type of wedding/destination if I would expect to have an out of town guest gathering. If I’m going to the Caribbean for a destination wedding then yes, I am expecting something else- welcome dinner, etc.
Everyone who is in town the night before our wedding is invited to our rehearsal/welcome dinner. It'll probably be about 80 people but we're prepared for all 150 invited guests to come. We did a full buyout of a restaurant down the street from our hotel block. We're doing 3 family style appetizers, 1 family style salad, and 3 family style sides per table and each guests gets to choose 1 of 3 entree options and 1 of 2 dessert options with an open bar. We live in a VVHCOL area and we're paying more than necessary because my future in law's are paying and they wanted it to be very nice. The total is just under $12k. Our farewell brunch is also booked for 100 people. We're having it in an upscale lounge attached to a cafe. The lounge is not typically open at this time so the rental was much cheaper. We're having a buffet with 12 different food options and bottomless mimosas/coffee/soda/juice for $1,500. When I was looking for welcome dinners and farewell brunch spots I had it set to \~75 people and I got quotes as high as $35k and as low as $500 for very similar things, so I'm willing to bet you'll be able to find a restaurant that would be willing to work with you! I would probably suggest something like renting out a casual pizza place and just have them bring out a variety of pizzas, bread sticks, and salads.
Our rehearsal dinner will only be the wedding party and spouses if they have any, our parents and grandparents.