Faux Pas or Nah: Not inviting all out-of-town guests to your rehearsal dinner?

Nah!

For us, we have enough out-of-towners that doing this would basically mean hosting another wedding reception the night before. We're inviting the wedding party, parents, and grandparents to the rehearsal dinner... and then all OOT guests to a dessert & cocktails welcome reception back at the hotel!

We are doing this because our wedding is in a rural area with limited options for eating out. Basically a burger shack is where our guests could go. Our lodge is the only nice restaurant in the area so we are hosting all the guests getting in on Friday. It's not what we originally planned on due to cost but we feel better about it doing it this way. We are keeping it super casual and having a BBQ style welcome dinner.

NAH. I don't see why they have to be

If we invited our OOT guests to our RD, it would LITERALLY be the entire guest list. Our venue is considered "destination" for everyone barring FH and I. We are only inviting immediate family, wedding party, and +1s to our RD.

I've never been to a wedding as an out of town guest where I wasn't invited to the RD. So in my family and in our circles, this would be a Faux Pas.

Totally fine. I have never assumed that I should be at the dinner, and honestly think I have no place at it if I am not in the wedding.

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That sounds like it's going to be fun, Clara!! I think that's a good reason to have all of your out of town guests come to your rehearsal dinner. How many people are you anticipating be at your RD?

That is a personal decision between B&G. I've been to both types of rehearsal dinners: out of towners included and bridal party only. I don't see either option as a faux pas.

Every single person from my side going to the wedding is from out of town. It would be like hosting the wedding twice. Also a lot of them are flying in the afternoon before the wedding, that makes logistics hard.

We're not having a rehearsal, but we are taking everyone to dinner who is staying at the venue with us the night before,

Nope. Dinners only for those attending the rehearsal and its pizza at our house lol

Not at all a faux pas. However, as my only really OOT guest is my sister and matron-of-honor, they'll be at our 'not-rehearsal-dinner bbq' anyways.

Every single guest is from out of town and we're not trying to have a second reception! One is pricey enough!!

Nah! I've never actually heard of this. We're just doing a very simple pizza dinner for those in the wedding.

We are inviting all our out of town family to the rehearsal dinner, but not expanding it to out of town friends. The only people not related to us at our rehearsal dinner will be bridal party and their SOs. Even cutting the list at that, it’s still 36 people!

All of our guests were from out of town since it was a DW. My SIL paid for our rehearsal dinner and it was just family. None of the other guests asked about it as it was Vegas and they wanted to explore the city

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Oof, that's a lot of people. Not as many as I think some could be, but still a lot. Are you having it at a special venue or a restaurant?

No way! If we had invited all of our out of town guests, we would have basically been throwing a second reception! While it's nice to invite as many as you can, the rehearsal dinner is just that - a dinner for those involved in the rehearsal!

View Quoted Comment Just at a local restaurant, we are friends with the owner so he is giving us a really great deal. Should end up costing us around 1k which was what we budgeted! We were kind of using the rehearsal dinner as an excuse to spend extra time with the out of town relatives we never get to see, and to have our families get to know each other before the wedding (no one from either of our families has ever met each other since there all so scattered location-wise)

Nah, if anything I would feel slightly rude doing so. I would imagine guests may want to rest after traveling.

90% of our wedding will be out of towners. So we cannot invite everyone to the rehearsal dinner.