Rehersal Dinner

Normally you invite the bridal party and their significant others, parents of the bride and groom, ring bearer and his parents, and flower girl and her parents. We also invited our reader (my grandmother) and her signature other (my grandfather). We didn't invite my grandmother or grandfather on my dad's side since they weren't part of the ceremony. Nothing was said to us about inviting one set of grandparents over the other. Some people will also invite out of town guests. My brother-in-law got married 6 after us and they had their rehearsal dinner then had a welcome party at a bar. They didn't pay for the welcome party as it was very casual and everyone bought their own drinks. It was at 9 at night so people had already eaten by then. We elected not to have a welcome party since most people were traveling only an hour away and weren't getting a hotel room the night before the wedding.

The only necessities are those involved in the rehearsal, their significant others (or parents if minors,) and immediate family. Everyone else is optional.

Extended family isn't required, we included them but it isn't required to!

We invited: bridal party, their SOs, our immediate family (parents, siblings, grandparents) and out of town relatives.

The only reason we expanded it to “out of town relatives” is because other than the immediate family we only had a few extra out of town family members, and they were all people we really wanted to spend extra time with. My husband’s uncle who was flying in from Spain, my cousins from Seattle, and my great uncle from Colorado (we live in NJ). So adding the rest of the out of town relatives only added 4 people and they were people we almost never see and we really wanted to spend extra time with. But, we didn’t invite any local relatives other than parents, siblings, grandparents.

I feel like it should be bridal party/spouses and ring bearer and flower girls with parents, parents of bride and groom and officiant. My dads girlfriend is insisting on inviting her family and she’s going to be uninvited before all of them are invited 🤦🏻‍♀️

I think the wedding parties and parents are standard to invite to the RD. I wouldn't worry about inviting all the aunts and uncles unless they're part of the wedding parties!

It’s usually only the bridal party and their immediate families... we made the decision to invite grandparents since we both only have one set and are close to them but they aren’t even usually invited. But it’s up to you!

We have almost everyone coming from out of town, so it wouldn't make sense to invite them to the rehearsal dinner. We just have the wedding party and SO's, and everyone in the ceremony. Then, aunts and uncles are invited to the Sunday brunch after so no one feels left out

We included parents, siblings, nieces (who were the flower girls), bridal party & dates/children, readers/musicians and their families. My cousin sang at our wedding and was really grateful to be able to bring her kids since her husband was working at a high school football game that night.
If you have flower girls I would definitely include their parents...how else are they going to attend? haha. Just try to consider your guest list's situations and hopefully you can find a good number that works for you. Does this restaurant have a private party room where you can book the space for X people and then narrow it down once you know an exact headcount?