help! rehearsal dinner (warning: a bit long), NOW with frustrating update

update at bottom:
Okay, ladies and gents, wrestling with a problem, wanted to get your take:

It's my understanding that the rehearsal dinner is 'generally' hosted by the groom's parents and can be for the wedding party, any of their dates, parents and out of town guests. I heard that it was done this way because traditionally, the wedding was in the bride's hometown and the groom's parents wanted to have something for everyone.

A few exciting facts about our wedding:

1) It's happening in neither of our home towns, though because I grew up in westchester and have some family on the island, i probably have 'home court advantage' for lack of a better. but i think it's fair to say that at least half of our 230 person guest list is from out of town. Pretty much all of my fw's family is coming in from out of town.

2) Because several members of our bridal party won't travel until late saturday night, there's actually not going to be any rehearsing saturday night at this dinner.

3) Both sets of parents have been very generous in helping us cover the costs of everything, with fw's parents paying more, but with my folks giving us a decent sized chunk of change for us to use for 'whatever we want'. We're still on a budget and trying to stick to it, but suffice to say their support is helping us do this at all.

We had been using the money from my folks to cover, among other things, flowers, and we were going to pay for the rehearsal dinner ourselves. FMIL said something really nice, offering to pay for the flowers so we could use some of the money my folks have given us to pay for the rehearsal dinner and that way, my parents could host it. As one of taking one thing off of our plate, FW suggested we ask my mom if she's willing to do legwork on finding a place (my mom's pretty good at coordinating gatherings like this, so I think it's no problem). My mom is happy to do it, but I had the following exchange with her:

Me: so who would you invite to the rehearsal dinner?
Mom: no one. us, and your sister and her date.
Me: huh?
Mom: isn't the rehearsal dinner for the bridal party?
Me: yeah, but we want to do it for OOTers as well. So who should we invite?
Mom: But (stealthgroom), if you do that, your rehearsal dinner is going to be 100 people. Plus it could end up being contentious, inviting some cousins and not others. I'm happy to do it, but you should tell me how many people to plan for.

Mom then suggested to me that her understanding of the rehearsal dinner is that it's for the bridal party, their dates, the parents, and that's basically it, and to do something good for the oot guests you host a brunch for them the next day.

She wasn't being pushy about it, she was just giving her ideas. Now I'm a little worried about how to deal with all this. Any suggestions? How can we make the rehearsal dinner NOT a second wedding and be good to ourselves and our guests? Thoughts? Ideas?

--the stealth groom
(because i want a bomb *** party too, dammit!)

UPDATE:
So, I talked with FW tonight. She really wants tohave a dinner for all of her out of town family. If we're just talking about out of town family and the bridal party, we're talking 90 people. So I tell my mom this, and she says, 'I'm going to tell you one thing. If you're inviting out of town family and not inviting their close relatives that are here, you're going to create bad feelings from the people that aren't invited. How could you invite these cousins and not invite their brother who lives in Queens?' Ugh!!! ***?!

I always thought OOT guests meant people who took like...a plane to come to your wedding, not people who might have had to travel an hour or two...that is what we are doing, even if some OOT will be there the night before...we are having a rehearsal dinner two nights before the wedding and plan on only inviting people who are traveling from afar (i.e. FH's family from Chile, my grandparents from TN).

HTH!

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Posted by Marchbride07

I always thought OOT guests meant people who took like...a plane to come to your wedding, not people who might have had to travel an hour or two...that is what we are doing, even if some OOT will be there the night before...we are having a rehearsal dinner two nights before the wedding and plan on only inviting people who are traveling from afar (i.e. FH's family from Chile, my grandparents from TN).

HTH!

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Thanks. The problem is, fw is from dallas. So almost all of her family are oot. And I have family coming from pittsburgh, texas, chicago, florida, france and israel. If it's just oot family and the bridal party plus dates, it's nearly 90 people!

we had most of the wedding guests from OOT... so we did NOT invite them to the RD... they didnt expect it either...

we had bride and groom, bridal party and guestsi nvited-but NO ONE brought a guest to the RD, fg and rb- and their parents, JR BM and parents and siblings,, grandparents, parents, two uncles

Since you have so many OOT guests I don't think it makes sense to have them at the RD, you don't want a 2nd wedding before your actual wedding. Like your mom said, have them to a brunch the day after instead.

For the RD I would just have the BP, their dates, and then your and FW's immediate families. You should also include anyone else who is involved with the ceremony (readers, etc.).

Btw I love your last option, when all else fails....

Honestly, I have been an OOT guest to at least 5 weddings and I have never been invited to the rehearsal dinner which was fine. I wasn't expecting either...especially when the majority of the guests are from OOT.

Personally speaking, I always like it when I got a good OOT bag/box with some snacks and what have you along with brochures of some things to do in the area, places to eat, bars to hang out at, etc. That's always been fine with us. You feel appreciated and you have a list of things you could do if you want. If you really feel the need to include the OOT, its definitely more economical to arrange for some type of day after brunch, breakfast, etc.

If I were you, since there are so many people, i would limit it to the BP and immediate family

here is who we had, hope this helps

us
my parents
dh's parents
my sister and bil
my brother - invited w/guest, but she could not attend
my girls - 1 bm was single
1 married but husband could not make it
my one cousin from OOT, she came from texas so she was invited
my 2 bil's , one bought g/f the other didn't
dh's grandparents - 3 altogether
gm and his wife
parents of rb
parents of other rb and fg
2 - rb's
1 - fg
readers
one was above bil , my sisters husband
other was aunt, my uncle was invited as well.

we had no oot guests, if that helps.

If everyone is out of town go with the bridal party and parents.

But really, who doesn't love a good cheese sandwich once in a while? I'll take mine grilled, thanks!

What, nobody wants cheese sandwiches?



If it was just bridal party +, it would be 25- 26. 4 parents, one grandma, 5 bms, 6 gms, bridal party dates, flower girls and their parents.

But once we start getting into relatives from out of town, the numbers jump up a bunch.

Don't call it a rehearsal dinner.

If you have a lot of out-of-town guests it is etiquette to have something for them the night before the wedding, usually at their hotel.

We're having that issue right now at the Fox Hollow Inn. Reserved a room to have this function in and the menus give to us are the same as our wedding. We have no idea what we can feed these people.

Yes, it gets huge.

Our guest list is about 70% out of towners though.

In your situation I think it's MORE than fine (and completely understandable so no one should be offended) to just invite the following:

Bridal Party & guests
Immediate family (parents, siblings & spouses)
Readers, etc

Good luck!

interesting... maybe including the readers is the compromise... that'll probably bring us up to about 40, which is big, but not captain insano.

edit: there's a piece of the jewish wedding called the sheva berachot, or seven blessings, and we're probably going to do hebrew reader/english reader.

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Posted by mbg1007

We're not having a rehearsal dinner but the week before we are doing the aufruf for FH and prob a lunch after that for close family and friends. If you are having an aufruf, maybe this could be an option instead of the RD.

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we're doing an aufruf in addition to the rd... but that is a thought...

This notion that the OOT guests must/should be invited to the RD, or that in the alternative the should host a brunch for them the next day is a NEW concept. One that has only been in the mainstream for @ 10 years. IMHO, it is horse hockey! The RD is to thank the BP for participating in the wedding, AND for the two families to spend a bit more time together getting to know one another before the big day (by family I mean parents and siblings ONLY). Getting married is a big expense, and if you happen to live on Long Island and are planning a LI wedding it can be a huge financial burden. To add to the already outrageous costs by hosting dinner or brunch for OOT guests is great for those that live in Hollywood and command $1+ million per movie, but for us ordinary folk anything more than the wedding and reception itself should only be included IF you have extra money burning a hole in your pocket and you have already upgraded your HM with every imaginable upgrade - otherwise an extra $$ should be spent on the - not the guests.

My two cents!