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If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

useralison Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:38 PM+

useralison MEMBER SINCE: 10/04 TOTAL POSTS : 257 WEDDING DATE: Sep 10, 2005

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:38 PM

If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

I am stuck on this b/c I have so many and I am not sure what to do. Will I be leaving people out to fend for themselves if I don't invite them????

heidla Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:40 PM+

heidla MEMBER SINCE: 10/02 TOTAL POSTS : 5901 WEDDING DATE: May 28, 2004

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:40 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

I think technically you are suppose to invite all OOT guests to the rehersal dinner. My wedding was 73ppl and my RD was 50ppl.

snowprincess805 Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:43 PM+

snowprincess805 MEMBER SINCE: 4/04 TOTAL POSTS : 1936 WEDDING DATE: Aug 13, 2005

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:43 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

we are not inviting all OOT guests - i have over a 100 - My FIL's are in charge- and they can invite anyone they want to a point because they are throwing it - they will invite a few people that are going to be around friday night - but most won't get in till late friday night or saturday morning

it really will be the people are really close to FILs that come early, readerss, and bridal party

It is a choice but you have to draw the line someplace -

MsKitty1274 Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:44 PM+

MsKitty1274 MEMBER SINCE: 7/04 TOTAL POSTS : 3551 WEDDING DATE: Jun 25, 2006

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:44 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

That's a good question. Yikes, heidla, your RD must have been a min-version of your wedding. I have a lot of OOT family/friends that are being invited (we'll see how many come), but is it wrong to only invite the bridal party, parents, and OOT family and NOT OOT Friends?

Also, my wedding is on a Thurs night, not sure who'd be there for the RD (which may be the week before)

suven Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:50 PM+

suven MEMBER SINCE: 8/03 TOTAL POSTS : 5958 WEDDING DATE: May 30, 2004

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:50 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

I invited all of them, in addition to our immediate family. In a way, it was just a smaller wedding...

Here's why: I once drove out to Ohio for my cousin's wedding. It was a huge sacrifice on everyone's part to get there. We arrived the morning before the wedding- only find out that she was too busy with her rehearsal dinner. We were not invited. We felt extremely insulted...

BlondeJD Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:56 PM+

BlondeJD MEMBER SINCE: 1/04 TOTAL POSTS : 4986 WEDDING DATE: Jan 01, 2003

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 05:56 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

About 1/2 our guests are OOT so it might not be a financial possibility for us to have everyone at the RD. What we might do instead is have immediate family and bridal party at the dinner (about 20 people) and then invite everyone else to meet us at the lounge in the hotel for drinks and appetizers. We figure it's cheaper for us to buy them drinks and appetizers and maybe even a little more fun for them than a typical sit-down dinner.

David'sbride Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:09 PM+

David'sbride MEMBER SINCE: 7/04 TOTAL POSTS : 3412 WEDDING DATE: Jul 04, 2005

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:09 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

I am only having immediate family (with FH's nieces and newphews, they are OOT) and those in the ceremony. My guest list is 100 people and my rehearsal dinner will be about 25. If I invited OOT guests it would be a pre-wedding. Oh, and no after party or brunch. I didn't want a weekend wedding and be exhausted before the ceremony started.

wood2be Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:15 PM+

wood2be MEMBER SINCE: 1/04 TOTAL POSTS : 2639 WEDDING DATE: Oct 10, 2004

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:15 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

It is definitely not necessary to invite all OOT guests. We only invited the bridal party (which included all our siblings) and God Parents. We would have had to invite 75 people that all came from Boston.

useralison Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:18 PM+

useralison MEMBER SINCE: 10/04 TOTAL POSTS : 257 WEDDING DATE: Sep 10, 2005

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:18 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

You guys are great... but I guess the debate will still go on... I feel if people make the trip than they should be invited.... ugh. we have such a limited budget for the rehearsal, my FI family gave us a set sum of $ for flowers and RD. With all the OOT guests I ahve a feeling we will be paying more out of pocket. ugh. Any ideas for an inexpensive RD? WIth alcohol included? (even harder!)

suven Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:23 PM+

suven MEMBER SINCE: 8/03 TOTAL POSTS : 5958 WEDDING DATE: May 30, 2004

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:23 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

Posted by useralison

Any ideas for an inexpensive RD? WIth alcohol included? (even harder!)

We put a bottle of white and a bottle of red on each table and called it a day...that helped with the costs

useralison Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:36 PM+

useralison MEMBER SINCE: 10/04 TOTAL POSTS : 257 WEDDING DATE: Sep 10, 2005

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:36 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

Posted by suven

Posted by useralison

Any ideas for an inexpensive RD? WIth alcohol included? (even harder!)

We put a bottle of white and a bottle of red on each table and called it a day...that helped with the costs

What a great idea ... did the restaurant charge you per opened bottle? Or did you supply the bottles yourself. This just gave me a good idea of having the RD at a BYOB restaurant. Thanks!

marymoon Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:42 PM+

marymoon MEMBER SINCE: 2/04 TOTAL POSTS : 12220 WEDDING DATE: Jun 19, 2010

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 06:42 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

No, you donlt ahve to invite any of the OOT guests to the RD though some people do.

randella Posted: Nov 04, 2004 11:09 PM+

randella MEMBER SINCE: 8/04 TOTAL POSTS : 4681 WEDDING DATE: Apr 16, 2005

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 11:09 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

It really depends-- but, we are not inviting all OOT- only the ones who are close relatives.

Our RD will be about 40 people.

We also figure that anyone else who is coming to NY for the weekend has friends or family they may want to see here, or they might want to take in a show or something on Fri night..

Bunnymonkey Posted: Nov 04, 2004 11:30 PM+

Bunnymonkey MEMBER SINCE: 6/04 TOTAL POSTS : 4857 WEDDING DATE: Jun 11, 2005

Posted: Nov 04, 2004 11:30 PM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

100% of my guests are OOT.

I am having a wedding of 125, my reheasal dinner is immediate family and the BP, total of 35.

We are putting dining out suggestions in all of the hotel rooms with tons of suggestions on stuff to do.

We simply cannot invite them. I think they will understand.

God, I hope they understand!

Marcie Posted: Nov 05, 2004 09:32 AM+

Marcie MEMBER SINCE: 3/04 TOTAL POSTS : 1911 WEDDING DATE: Oct 22, 2004

Posted: Nov 05, 2004 09:32 AM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

Since we had such a big bridal party we decided that we were inviting the bridal party and a guest (whether it was the husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc). But as the RD dinner got closer people backed out (we guaranteed 38 people). We were short 4 people to make up for this we invited my godmother and her family out of all of OOT guests (75% of the people coming to our wedding was from OOT). No-one took any offense to it.

IrishBride-05 Posted: Nov 05, 2004 09:41 AM+

IrishBride-05 MEMBER SINCE: 7/04 TOTAL POSTS : 1838 WEDDING DATE: Oct 14, 2005

Posted: Nov 05, 2004 09:41 AM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

We're just inviting immediate family to the RD, which includes the bridal party. I will have 6 or so friends from overseas who will be making a vacation out of their trip, so I'm going to include them, but not any other OOT guests. I'm hoping not to have any more than 25 at the dinner.

SANDNOV12 Posted: Nov 05, 2004 10:03 AM+

SANDNOV12 MEMBER SINCE: 6/04 TOTAL POSTS : 492 WEDDING DATE: Nov 12, 2004

Posted: Nov 05, 2004 10:03 AM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

It is only a nice gesture to invite all OOTG. I didn't invite everyone. I kept it to only out of town family. Otherwise it would have gotten tooo crazy.

leighdvm Posted: Nov 05, 2004 10:03 AM+

leighdvm MEMBER SINCE: 10/04 TOTAL POSTS : 3343 WEDDING DATE: Feb 25, 2006

Posted: Nov 05, 2004 10:03 AM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

For my RD, I'm only inviting the bridal party and my parents. It's a dinner for people who are actually in the wedding, isn't it? People who aren't in the wedding would be insulted? I never even thought about that. Add that to the list of stuff to worry about!!

Monkeybride Posted: Nov 05, 2004 10:05 AM+

Monkeybride MEMBER SINCE: 10/03 TOTAL POSTS : 1790 WEDDING DATE: Sep 17, 2004

Posted: Nov 05, 2004 10:05 AM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

We did not invite all OOT guests to the rehearsal. It was just too many people. We had parents, grandmothers and everyone in the wedding. That was it.
What we did do was meet up with all of our OOT guests that were in town at TGIF's near the hotel and hung out that night. It was still a great time and I don't think anyone was offended that they weren't invited to the dinner.

bluesashbride Posted: Nov 05, 2004 10:09 AM+

bluesashbride MEMBER SINCE: 9/04 TOTAL POSTS : 2445 WEDDING DATE: May 21, 2005

Posted: Nov 05, 2004 10:09 AM

Re: If there are many OOT guests ... who do you invite to the rehearsal dinner?

GREAT question! i have been wondering the same thing since every single person on my side is OOT. not sure where i'm going to draw the line, but i do know its going to be a good sized RD...