Wedding Invitations

Wedding Etiquette has many considerations. The rehearsal dinner is one of them. 

Many couples have a rehearsal dinner before their wedding.

Not long ago, my cousin’s future daughter-in-law’s family held such a dinner, two days before the ceremony.

The bride’s family hailed from Southern California, but since she had attended college in the Eastern U.S. and had worked in a major Eastern city for years, she had accumulated many close friends in that part of the country.

Deciding whom to invite to the wedding became a major decision. That’s worth a column unto itself, but that’s probably another article. Since the party was to be held in a restaurant that had far less table space than the number of guests who were deemed worthy of a wedding invitation, the bride and her family then had to decide who should be extended an invitation to the rehearsal dinner as well.

In this particular case, the rehearsal dinner actually was less of a rehearsal and more an opportunity for various friends and relatives of both the bride and groom to get to know each other. I, for one, got to meet one of the bride’s brothers. We talked tech (no surprise there) and traded business cards.

Still, the rehearsal dinner is, for many, a prelude to a special occasion, not just any other business party. So who gets invited?

Custom dictates that the bridal party, immediate family and out-of-town guests get invited to the rehearsal dinner. And yes, the bride’s party ideally should pick up the tab for the dinner. That’s true partially for reasons of politeness. After all, out-of-town guests have already dug into their pocket for air transportation and lodging. And, not to sound tacky, but they’ve also spent money on gifts as well. So the least you can do is add them to the wedding rehearsal dinner tab.

Of course, the dinner tab can run high.  Thirty rehearsal dinner attendees can easily stretch the bill beyond $1,000. While that figure will probably be only a small portion of the cost of the wedding, the urge to economize on rehearsal dinner costs will probably be present.

Wedding etiquette experts I’ve read suggest one polite way to economize is to extend a rehearsal dinner invitation to your close family and the wedding party, while requesting that everyone else join you for toasts and dessert.

If your overall wedding budget is tight, those extra hundreds you save can make a tangible difference.

(Photo: http://www.sover.net/~rush4th/wedding/photos/scans/rehearsal-dinner.jpg)