Another wedding question

[bowies]

Grandparents (or people who have been the grandparental role in someone's life) are considered part of the wedding and should be invited to the rehearsal dinner, yes?

[smock]

I'd say yes. But I guess it depends if you want to do a small event or something a bit bigger. We had a pretty large rehearsal dinner (around 25 or 30 people out of a total wedding size of 80-ish) in part because we just saw it as another occasion to have fun with our closest friends and family.

[Deleted]

I would

[Muddled]

Close family, wedding party, OOT guests... That's the official line, yes?

[bowies]

Well, it only adds 2 people to the list, LOL. It will be small anyways because we have a small wedding party and not a lot of immediate family. Basically FI's dad doesn't want his ex-"FIL" there. I think Poppy should get an invite.

[Deleted]

Jan 23, 2013 10:06:32 GMT -5 Muddled said:

Close family, wedding party, OOT guests... That's the official line, yes?

Yes I believe this is the etiquette. Although I'd go w/ what Smock said. Although we didn't do a rehearsal dinner, so take my advice with a grain of salt. 

[bowies]

Well, shit, almost our entire guest list is coming from OOT. So we'll be doing essentially 2 receptions then?

[Deleted]

How big is your guest list?

[neonpink]

We just had our wedding party and our parents. If I had opened it up to our Grandparents other extended family would have wanted to come. It would have been way to many people. Instead the wedding party and parents had dinner then we met up at this fun bar across the street and anyone that wanted to come hang out could. It was a lot of fun I ended up Wii bowling with some of H's aunts.

[partiallysunny]

Grandparents-yes. As to the rest of it, I have no idea.

[ECB]

OOT guests are not "Required", but having been an OOT guest many times, it's really nice to be invited to the RD.

And no, it's not a 2nd reception. We had a LOT of OOT guests. Very big RD. It was nothing like our wedding or our reception. We made sure of that and no one felt like there were 2 receptions! It was just a really nice way to spend some extra time w/ the people who traveled to be with us, and in a more relaxed environment than the reception. And, again, having been an OOT guest - I know how much it's appreciated.

[Muddled]

Jan 23, 2013 10:13:00 GMT -5 bowies said:

Well, shit, almost our entire guest list is coming from OOT. So we'll be doing essentially 2 receptions then?

It's totally up to you.

That being said, if OOT guests are not invited to the rehearsal dinner, it's nice to plan a meet up at a bar or something afterwards. Everyone will want to spend as much time with you as possible.

[bowies]

There will be only 50-ish guests.

I'm going to explore the idea of doing a BBQ/pig roast on the beach. That was FI's first idea, which means I'm never going to hear the end of it.

I guess that takes care of the grandparents question.

[Muddled]

We did something similar, Bowies. Friday night was a really relaxed eat, drink, and be merry thing. Everyone was invited.

[Deleted]

Jan 23, 2013 11:04:40 GMT -5 bowies said:

There will be only 50-ish guests.

I'm going to explore the idea of doing a BBQ/pig roast on the beach. That was FI's first idea, which means I'm never going to hear the end of it.

I guess that takes care of the grandparents question.

We also did something similar - we hosted all OOT guests and family at our house the night before (!!!!!!!!!!!!). I wouldn't recommend doing it at your house, but it is nice to get everyone together to spend time with them because the wedding day/reception is hectic. 

[fussbucket]

Our RD was at a restaurant and we did close family and wedding party only. If we did OOT guests it would have been a whole other reception. So probably every venue/guest list combination points toward one direction or another.

FTR I'd include the grandparents. Or rather, I'd hate to EXCLUDE them and have them feel bummed about it.

[sparksfly]

Our RD was wedding party and parents only. We had minimal OOT guests, and they were invited, but didn't attend.

[malibu]

Usually, yes.
We had the grandparents at ours.

[Deleted]

We didn't have grandparents at our. Just our wedding party and parents. Then again our grandparents who were alive at the time a lived about an hour away from the wedding site and wouldn't have driven that 2 days in a row.

[cuddlyevil]

I would yes. Only my grandmother was living at the time, but her health was poor so she did not attend since our wedding was 10 hours from her house. We had the bridal party and their SO's, our parents (and step parents) at our rehearsal dinner. That was because the bulk of our guests were out of towners, so it would have been the reception par deux if we invited everyone.

[kaneen]

I invited grandparents but I also considered them part of the wedding party (g-ma had flowers; g-pa wore a tux).

I say do that casual backyard thing and then you can invite everyone you want!

[aliciar6]

We did a BBQ at our house the day before, we had a lot of out of town guests that were party of the wedding party and all of my family was coming from NE so we invited them all. We even invited some of our local friends. We didn't even do a rehearsal, we just had the "dinner" played ladder ball and volley ball. DH's family didn't drive up for it though because they didn't want to get a hotel room that night, they live about 2 hours away. Our overall guest list was pretty small, we had about 67 including all the kids. The day we did the dinner was also my grandparent's 63rd anniversary.