A rehearsal dinner invitation goes out to anyone in your wedding party, immediate family, family who have traveled to your wedding, and close friends. You may also want to invite certain participants, such as your wedding officiant and those participating in your wedding ceremony.
The rehearsal dinner is essential for several reasons. It allows some of your close family members, friends, and guests to meet for the first time. Think of this as one big introduction. It also settles nerves and anxiety for many people, especially for the couple. The rehearsal dinner happens right after the first and only full rehearsal for the wedding. Then, after everyone rehearses and travels to the dinner location, further introductions, prayers, and blessings are shared.
The wedding rehearsal dinner is also important because it helps everyone to know where and when they should be on your wedding day. I recommend that the wedding planner or coordinator say just a few words to help everyone be clear on what they should do on the wedding day. Even seemingly minor details like where and when everyone should be in their places on the morning of the wedding are important to hear. Even if everyone knows where they should be, it never hurts to hear it one last time, especially the night before the wedding.
Choosing Your Guests
It can be challenging to select guests for your wedding events because budget is always a factor, as well as space and the availability of your guests. But you should never feel guilty or obligated to invite guests to your events. Instead, you want your guest list to make sense for you, whether that means building and maintaining relationships with friends and family or making sure you can afford your preferred number of guests, which can be a difficult balance.
Rehearsal Dinner Invitations
When you send your rehearsal dinner invitations, remember that they don’t all have to be the same, and there is no one way to do it. Remember, if you want to send invitations to your wedding party separately, invite your family members or even call them if you think some would appreciate hearing directly from you, that’s completely fine. The important thing is to make sure you don’t miss anyone. So, if you know an aunt or uncle who would appreciate a phone call to catch up and get the rehearsal dinner details, go ahead and do that. Just make sure you record their RSVP for yourself.
That being said, using the same method is much easier on you. It may be costly to send a rehearsal dinner invitation in the mail, but it sure does ensure you get the message to them all simultaneously. Otherwise, you can try a digital option that you can find in the next section.
Sending Your Invitations
It’s perfectly acceptable to send your wedding invitations digitally, by mail, or by e-mail. This invitation is not like your invitations for your ceremony or even your wedding reception. There is slightly less expectation for these invitations to be as formal. As long as you ensure that everyone is aware of their invitation and you feel good about the process, not adding stress, then you are good to go. For your wedding party and anyone participating in your wedding, you can use the Wedistry for Wedding Parties app. For your guests, you can use a service like Paperless Post or Greenvelope.
Keeping Track of Responses
Using one of these digital services is the most convenient and cost-efficient way to keep track of RSVPs. It makes it much simpler to know everyone’s response in real-time so that you don’t have to keep following up with each person. One important thing to remember, no matter what type of rehearsal dinner invitation you send, is to include any details you need the guests to know for the dinner.
Of course, you need to know how many guests you are hosting, but if you need them to know that you are having dinner outdoors near the beach or any details that you might want them to know, this is your opportunity to share that information. We hope your rehearsal dinner is a huge success and please let us know about any interesting experiences you encounter.
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