Rehearsal dinner invitation wording
Who comes, who hosts, when to send it, and how to word an invitation to the smallest and warmest event of the whole weekend.
4 min read
The rehearsal dinner is a small event with an outsized effect on the wedding day, because it is where the people running your day meet each other properly for the first time.
Its invitation is short and it has one job the wedding invitation does not: making very clear that this one is not for everybody.
Who is invited#
The standard list, which almost nobody deviates far from:
- The couple
- The wedding party, and their partners
- Immediate family on both sides
- Whoever is conducting the ceremony
- Anybody who has travelled a very long way
That last one is where the list grows, and it is worth deciding early whether you are including out of town guests, because if you are, the event is closer to a welcome party. See welcome parties and the morning after.
Who hosts#
Traditionally the family of one partner. In practice, whoever offers, and it is often the couple themselves.
Whoever it is should be named on the invitation, because a small dinner has a host in a way a wedding does not, and guests like to know whose evening it is.
The wording#
Warmer and much more relaxed than the wedding invitation, and it should look different enough that nobody mistakes one for the other.
Marie and Peter Reed invite you to dinner on the eve of the wedding, Friday the eleventh of September at seven, at the Harbour Inn.
The night before the wedding, we would love the people closest to us in one room. Dinner at seven at the Harbour Inn, on Friday the eleventh.
Say whether there is an actual rehearsal#
The name confuses people. Some rehearsal dinners follow a real run through at the venue, and some are just a dinner.
If there is a rehearsal, the invitation has to carry two times and two places, and it must be obvious who is needed at the first one.
Rehearsal at St Mary's at five, for anybody with a part to play. Dinner at the Harbour Inn at seven, for everybody.
Make the exclusivity obvious, kindly#
The most common failure is a guest turning up who was not invited, or a guest assuming they were not when they were. Both come from an invitation that does not say who it is for.
Address it by name, and say what it is in one clause.
A small dinner for family and the wedding party.
That single line answers the question before anybody has to ask you.
Dress code#
Worth stating, because guests genuinely do not know. The default assumption swings between jeans and black tie depending on who you ask.
Two words is enough, and it should usually be a notch below the wedding. Dress code wording covers the codes.
When to send it#
Four to six weeks before, and after the wedding invitations have gone out. Sending it first is confusing, since the recipients are all people who need to plan around the wedding itself.
Everybody on this list is travelling for the wedding anyway, so what they need most is the timing, early enough to book a train or a hotel night around it.
Practical lines that earn their place#
- The end time, because people have an early start the next day
- Whether there are speeches, since somebody will want to prepare one
- Parking or how to get back, given it is the night before
- Any dietary needs you have not already collected
It sets the tone for the weekend#
The best rehearsal dinners are not a smaller wedding. They are the informal one: long table, one speech, everybody meeting everybody, home at a reasonable hour.
If you are building the running order for the whole weekend rather than just the day, writing an order of the day covers how much of that guests actually need in writing.
