Weddingbee boards

Hello-

I realize that it's becoming normal to invite your out of town guests to the rehearsal dinner.  However, out of a guest list of 130 people, about 90 of them are going to be out of town guests.  I feel like it's ridiculous to invite almost the entire wedding to the rehearsal dinner, not to mention a lot of $.  My FMIL and FIL are divorced but are both contributing equal amouts to the rehearsal dinner, not in excess of 1200.00.  So....that will probably not really cover dinner for 90 people. I also feel like the rehearsal dinner should be relaxing before the 'big day' so my FH and I didn't want to invite all the out of towners.

Now FMIL is upset about it, saying she thinks it's very rude that we would not invite them.  Even when we explained the whole situation to her, she was still upset and then went on to say 'fine then I'll just give them all money so they can go buy their own dinner'.  I am shocked because she's usually a really sweet person, but I feel like she's just being difficult on purpose.  It seems to me that if we didn't invite the OOT guests to the rehearsal, they wouldn't think twice about it, but if she gives them money to buy their own dinner in subsitution of being invited, that is sort of throwing it in their face that they aren't coming.  Am I wrong in thinking this?  I don't even know what to say to her about it. 

I think mostly she's upset because she and her family are coming from TX.  But most of my family is coming from WA also, as well as back east, and I'm quite sure she wouldn't give it a second thought if they were not invited to the rehearsal. 

 Am I being ridiculous about this?  How do I handle it?  Do I just let her give out the money (and potentially make people feel bad)?  Do I try to tell her again why she should leave well enough alone?  I can't very well cave and invite all the OOT guests, there is not enough $ in the budget for that.....advice, please?  This rehearsal dinner is turning out to be MORE stressful than the wedding planning :(

I had the same predicament. Only 2 guests out of 170 are located in the city where we are having our wedding.  We compromised to only invite OOT guests that were family....meaning aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  No cousins. 

Good luck!

Well, w/her agreement we had already put down a deposit somewhere that has the option to fit up to 100 people, but but for only 32 peopel the estimated total is already close to 2,000.00 after taxes (in my area the required tip of 20% is taxable at 9.75% so that sends everything higher).  Also, again, she and the grooms father are splitting the cost of UP TO 1300 each, which was the budget set by her.  So essentially she is asking for US to foot the extra cost for people that we have no intention of inviting. 

I guess my biggest problem is that she wants to give the OOT guests (presumably only her relatives) money to go get food themselves the night of the rehearsal, which to me seems very odd....

I know she will not agree to pay the extra cost for the additional guests.....and we absolutely cannot pay for them.  We are already paying for much of the wedding, along with my parents.  I actually think she might be appeased by inviting people to meet us at a local bar for drinks afterward as BexSH suggested, although I don't anticipate many of them will show.  But at least she'll feel like we're making a effort in her direction.  And if she wants to buy them a round, more power to her. 

I don't think I'll be able to dissuade her from handing them money though, she seems set on it.....hopefully she's just being snarky and will change her own mind after she realizes she's being irrational. 

Well, what baffles me most about the situation is that she is the one who set the budget, saying she won't go over 'x' amount. Which I understand, she just retired and bought a house, and I don't mind that she can't afford to spend an exorbtant amount on the rehearsal dinner. I think it's nice that she is paying anything at all!
I just don't know where she's getting this extra amount of $ to just give freely to these people who won't be invited to the rehearsal dinner, when she set the budget in the first place. So maybe she's just being passive agressive and trying to force us into a corner?
Ahh, is the a prelude of things to come? She'd better watch it; this kitten has claws! :)

I suppose if she wanted to pay for them all to meet at a restaurant before us, that is feasable.  But the actual rehearsal dinner won't start until 7:45 so no one would be there but them.  Not sure if that's what she had in mind. 

In lieu of throwing money at them or feeling bad about not having them at the rehearsal I wonder if she'd be willing to put together 'welcome' baskets herself and distribute them to her relatives.  I am not going to do this; they are all staying at different hotels all across the city, because they could not decide on a single place and they all wanted to price shop.