My older son is getting married this summer.  His mom and I are in the midst of planning the rehearsal dinner.  The bride-to-be, through her mother, has told us that we are supposed to invite, in addition to the entire wedding party and close family (which we knew), every out of town guest who has been invited.

Based on who’s invited to the wedding,  that’s close to the entire guest list.  I had never heard this “requirement” before.  I scanned 6-8 different etiquette articles on the subject, and it said that the out of town guest thing is “nice to do if you have the budget “.

What say you, 11W readers?  Is this out of town guest thing for real?  I don’t want to make waves, but Mrs. 95 and I aren’t sure we have the budget for that size of an event.  And fwiw, I don’t recall ever being invited to a rehearsal dinner for any of the out of town weddings I’ve gone to where I wasn’t a member of the wedding party (or their +1).

Also, just doing it in our back yard isn’t an option - the wife put her foot down and said absolutely not.