NO welcome dinner?

OKay you girls are making me feel alot better. Ive just read so much about welcome dinners I didnt know whether or not to have one. Seriously im sure most of my guests don't even know what one is! Yes, were at an AI so we def. plan on meeting everyone for drinks!

Thanks girls!

we thought about a welcome dinner, but we're at an AI so we're doing a welcome party instead. we're taking over one of the bars and i had a sign made that they'll hang around the bar.

Dont worry about a welcome dinner. Your guest are probably gonna have made plans anyways or will be busy themselves doing other things. You wont look cheap. They wont even know to expect it. So dont worry, why dont you guys just have drinks one night. Buy a round and I am sure everyone will want to buy the bride and groom a drink as well!

We're not doing a welcome dinner. We are going to try to do a group dinner at one of the all inclusive restaurants. We can't do our whole group at one time so we'll just do my family one night, his family another night. And our friends another night.

I'm not doing a dinner, but I am having a 'welcome meet & greet' the night before the wedding. We'll meet at the bar for about an hour, then FI & I will head to one of the restaurants for dinner. The guests will be welcomed to join us if they wish, but it's not scheduled. Don't feel that you MUST do a welcome dinner, but meeting with them to say hello and thanks for coming before the wedding will be nice. Even if you meet on the beach or at the pool.

We are having the exact same issue. Having to pay for this wedding on our own, a welcome dinner is going to be pretty expensive and at the bottom of our priority list. I think what we are going to do instead is just tell guests that they are more than welcome to meet up with us at a cetain resturant. That way they also dont feel obligated to go and we are not obligated to pay.

It seems like NOT having a welcome dinner is the norm on this thread!

And I am glad to say that I am in the majority. We are not having a welcome dinner or a rehearsal dinner for many of the same reasons mentioned - 1) I don't think most of our guests have even heard of a welcome dinner so they won't know what they are missing, 2) we are paying for the wedding ourselves and feel that feeding the guests once is enough and 3) about half of our guests will only be there for 4 nights so we don't want to schedule up all of their time.

I just recently went to a destination wedding in Hawaii. This was prior to my engagement so I didn't know what to expect, nor did I expect anything. But at this particular wedding, they didn't pay for transportation from the airport to the hotel (which i have been struggling with for my own wedding) but it cost us $100 dollars to get there as it was so far. But its OK, i didn't mind, but it was expensive. The night we got there we all went to dinner but it wasn't a set thing it was like if you want to come great, if you don't, don't but we all paid our own way. The next night they had a short cocktail party with apps which was nice but not necessary and then we all went to dinner, which we paid on our own. The next night was the wedding which was by far the most fun wedding I have ever been to. The night after was Thanksgiving dinner and they paid for that which was nice, but again, not expected. and the next night we left. My point is, that it was all nice, but so not expected or necessary. Now that we are planning our own wedding my FI feels like we should have planned things for the guests but I didn't think much of it...it was a nice added touch, but i didn't expect anything just because i traveled for them. I think the best thing about having organized dinners and parties was that we (all the guests) could hang out together as that didn't happen otherwise since most of us stayed different places. Overall, I don't think it will make you look cheap but I think it would be a good idea to plan something where everyone can all get together. Maybe even at a local bar where it isn't too expensive.

We aren't.

We are at an AI, so what's the point?

We are going to do up an itinerary of sorts to let people know the events that are going on that week (Wedding Tuesday, Chris's birthday Thursday, Flower girl birthday Saturday.. yes we picked a good week!). But other than that we are going to let people have their holiday!!