Did you invite your officiant to RD?

[nikkiana]

I'm kinda wondering what protocol is with officiants and the RD... Are they supposed to be invited? Or does it depend on how well you know them? Or whether a minister vs. a justice of the peace, etc?

[carolinalady67]

I did a search on Ask.com and found this answer. We are planning on inviting ours.

Who is invited to the Rehearsal Dinner?
http://www.weddingfaq.com/wfaq/images/little_a.gif You should invite all those who will take part in the wedding ceremony, including: spouses or dates of all adult attendants, parents and grandparents of the bride and groom, your Officiant.
It is not necessary to invite the musicians or soloist unless they are close friends or family. If you are having small children in the wedding, the parents of the children should be invited. However, many times the children will not attend the dinner in order to get to bed early.
You can always invite other family members who are not part of the ceremony and out-of-town guests to join your rehearsal dinner.

[Jaci]

Lisa already answered but I'm going to say that I'm not inviting mine because she's got a wedding right after our rehearsal.

[MemphisMom]

We invited the minister and his wife to our son's rehearsal dinner. The ministers wife came up to me and thanked me and told me how much it meant to them to be invited and attend as a couple.

A Justice of the Peace would be a different story, but if the wedding party is all leaving the rehearsal for the dinner, the minister and his wife should be invited. We also asked him to say the blessing before the meal and it was beautiful!

[Theresa]

We invited both priests and the husband of the one who was married.

[Vanessaness]

I sure hope our priest could make it. After all he is the reason why we chose the date we did. And he is a huge part of our life.

[christinas2006]

I did. But, he told me that he was not going to be able to make it.

[*heather*]

We invited ours, but he was unable to attend. It was too bad, we really liked him!

[Jaime]

Yes, her and her DH were invited.

[belle67]

We are. :)

[nikkiscott]

I haven't thought about it because I am unsure if we are doing like a rehursal. I know that we are having a rd because its fh birthday the day before the wedding. I just found out that I have to invite the JOP to the supper the day of my wedding. So what do I know.

[SmilingHoney]

I invited ours but he said that he usually declines them b/c he doesn't want the bride and groom to feel obligated to make small talk w/ him all night. Usually he doesn't know anyone else except them and that he doesn't want to add stress to them.

So it doesn't hurt to invite. They may decline or if they do show up let them have a good time.

[-->Kat<--]

we're inviting ours but we're close with him and his wife

[lizaanne]

Yes - our priest is invited to both the rehearsal meal as well as the wedding reception luncheon. He may not be able to make the luncheon though, he might be on duty for hearing confessions the afternoon of the wedding.

~Liza

[Poloke]

We are also inviting our officiant and his wife to the rehearsal dinner AND the wedding reception.

[Aramelle]

We're definitely inviting our officiant to attend both. Ours is a little different situation, though, since Ken is a long-time family friend of DH's mom and distant relative of DH's dad.

[jillian]

I'm inviting my officiant (and his wife) since he's my brother's girlfriend's dad.

[*Mandy*]

Yes, but we were very close as he was our long time pastor at church. He & his wife stopped by for a few minutes, but they weren't there long. He said he feels its more a fun time, and time to relax, and people tend to feel uncomfortable with a man of the church there.

[*Stacie*]

Yes because she was my Grandma :)

[Jenn]

We invited ours but he is not going to be able to attend.

[*Ashley*]

Yeppers, we're going to invite ours! What's the protocol for this though -- do you just invite him when you get to the rehearsal or do I need to send an invitation to the church or bring one with us to the rehearsal? Our priest is fabulously hilarious, I love him!

[MemphisMom]

Ashley,
You need to invite him in advance or he will think it was an afterthought. I would send an invitation to the church. We asked our's do say the blessing before the dinner and it was really nice!

[*Ashley*]

Great, thank you! I felt that might be it but I wasn't sure. We'll need to get him one to the RD and the Reception. He's married some of our friends and they said that he won't stay long but he will come (I hope he can!). I found out his favorite wine/champagne is Veuve Cliquot, so I'm going to buy him a bottle of that to give him in addition to our offering :) Father Troy is awesome :)

[MemphisMom]

Great Ashley, he'll really appreciate that!

[Vanessaness]

Ashley that's wonderful! My mom invited our priest over to my apartment once when she was babysitting my kids and while he was here visiting she offered him a glass of my Gewurztraminer wine and he loved it. I got him a bottle of the stuff for chirstmas too. Now every time he sees me he remembers that delishious wine he had at my place.

I'm so glad to hear how much you like your priest. I love mine too, and you gave me a great idea to ask him to do the blessing before dinner. And inviting him to the RD!! Duhhhh I only thought of iniviting him to the Reception the RD didn't even dawn on me until just now that I read your post.

[PurpleFlower]

I will be inviting ours to both the rehersal dinner and the reception. Who knows how long he will stay but he knows both of us well and should be there !

[rowanmayfairs]

Ours didn't want to stick around for us to decorate. He was busy. He told us to give him a call an hour before we were done.

I invited him to stay and eat with us at the wedding. But he needed to leave and for us to give a call an hour before we were ready to leave.

My officiant is the preacher of the church and has a publishing business, plus does work for the chamber of commerce and takes pictures, etc. So I was grateful he made room in his schedule to marry us.

[Andrea]

I would say yes you prolly should. As someone looked up here in google...invite everyone thats INVOLVED with the ceremony

[Mrs.H]

We invited our priest, but he didn't come. He seemed flattered to be asked though.

[Dmsangel]

so if we're having a jp that we don't know personally, are we still supposed to invite her?

[MemphisMom]

so if we're having a jp that we don't know personally, are we still supposed to invite her?

Are you having a wedding rehearsal that the JP will be doing? If so, I would invite him/her but they likely will not attend. If they do, it would be nice to get to know them a little at the RD before the wedding anyway so you really can't go wrong.

[Winter_Bride]

We did, but the couple who married us is my best friend's parents, who are like my second set of parents! :D

[Dmsangel]

Are you having a wedding rehearsal that the JP will be doing? If so, I would invite him/her but they likely will not attend. If they do, it would be nice to get to know them a little at the RD before the wedding anyway so you really can't go wrong.

Yes we are. Thanks :)