Doing a Welcome Dinner?

I'm just putting together my invites so the thought of a welcome dinner is on my mind. Are you guys doing one? I think it's a great idea, but I have no idea as to how to go about planning one. Are you having it on the day you arrive or the first full day? We still haven't gotten our flight plans so I'm not even sure when we'll be arriving. Also, I assume I have to make a reservation - it'll be for about a dozen or so people - but I have NO idea how to go about doing this. Okay, so finally, are you doing anything special for the welcome dinner? Just trying to figure out what I'd have to prepare. Sorry for all the questions everyone and thanks for any insight and assistance you may be able to provide!

My FMIL is doing the welcome dinner aka the rehersal(sp?) dinner, I think she is planning to have it at The Office.

The Office in Cabo has music, entertainment and everything on Thursday and Sunday nights....

Our welcome dinner is going to envite everyone.

sorry if that doesn't help...

There are a lot of girls here that are going to Edith's to do theirs.

Hi. We're thinking of doing an informal welcome dinner. Basically just to get everyone together to meet and what not. Or there are boat cruise dinners that we might consider also.

I don't know about this area either... why is everythign wedding related hitting me hard in the face today? I don't think we are going to do a rehersal dinner although a welcome dinner sounds nice. I also think it's a good way of everyone getting introduced to one another and so on.

I think i would have mine the night before the weddding BUT

1- is it rude of me to reuqest another night of my guests time? I think most are thinking of this as a vacation too. I don't want their whole week to be tied to the wedding

2- should I talk to my wc and do this at our resort or find a cool lil restaurant.

Ahhh here come all the options again. I don't know whats worse trying to do my invites or plannign a welcome dinner LOL

I'm doing an informal welcome reception in our suite at the resort. I didn't want to hassle with transportation and the cost of the food/bev at the resort was outrageous. My WC has arranged a couple of chaffing dish rentals. So, were going to have a taco bar and chips and salsa with margaritas and beer from costco. ...we had to upgrade to a 1 bedroom suite to do this, but the cost of the upgrade still saves us money.

Hey Shelley - so we just got married last month. We had a Welcome Dinner on the Thursday night before the wedding at Baja Cantina Beach. Here's my insight:

If it's in your budget, a welcome dinner of some sort is great to do because it gets every body together & allows people to meet & get comfy with eachother before the big day. It kind of sets the tone for your wedding weekend. And quite frankly, it's a hell of a lot of fun!

I am extremely glad I picked Thursday to do our dinner because we were all so hung over the next day!!

We're having a welcome dinner the night most guest are arriving..Friday (our wedding is on Sunday). It's going to be at Dreams, Portofino restaurant. Afterwards if guests want to go into town, that might be a good night to do it.. we usually "go big" the first night anywhere and I don't want everyone hung-over for our wedding day.

As far as taking up our guest's vacation time.. they always have a the option to not go.

we're having a dinner the night before the wedding. since we can't have a rehearsal, it's a welcome dinner. and we're just having it at Dreams, the resort where most people are staying - pretty casual, mainly a chance for people to meet up and get to know eachother. i have a lot of people that are coming in on Wed or Thurs, and our wedding is on Friday. so having it any earlier in the week wouldn't have worked so well.

we did a welcome dinner and it was a blast...almost as much fun as the wedding...

riu is AI so maybe they can do something sort of informal like put you in a private room/corner...ask your WC what they can do