Totally legit question, other posts have me curious....

Amyzen83

I'd also like to add that as a guest at many weddings I love the traditions at a reception and never thought any of it was awish I do judge couples who are constantly talking about their wedding with uninvited people and there are many other ettiquet fax pas that get under my skin but the traditional elements of a wedding do not because I even expect them

PrettyGirlLost

AroundTheBlock said:

PrettyGirlLost should have said: It's 2014 not 1814, and more and more couples are hosting their own weddings so those who understand hospitality and good manners are going to be the hosts instead of being the guests of honor.

You cannot be your own "guest", and certainly not your own "guest of honour". And who pays is not something that should be made public.

Exactly!  Nobody should ever know who is paying for the wedding, but if the Bride and Groom are, and more often these days they are funding their own weddings, I take no issues with them having the typical spotlight dances and cutting the cake.

I totally can appreciate the reasoning behind your post, but I don't think it is relevant today.

As far as I understand it, the reason why the bride's family traditionally paid for and hosted her wedding back in the day was 1, there used to be a tradition of a dowry going to the groom, and 2, women didn't have money of their own unless they inherited it from their fathers or husbands when they died.  And I'm speaking of the upper class- the lower class didn't usually have a pot to piss in, so I'm not sure what their wedding related traditions were.

It's not like that anymore- I'm glad I'm not considered anyone's property and that my wedding isn't a business transaction to benefit my father.  My FI and I should pay for our own wedding!  And we intend to cut our cake and do the spotlight dances- I actually have no desire to do them, but it is very important to my father and his mother.

So if that makes me a terrible hostess, then I guess my guests are just going to choke on their drinks from the open bar because they are going to be so shocked at my bad behavior! ;-)

huskypuppy14

PrettyGirlLost said:

AroundTheBlock said:

PrettyGirlLost should have said: It's 2014 not 1814, and more and more couples are hosting their own weddings so those who understand hospitality and good manners are going to be the hosts instead of being the guests of honor.

You cannot be your own "guest", and certainly not your own "guest of honour". And who pays is not something that should be made public.

Exactly!  Nobody should ever know who is paying for the wedding, but if the Bride and Groom are, and more often these days they are funding their own weddings, I take no issues with them having the typical spotlight dances and cutting the cake.

I totally can appreciate the reasoning behind your post, but I don't think it is relevant today.

As far as I understand it, the reason why the bride's family traditionally paid for and hosted her wedding back in the day was 1, there used to be a tradition of a dowry going to the groom, and 2, women didn't have money of their own unless they inherited it from their fathers or husbands when they died.  And I'm speaking of the upper class- the lower class didn't usually have a pot to piss in, so I'm not sure what their wedding related traditions were.

It's not like that anymore- I'm glad I'm not considered anyone's property and that my wedding isn't a business transaction to benefit my father.  My FI and I should pay for our own wedding!  And we intend to cut our cake and do the spotlight dances- I actually have no desire to do them, but it is very important to my father and his mother.

So if that makes me a terrible hostess, then I guess my guests are just going to choke on their drinks from the open bar because they are going to be so shocked at my bad behavior! ;-)

I don't think you're doing anything against etiquette @prettygirllost. I think that most brides and grooms have paid for at least some of their wedding, but they usually say "together with their parents" or Mr. and Mrs. So and so invite you blah blah blah. 

And seriously, who are these people that don't like to see the bride and groom dance their first dance, or cut their cake? That doesn't take too long at all- and I love to watch that part. Now I usually don't care too much about the parent dances, I could take it our leave it, but that's it. There shouldn't be more spotlight dances than that. No wedding party dances, no sister/brother dances, it gets too long and people get bored.

mrs4everhart

laurynm84 said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

AroundTheBlock said:

PrettyGirlLost should have said: It's 2014 not 1814, and more and more couples are hosting their own weddings so those who understand hospitality and good manners are going to be the hosts instead of being the guests of honor.

You cannot be your own "guest", and certainly not your own "guest of honour". And who pays is not something that should be made public.

Exactly!  Nobody should ever know who is paying for the wedding, but if the Bride and Groom are, and more often these days they are funding their own weddings, I take no issues with them having the typical spotlight dances and cutting the cake.

I totally can appreciate the reasoning behind your post, but I don't think it is relevant today.

As far as I understand it, the reason why the bride's family traditionally paid for and hosted her wedding back in the day was 1, there used to be a tradition of a dowry going to the groom, and 2, women didn't have money of their own unless they inherited it from their fathers or husbands when they died.  And I'm speaking of the upper class- the lower class didn't usually have a pot to piss in, so I'm not sure what their wedding related traditions were.

It's not like that anymore- I'm glad I'm not considered anyone's property and that my wedding isn't a business transaction to benefit my father.  My FI and I should pay for our own wedding!  And we intend to cut our cake and do the spotlight dances- I actually have no desire to do them, but it is very important to my father and his mother.

So if that makes me a terrible hostess, then I guess my guests are just going to choke on their drinks from the open bar because they are going to be so shocked at my bad behavior! ;-)

I don't think you're doing anything against etiquette @prettygirllost. I think that most brides and grooms have paid for at least some of their wedding, but they usually say "together with their parents" or Mr. and Mrs. So and so invite you blah blah blah. 

And seriously, who are these people that don't like to see the bride and groom dance their first dance, or cut their cake? That doesn't take too long at all- and I love to watch that part. Now I usually don't care too much about the parent dances, I could take it our leave it, but that's it. There shouldn't be more spotlight dances than that. No wedding party dances, no sister/brother dances, it gets too long and people get bored.

So it's ok to bend proper hosting etiquette in some instances but not others? I don't care one way or the other, I just think it's telling how quick some people are to judge some perceived breaches of etiquette but will make all sorts of excuses to defend their own. 

It's simply not appropriate to simultaneously host a party and be the guest of honor. We hear this time and again about engagement parties, showers, etc. But because many couples want the traditional trappings of what they see as their right as the B&G and are in a position to have to pay for their wedding if they want one, all sorts of nonsense is dispensed: "Oh, it only takes a few minutes to do XYZ" "Who doesn't enjoy ABC." It's not about how long these things take, or who enjoys them or not. We read ALL THE TIME, "oh, so you can read your guests' minds now?" Maybe there are people who are offended by people hosting and honoring themselves at the same time, is this going to stop any of you? Probably not. 

Listing "together with their families" on an invitation in attempt to muddy the waters on who exactly is hosting the thing in order to allow the B&G to ignore etiquette sounds very disingenuous indeed. And lord knows many of you are very put off by anything other than the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth all the time. Maybe many of you should accept that if you pay for your own wedding you aren't "entitled" to make a grand entrance, cut a cake, leave early, etc., etc. Remember, sometimes making adult decisions can really suck. 

SP29

@STBMrsEvarhart It's confusing to me too. I get it, and don't, because there are conflicting "rules" on weddings vs. other events. And even other events cross the rules. 

As an example, in my group of friends (well two group of friends as I've lived in two different provinces, so we can assume some geographical/cultural differences), we always "host" our own birthdays.

Even when I was a teenager, there was usually something along the lines of an invite, that involved ending up at the birthday person's home where food and drink were provided to guests. Gift giving dropped off at this point.

Now, it's usually an invite out to dinner or a bar, where everyone pays for them self. No gifts are given, the most is that the birthday person gets their meal paid for or some drinks bought. 

My DH hosted (well I played host too, but he picked out the meal, date, time) his own birthday this past year. We invited our friends over to our house for a wine and cheese party, provided our guests with several kinds of wine and a spread of food to complement the wine. There was no cake, and no singing of happy birthday.

This is technically still considered rude because it was DH's birthday, but I think it's a fuzzy line (and I don't consider it rude) because we invited friends to our place and properly hosted them- no money came out of our guests' wallets at any time. 

It's also common among my friends to talk and ask, "hey what are you doing for your birthday? We should do something!". 

AroundTheBlock

SP29 said:

...

My DH hosted (well I played host too, but he picked out the meal, date, time) his own birthday this past year. We invited our friends over to our house for a wine and cheese party, provided our guests with several kinds of wine and a spread of food to complement the wine. There was no cake, and no singing of happy birthday.

This is technically still considered rude because it was DH's birthday, but I think it's a fuzzy line (and I don't consider it rude) because we invited friends to our place and properly hosted them
....

No, actually it isn't. Oh, maybe here; but not in the real world.

Real etiquette is never focussed on making the world a colder more insular place with fewer happy community gatherings. Gatherings can be held, for all sorts of nominal reasons that are ineflexibly panned here, and still be technically perfectly polite as long as they are held with sincere modestly and generosity; and your example of a well-hosted birthday party is a good one. There's a lot to be said for, once a year or so, looking around at how fortunate you are for having good friends, and find a way to thank and celebrate them for putting up with you for yet another year.

Yes, it could be a way for your husband to focus attention on himself, but it wasn't. And a party you give together with your brand-new fiance can also be a self-serving attention-whorish "engagement party", or it can be a celebration of  all your friends for bringing you together and sticking with you through the ups and downs leading up to this point in your life. And you can throw your own pre-wedding tea-parties and after-wedding receptions with the same guideline: that you cannot be your own guest of honour, but you really can honour the people who are your guests, any time you want. And honi soit qui mal y pense.

PrettyGirlLost

@ STBMrsEverhart there is a big difference between paying for my wedding myself and then cutting my cake at the reception and people choosing to have a PPD and not tell anyone they are actually already married. And I have said many times that while I don't understand having a PPD and think they are stupid, as long as the couple is honest that they are already married and I know upfront that I'm not really invited to a wedding, I don't care. This is the 1st time since joining TK that I have ever heard that paying for your own wedding and then cutting the cake etc is rude. . . In fact no where in real life have I ever heard such a thing either. And while I can understand the rationale behind these claims and appreciate the discussion, I don't care. . . Just like you with your DW ;-) If that is my worst etiquette breach, meh.

AddieCake

@KittyKaty20 There were cupcakes!

AroundTheBlock

PrettyGirlLost said:

This is the 1st time since joining TK that I have ever heard that paying for your own wedding and then cutting the cake etc is rude. . ..

And you still haven't heard that.

Paying is irrelevant. You could pay your mother's catering bills for her and she could still be the hostess. She could pay your catering bills and you could still be the hostess. The hostess is the person who lends her name to the event, issuing the invitations and taking personal responsibility for the safety, comfort and entertainment of her guests. If you are the one issuing the invitations and taking the responsibility, you are the hostess.

And, even as hostess, you can certainly cut the cake. The difference is that as hostess, you serve your guests *first*, and yourself *last*. There is nothing to stop you from doing your cake-cutting that way, and clearly demonstrate yourself to be a gracious hostess *as well as* a bride.

mrs4everhart

PrettyGirlLost said:

@ STBMrsEverhart there is a big difference between paying for my wedding myself and then cutting my cake at the reception and people choosing to have a PPD and not tell anyone they are actually already married. And I have said many times that while I don't understand having a PPD and think they are stupid, as long as the couple is honest that they are already married and I know upfront that I'm not really invited to a wedding, I don't care. This is the 1st time since joining TK that I have ever heard that paying for your own wedding and then cutting the cake etc is rude. . . In fact no where in real life have I ever heard such a thing either. And while I can understand the rationale behind these claims and appreciate the discussion, I don't care. . . Just like you with your DW ;-) If that is my worst etiquette breach, meh.

@PrettyGirlLost, I don't mean the following in a snarky way at all - I don't care what you do with your wedding. Host it, don't host it, cut cake, eat cake, dance, don't dance, arrive late, leave early, none of it effects me at all. There's one wedding and one wedding only that concerns me. 

My point with all of the above is to point out the blatant hypocrisy found on this etiquette board constantly, not necessarily by you, just in general. Somehow it's okay to not host properly because B&G's feel entitled to stick with silly traditions while people go on and on about throwing their reception to thank their guests? Sure, ok. So it's okay to feel entitled to do certain things because everyone else does them, but clearly not other things for other people - sure, I'll take note of that. Just saying, if anyone ever wants to thank me for something, not spotlighting themselves throughout the thank you is great place to start. 

I don't get up in arms about things other people do with their weddings: gaps, cash bars, whatever, because a million breaches of etiquette could be held out for inspection for so many people (again, not saying you specifically). And yea, we could debate the ethical or moral relativity of the breaches, but I'm not here to judge anyone, and honestly I'd rather pay for a drink than listen to speeches and watch spotlight dances, so clearly many of us are coming from two completely different schools of thought on "what's worse." Sincerely, I believe attempting to package a party as a thank you to others when it's clearly all about two specific people is like pissing on someone's leg and telling them it's raining. 

I'm sorry if realizing that some of the things you plan to do aren't necessary to thank your guests and it made you uncomfortable in some way or made you question your plans to some degree. I make that assumption because you were so quick to throw out (paraphrasing) "what I'm doing isn't as bad as what you're doing because EVERYONE does what I'm doing." 

I hope you have a great wedding, I mean that. It costs me nothing to not judge you and to wish you well. No matter what etiquette you choose to follow and what you choose to ignore, you'll still have a wonderful time and honestly, it's just another afternoon/evening to your guests at the very core of it. They won't be saving a layer of cake in their freezer, they won't have a giant photo album commerorating the occasion, so I hate to sound like "one of those" but really, it's your (and your husband's) day, enjoy it without so much worry.  I just think it would behoove many to check how many layers of glass their standing behind before they start chucking rocks. 

PrettyGirlLost

STBMrsEverhart said:

PrettyGirlLost said:

@ STBMrsEverhart there is a big difference between paying for my wedding myself and then cutting my cake at the reception and people choosing to have a PPD and not tell anyone they are actually already married. And I have said many times that while I don't understand having a PPD and think they are stupid, as long as the couple is honest that they are already married and I know upfront that I'm not really invited to a wedding, I don't care. This is the 1st time since joining TK that I have ever heard that paying for your own wedding and then cutting the cake etc is rude. . . In fact no where in real life have I ever heard such a thing either. And while I can understand the rationale behind these claims and appreciate the discussion, I don't care. . . Just like you with your DW ;-) If that is my worst etiquette breach, meh.

@PrettyGirlLost, I don't mean the following in a snarky way at all - I don't care what you do with your wedding. Host it, don't host it, cut cake, eat cake, dance, don't dance, arrive late, leave early, none of it effects me at all. There's one wedding and one wedding only that concerns me. 

My point with all of the above is to point out the blatant hypocrisy found on this etiquette board constantly, not necessarily by you, just in general. Somehow it's okay to not host properly because B&G's feel entitled to stick with silly traditions while people go on and on about throwing their reception to thank their guests? Sure, ok. So it's okay to feel entitled to do certain things because everyone else does them, but clearly not other things for other people - sure, I'll take note of that. Just saying, if anyone ever wants to thank me for something, not spotlighting themselves throughout the thank you is great place to start. 

I don't get up in arms about things other people do with their weddings: gaps, cash bars, whatever, because a million breaches of etiquette could be held out for inspection for so many people (again, not saying you specifically). And yea, we could debate the ethical or moral relativity of the breaches, but I'm not here to judge anyone, and honestly I'd rather pay for a drink than listen to speeches and watch spotlight dances, so clearly many of us are coming from two completely different schools of thought on "what's worse." Sincerely, I believe attempting to package a party as a thank you to others when it's clearly all about two specific people is like pissing on someone's leg and telling them it's raining. 

I'm sorry if realizing that some of the things you plan to do aren't necessary to thank your guests and it made you uncomfortable in some way or made you question your plans to some degree. I make that assumption because you were so quick to throw out (paraphrasing) "what I'm doing isn't as bad as what you're doing because EVERYONE does what I'm doing." 

I hope you have a great wedding, I mean that. It costs me nothing to not judge you and to wish you well. No matter what etiquette you choose to follow and what you choose to ignore, you'll still have a wonderful time and honestly, it's just another afternoon/evening to your guests at the very core of it. They won't be saving a layer of cake in their freezer, they won't have a giant photo album commerorating the occasion, so I hate to sound like "one of those" but really, it's your (and your husband's) day, enjoy it without so much worry.  I just think it would behoove many to check how many layers of glass their standing behind before they start chucking rocks. 

Oh sorry, I didn't mean it that way at all.  I brought up PPDs because I have argued against them in discussions that you participated in, and you had mentioned double standards and hypocrisy in your post, so I assumed you were referring to those discussions.

I didn't take your posts to be snarky at all, nor do I feel guilty or uncomfortable with anything I plan to do- no worries!