What are some etiquette battles you all went through?

AlexisA01 · July 2013

Just wondering some of the stories you all went through and experienced.

NOLAbridealmost · July 2013

I struggled with how to have a no-kids wedding without splitting up families where some "kids" are adults and some kids are children. (My 23 and 21 year old cousins and I were very close growing up, but their younger sibling who was 11 was not close to me at all).

Obviously we sent the adult kids their own invites. But we still felt weird excluding 1/5 of a nuclear family. We got around it by just inviting the 11 year old. The parents came but didn't bring her. If they had...well, folks would just have to get over it.

I also had issues with my bridal shower. I always thought showers were for very close friends and family so I told my MOH to only invite the 4 aunts I was closest to, my mom, sisters, grandmothers, and the girls in the WP. Well, I excluded a new aunt who married my uncle a year or so earlier. One of my other aunts who was invited told me that I screwed up big time and I felt awful for weeks. *Shrugs.* I still don't think I really screwed up that badly, but it was awful at the time.

BarbLovesDave · July 2013

I told my family that I would keep my maiden name post-marriage. (And did.) Word spread through the Grapevine and by the time W-Day came, almost everyone knew about it.

Except my grandmother, my very proper do everything correctly grandmother.

The night before the wedding, she said "How will you like being Mrs X?"

"Um, Grandmother, I'm not going to be Mrs X. I'm going to keep my name as it is."

Mom to Dad: "I thought you were going to tell her."
Dad to Mom: "I thought YOU were gong to tell her."
Mom to Dad: "Someone should have told her and she's your mother."
Dad to Mom: "I could have sworn you said you'd tell her."

She didn't have a heart attack, after all. Actually, considering everything, my grandmother took the news very well. It was my other grandmother who was still flipped out at the idea I was marrying a Catholic.

TKzilla · July 2013

I had to squabble over having enough chairs for butts and having enough seating at the tables during the reception. My mother was convinced that not everyone would walk down the beach to sit for the ceremony. She was right in the end, but I wasn't going to take chances and not have enough seats because we assumed older guests would sit in the crow's nest. Same thing with tables, mom thought some people would eat in the house and not on the deck. I don't know if anyone did, but it didn't seem right to me to MAKE people eat in the house if they wanted to be on the deck with everyone else.

There was a minor tiff over inviting the significant others for some of my younger cousins (over 18 but barely). I put my foot down on that one, though, because it would've sucked for them to be the only "adults" that wasn't allowed to bring their serious boyfriend.

libby2483 · July 2013

My H wanted us to have a dollar dance. Yikes!

Anastasia517 · July 2013

My mother wanted a cash bar so people wouldn't over drink. FI and I absolutely do not. I told her that FI's parents want an open bar and that they have very generously offered to pay for it, so that got settled pretty quickly.

The suggestions of B-listing, showers where you ask for money instead of gifts, and inviting people to showers who are not being invited to the wedding have also been suggested to us by close relatives. I have no idea who would be B-listed or only invited to the shower given the fact that our guest list includes everybody we would currently want to invite, so it's even more ridiculous.

Xstatic3333 · July 2013

I am alone on an island surrounded by people who think cash bars are fine and open bars are excessive, risky, and overly showy. They think I only object since I've been reading "crazy things on the internet." Yes, this includes FI. To make matters worse, my venue won't allow limited host bars (ie beer and wine). This was a failure of foresight when we booked the venue back when I was totally clueless. I've had to be very delicate and tactful about my intention to pay for all the alcohol to avoid offending my parents.

A lot of this could have been prevented by choosing a different venue in the first place; beer and wine would have been fine with everyone. New brides, if someone else is hosting, get on the same page about alcohol before booking your venue or accepting any money!

tiny speck · July 2013

Embarrassingly, H originally wanted to "just sign the papers" here in England and have a "real wedding" later in the States whenever we got around to it. I shut that down immediately.

Since I didn't have a shower and didn't register (thus we did not receive physical gifts), MIL has hinted that she wants to throw a shower for me "when we know where we're going to live next" after we move back from England. This will be months (maybe even a year or two) after the wedding. The thought makes me cringe and I am not looking forward to getting her to realize that it would be so wrong.

wittykitty14 · July 2013

1.) Inviting all SOs. We're awful people, and weren't planning on inviting everyone at first. After coming on TK, I quickly realized how horrible we were for this, and eventually convinced FI of that too. We were able to add all the SOs in before the invites went out. PHEW!

2.) A lot of people are pushing for a dollar dance, because they're fairly common here. Tackiness aside, I just don't want to do it because I don't want people to touch me, which is the only reason I've given people when they give me crap about it.

3.) A couple people are giving me a hard time because I'm not giving out favors

4.) Our venue kept trying to urge us to have a cash bar (they don't allow an open bar). We kept telling them that we wanted it dry, and they kept reminding us how it won't cost us anything, assuming that we were having it dry to save money. I just told them "NO", and that it was for personal reasons, not budget ones. The coordinator dropped it, and that person eventually got fired I think, for "stretching" the venue's liquor laws...

5.) My mom was trying to get me to save money by not putting return stamps on the RSVPs. I gave her a big "no" for that one.

6.) Our whole cake situation is a disaster, and FI and I don't like how this has gone down. Long story short, someone is paying for us to have mini cupcakes, and there's enough for 2.5 per guest. No huge problem there. The person paying is worried about running out, and wants us to put up a sign telling guests to "take 2". That's incredibly rude, IMO, and we're just not going to do it. If FI and I weren't on such a tight budget, we would have offered to pitch in so that we could get more cupcakes. If FI and I knew how this was gonna go down (the original plan was much different, they switched it to this about a month and a half before the wedding), we wouldn't have accepted the offer. Now, we're stuck. We're incredibly appreciative, but we feel as though we've lost control of the entire situation.

7.) Yesterday, a couple coming to the wedding invited themselves to the rehearsal dinner so they could get the free food...Eff that noise. I'm glad they don't know where or when it is.

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I've got right now

AJuliaNJ · July 2013

wittykitty14 said:

6.) Our whole cake situation is a disaster, and FI and I don't like how this has gone down. Long story short, someone is paying for us to have mini cupcakes, and there's enough for 2.5 per guest. No huge problem there. The person paying is worried about running out, and wants us to put up a sign telling guests to "take 2". That's incredibly rude, IMO, and we're just not going to do it. If FI and I weren't on such a tight budget, we would have offered to pitch in so that we could get more cupcakes. If FI and I knew how this was gonna go down (the original plan was much different, they switched it to this about a month and a half before the wedding), we wouldn't have accepted the offer. Now, we're stuck. We're incredibly appreciative, but we feel as though we've lost control of the entire situation.

I doubt that would have helped if someone wanted 4 cupcakes anyway. You would have had to assign a friend as the "cupcake police" (ohhhh great job for someone you want to honor without making them a BM!).

LiLe422 · July 2013

I had a brunch reception that included mimosas, bloody Mary, tropical martini and Sangria. My MIL (whom was contributing financially) made it very clear she expected beer and wine available as well. The price to include those items were wayyyy out of our budget. So a cash bar was suggested (courtesy of my venue) and MIL and my H were on board with that. I had to shut that shit down real quick.

I explained to my H the reasons a cash bar is a major no-no. He gave me a fight at first but he knew I was right. He just didn't want to come out of pocket because we really didn't want it in the first place. I absolutely refused to offer anything not hosted!

We decided to pay for B&W by consumption. It only ended up being $600 with tax and gratuity. Far from the $2500 they quoted for unlimited!

ashleyep · July 2013

Harry87 said:

I had problems with some family members who would call my grandma to ask if they could bring so-and-so to the wedding. My grandma lives ten hours away and wasn't even part of the process. Then my grandma would call my mom and ask her. I told grandma to give them my number and drop it. They needed to be calling me.

My dad was against just about the entire thing. Still is.

The even coordinator, H, and quite a few others thought a cash bar was no big deal. At least, they did until I snapped "I will eat nothing but ramen every single day up until the wedding if I have to! The bar will be OPEN."

Mom invited a bunch of people "to be nice". She also flat-out refused to make my cousin's boyfriend an escort card or invite him. I had to do it when she wasn't looking. For some goofy reason, she also refused to write two of my friends boyfriend's names on the invites. I have no idea why she wouldn't write their names instead of "and guest" but it meant two cards got my incredibly shitty handwriting on them.

My grandma stole the show right off my foot at the reception and forced people to stuff money in it while I frantically flagged my dad to stop her. Mortifying.

@Harry87-

Funny enough I got into an argument with some of my cousins this weekend about addressing invitations. They said that they only addressed invitations by both names if the couple was living together, engaged, or married. Their justification was that "well you never know what can happen" - quite rich considering we were just having a conversation about a friend's marriage that was ending and some of the people invited to the wedding have been with their bf/gf longer than those two girls had been with their husbands.

I was also told later when I didn't drop it that the bride didn't consider a bf/gf a significant other, her own brother's invitation was addressed that way, and that because she would never have even imagined how people could possibly be upset about it that I was overreacting. Oh she also never bothered to read an etiquette book and at the end of the day you need to do what's best for you.

I told my cousin who has been with her bf for 6 years not to worry, that his name would be on the invite.

msuprincess04 · July 2013

My FI is urging us to do a local JOP wedding prior to our destination wedding. Umm. No. Besidees being rude, which he really doesn't understand because "everyone does it that way", I keep telling him that then our wedding annaversary wouldn't be the date we've had planned for almost a year! Apparently that reason is actually getting through.

AddieCake · July 2013

I only had one small one. My husband thought we were supposed to replace our flower girl when we lost her.

I was very lucky in my wedding planning. My dad paid for it but believed it was mine to plan as I wanted it. I had nobody weighing in with thoughts and suggestions other than my favorite aunt, and aside from her insisting on putting Easter Peeps on the cupcake table b/c she wanted to be funny, we were on the same page about everything.

harper0813 · July 2013

My parents were really upset by the idea of having to include people's SOs on their portion of the guest list. They added a few, but they didn't add everyone's because they had only met them a few times. I had to add the SOs to my portion of the list.

My dad called all of his family members while creating the guest list to see if they could make it to the wedding. If they couldn't, he crossed them off.

My mom is still really upset that I'm not letting her send B-list invites to her friends that "she's known longer than I've been alive" a week after the RSVP deadline. Because that wouldn't make FI and I look like terrible human beings.

One guest's Facebook page says single so we just trusted that it was true. He RSVP'd yesterday with a plus one that he had not been given. Whatever - if we had known that he had a girlfriend, we would have invited her, so that's not a problem. I am put off, though, that he didn't have he courtesy to ask.

A few family members told me and/or my parents that they won't be going to our (15 minute) ceremony (which is at the same venue as the reception and there is no gap) because weddings aren't their thing. One of these people told me recently that I should be serving steak as a dinner option because they don't like the chicken, pork or fish options. Yeah, sure, buddy.

KDM323 · July 2013

"B" listing.

My future mother in law thinks it is "ok" to have a "B" list for when/if we get declines.

I'm not going to fight her on what is right/wrong...I'm simply not doing this. Every person gets an invite. Whomever can come...will come. If we need to spend more to meet the minimum at our venue, then people are going to be treated to an even more fantastic spread of food.

That simple.

KatWAG · July 2013

My mom wanted me to get married in the city and then have our reception in the suburbs. About a 30 mile drive. But we got married on a very busy weekend, so with traffic it would have taken 90 minutes to get from the ceremony to the reception. We ended up having both in the city, about a 15 minute distance.

I had a HUGE etiqutte snafu involving my MIL. She gave us her and FIL's guest list about 8 months before the wedding. So we ordered all the invites (and STDs) accoriding to our total guest list. Well, after all of our invites were mailed out she realized that she had forgotten about 10 couples she wanted to inivte. So she actually took her invite, plus both BILs, grandparents etc and was going to reuse them and send them to the people she forgot. I freaked out, it was going to look so tacky. Luckily I was able to have 10 more invites made/ ordered. (plus extra centerpiece, tables, chairs, etc) to accommodate the extra people. I was not thrilled,but MIL didnt see what teh big deal was.

Amsdragonfly · July 2013

"My mother also had a coronary over the idea of the WP being uneven when one of my BMs had to drop out. That one went on for so long that my brother finally VOLUNTEERED to be in the WP so he wouldn't have to hear her bitch anymore. "

@Stage- my aunt is having the same problem with me atm- I have 1 MOH (possibly two) and FI has 4-5 groomsmen. I don't care, but my aunt is freaking about it. I just keep bean-dipping her.

wiki8 · July 2013

I've had multiple people suggest to me what a great idea a honeymoon registry is. I immediately tell them why that will never happen.

FI's family is very strongly pushing for a "B-list" where if anyone says no, I will send out invites to people on reserve. We've also been very clear this won't happen, the guest list is set, and if some people say no the spots will not be filled.

I accidentally made some people feel a little bit like a B list however. I only sent STDs to family & other VIPs who I knew for a fact would be invited to the wedding. FI & I knew we needed to send STDs because his family was having a ball telling everyone they would be invited, when in reality they weren't on the guest list. We wanted to be very clear who was being invited up front. Well, some people from our jobs were a little put off about not getting an STD, which IMO is kind of rude to tell us anyway. I'm not sure if I am in the wrong still, but even though they are people we would want to include in our wedding, a lot can change at our jobs in a year (like not even working there anymore) so I didn't want to send them an STD.

FMIL doesn't see the point in hosting food during our cocktail hour while taking pictures. She thinks it's a waste seeing we won't be there to enjoy it.

MrsMack10612 · July 2013

After reading these, I consider myself very lucky. We had no battles, really. I had some moments with proper way to refer to my dad's wife but that was more of an internal battle than anything. H and I were the only ones involved in the planning, guest list, everything. No outsiders trying to push their ideas on us.

audreyecu61 · July 2013

I had multiple people not understand that since this was a second marriage and we are over 50 and paying 100% and it was small intimate wedding, we do not have to have:

A bouquet toss, garter throw, first dance

Bride walked down the aisle

MOH was a man

Uneven wedding party

Wedding party consisted of our adult children

The names of everyone listed on the invitation

I think both mom's wanted the money dance.

Lots of suggestions for us to register only for cash

Did not dictate dress code.

We also had people call us and try to invite themsleves, their adult children, friends, etc.

keochan · July 2013

Thankfully since me and Fi are paying for most everything there has been little issue. My mom still doesn't get why I won't have a cash bar. I finally just told her that they only offer open bar at the venue or no bar at all. FMIL has graciously offered to pay for the alcohol for the wedding and has yet to make a single request, we're just consulting each other on tastes, which I think is fair. If she's dropping hundreds of dollars on wine and booze, I want her to like them too.

I've had a few people suggest a honeymoon registry and demand to know why I don't want one though

linnyv27 · July 2013

My mom was wanting to invite people from her work that I had never met before. I know she's paying, but I don't want to not invite our friends because she feels like she needs to entertain her work friends. I'm glad I finally talked her out of it.
FI was upset that I don't want to do a dollar dance. They are very common where he grew up, but I had never heard of it until I moved here. I finally had him convinced that it was rude, then we went out to dinner with a groomsman and his wife. They made four THOUSAND dollars just in the dollar dance. Guess what FI is wanting to do now? But just for the LA people that know what a dollar dance is. Groomsman said he was going to 'discretely' do his own with us. No, no, no, no, no.

Ha, I am going through a similar situation. FI wanted to do a dollar dance because everyone kept suggesting it. I convinced him otherwise, telling him how rude they are. People kept suggesting it and one couple told us they made $3,000 from it. That got him to jump back on wanting a dollar dance. I had to talk him out of it again but it took a few weeks.

Some people are still pushing us to do it. I keep giving the excuse that I don't want people touching me or stepping on/ripping my dress but they think it's a "a shame" we are not having one and act like we are stuck up for not wanting/needing the money of others. One relative went far enough to say she will hold a bag next to me while on the dance floor so people put the money in there whether I like it or not.

efmcc67 · July 2013

I don't know if I'd call if a battle, but early in the engagement, FI kept bringing up The Office and how Jim and Pam got married in secret, so when everything went wrong at the wedding, they didn't care. He seemed to think this was a great idea for us. I hadn't really found The Knot yet to learn about the evils of PPDs, but I definitely was not okay with lying to all of my friends and family about getting married!

AlexisA01 · July 2013

@efmcc67 Your kitty is adorable!

efmcc67 · July 2013

@AlexisA01 Thanks!

QueerFemme · July 2013

We had the "you HAVE to have the dollar dance!!" conversation with multiple members of my partner's family. I ended up screaming a couple of times.

We also considered getting married on a small pier on the beach near our home. I kept saying there wasn't enough space for chairs for everyone... and repeatedly got "oh, just have the stand. It will be short anyway." or "just tell them not to come to the ceremony. Just come for the reception".

Um. no. I finally literally STOMPED my foot on the pier once and said, very shriekingly "we are NOT GETTING MARRIED HERE!" and walked away.

NYCBruin · July 2013

The real only one we've gotten thus far is people trying to add people to the guest list because "they won't show up, but they'll send you a gift!" We've been firm on the fact that we are not going to over invite.

The other one only came up in passing. A friend of FI's wife was telling me "how great honemoon registries are," and I just bean dipped her. She's not someone we're super close with so I doubt it will come up again.

Dreamergirl8812 · July 2013

My mom

xcalygrl said:

We had a very small wedding. We got a call about a month prior from H's stepfather. H's uncle wanted to attend. Invites were already sent. Our budget was pretty small. H's stepfather told them when and where the wedding was and told them to just show up. They didn't, but we did fret about it for about a month. My MIL didn't have many requests during the wedding planning. She offered to pay for the cake. We graciously accepted. We selected our flavors: strawberry and vanilla. We told her and she said, 'good. I didn't want chocolate.' Uh, we know that. She's allergic to chocolate. We wouldn't put her money toward something she couldn't eat. Another request from my MIL: make sure you have a chair for me to sit in. It's a pain to not have a chair to sit in during the wedding. Really? This was a no brainer: a chair for everyone. We were already going to do that, but the fact that she had to request that because of prior experiences was a little sad.

Similar story: My mom called me one day and asked what I wanted her to wear. Um, I don't care. So then she goes into this speech about why she would feel more comfortable wearing pants than a dress.

WTF? I don't care if you wear siran wrap so long as your lady bits are covered.

harper0813 · July 2013

Dreamergirl8812 said:
My mom

xcalygrl said:

We had a very small wedding. We got a call about a month prior from H's stepfather. H's uncle wanted to attend. Invites were already sent. Our budget was pretty small. H's stepfather told them when and where the wedding was and told them to just show up. They didn't, but we did fret about it for about a month.

My MIL didn't have many requests during the wedding planning. She offered to pay for the cake. We graciously accepted. We selected our flavors: strawberry and vanilla. We told her and she said, 'good. I didn't want chocolate.' Uh, we know that. She's allergic to chocolate. We wouldn't put her money toward something she couldn't eat.

Another request from my MIL: make sure you have a chair for me to sit in. It's a pain to not have a chair to sit in during the wedding. Really? This was a no brainer: a chair for everyone. We were already going to do that, but the fact that she had to request that because of prior experiences was a little sad.

Similar story: My mom called me one day and asked what I wanted her to wear. Um, I don't care. So then she goes into this speech about why she would feel more comfortable wearing pants than a dress.

WTF? I don't care if you wear siran wrap so long as your lady bits are covered.

I love that. So true. Everyone, including the WP, bride/groom, and MOB should be comfortable.

My mom did something very similar - she came to me asking if she can wear pants, and I said sure, it's up to her, but I asked (just because I foresaw it becoming a problem) if she'd feel underdressed. She insisted that she absolutely wouldn't.

Well she got pants and a nice sweater-coat (her usual, everyday outfit) and the MOG got a nice dress. So my mom freaked out a little and decided she'd pick up a skirt to replace her pants. And then she freaked out a little more and got a nice tank top. And then a zebra-print blazer. And then a second skirt and top. And she hated all of it. And she decided that she did want to get dressy after all.

Two dresses and more money than my gown cost later, she finally found a lovely dress. Whew! I really enjoyed that "I told you so" moment.

Simply Fated · July 2013

efmcc67 said:

I don't know if I'd call if a battle, but early in the engagement, FI kept bringing up The Office and how Jim and Pam got married in secret, so when everything went wrong at the wedding, they didn't care. He seemed to think this was a great idea for us. I hadn't really found The Knot yet to learn about the evils of PPDs, but I definitely was not okay with lying to all of my friends and family about getting married!

I love that show and I love Jim and Pam, but I hated what they did.

Luckily I haven't planned a wedding, yet, but hopefully all goes well. I know that my friends are stuck on bridal party duties, which I'm not into, of course, so we'll see how that goes lol.

What are some etiquette battles you all went through?

Re: What are some etiquette battles you all went through?

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