WARNING: Long with cliff (cole's??) notes at the bottom
I had high hopes because they're the sweetest people. As I started hearing more about the wedding, I found out they had a "house party" (for anyone who doesn't know, these are basically greeters and errand runners who aren't good enough to be bridesmaids, but given a "job" so that they're involved). I dismissed it because it's a southern wedding and, although totally rude, quite common. I rolled my eyes but wasn't surprised. Then they sent an email a couple weeks before telling the WP (H was a GM) what to wear to the RD. Jackets for the men, dresses for the women - no, it was not venue required. And then the real downhill spiral began...
You may or may not have seen my post on Friday about the RD. Speeches. Lots of them. I started heavily drinking after about the 4th speech, but I'm fairly certain about 12 people spoke for AT LEAST an hour. And a slideshow. And they ran out of food. It was a buffet and with about 10 people left who still needed food there was rice, chips and salsa.
Then the wedding. The GMs were asked to report for duty at noon for the 6pm ceremony so they could get ready and take pictures. I don't think it takes the fucking queen of england that long to get ready and snap a few photos. These are average dudes. But whatever - not my battle. The GMs were under the impression there would be lunch. There were snacks. They were all starving, cranky (hangry? my new word), feeling sick, and shoveling food once they finally got to cocktail hour.
I arrived at the cocktail hour with another GM's wife ahead of our husbands' parents and our husbands who were taking MORE pictures. We went and looked for a place to put our stuff down (winter wedding with no coat check so we had bulky stuff). There were no escort cards so we went from table to table looking for our name on the various signs on each table that had family names (e.g. "The Jones Family"..). Two said "Wedding Party" but only had enough chairs for the BMs and GMs so we rolled our eyes and just figured we were separated from our husbands. Not one table had our names nor our husbands' families' names. Super confused, I asked one of the 4 wedding planners. He said there was a back room with unassigned seating for anyone who didn't have a table assignment. WHAT?!?!?!
So we went back there - it was down a little hallway behind the kitchen/bar and a small, separate room that had a maybe six 4-person square tables. All the seats were already taken. We were pissed. So we hurried back into the main ballroom and snagged one of the 5 cocktail tables. We ended up eating there with 8 people holding all our stuff and standing up. The thing that really pissed me off about this is that there was PLENTY of room for more tables. The room was enormous and the seated tables they had set up only took up about half the room. They certainly made room for an 8-top table for their cake, another 8 top table for their favors and their 7 piece live band though. They easily could have had more seating and didn't. Two of the people we were with have bad knees and were in extreme pain. Many adults in their 60s/70s were part of the "sorry you don't have a seat crowd". My husband gave up his seat to one of them so that she could sit down. I saw her limping out the door when they left after the B&G arrived.
They had appetizers starting at cocktail hour. Great, cool. They were delicious. But then they ran out and never served dinner. I think the apps were supposed to be heavy enough for a whole meal, but they weren't and there weren't enough of them anyway. People were confused because nobody said "this is dinner" and once they realized there wasn't going to be any more food, there was a mad rush for the favor table (cookies) so they ran out of those. The bride and groom didn't do a receiving line or come around and thank everyone for coming. We flew in from across the country so there were travel expenses, we gave them money, H was a GM and couldn't wear the black tux he owns because the lapels were different so there was another $250..... and no "thank you". More like a "fuck you" with the way they hosted.
Overall, I have literally never in my life been to a more rude wedding.
Summary: "house party", dress code for RD, some guests had reserved seats while some didn't have seating at all, WP separated from SOs, ran out of food. ran out of favors.
ETA: Warning and summary
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