Etiquette discussions with FI

[Deleted User]

Soooo FI's (very large) extended family doesn't appear to be too concerned with etiquette. Wedding fundraisers, cash bars, long gaps, you name it. 

This has made for some interesting conversations with FI when planning our wedding. Thankfully he's completely committed to being a good host to our guests - mainly because he's just a good host in general.

Does anyone have success (or horror) stories when it comes to explaining etiquette to your partners/FIs? 

"No, your cousin can't just 'transfer' her husband's invite to her son if her husband can't make it. Because. Because the son is not invited. BECAUSE."

NavyBlue143

When H and I were planning our wedding, for the longest time he tried to talk me into a partial cash bar. Beer and wine provided, but liquor he wanted to charge for. Our venue allowed us to bring our own alcohol, so it was an immense cost saver.

Most of our friends and family are on extremely limited budgets, and our wedding was out of town. I made that my hill to die on, no way were we charging our friends for liquor after they went to all that trouble to be there. I said we wouldn't have liquor at all if he was so worried about cost. He gave up, and thanked me after the wedding for saving him from being a gigantic douche.

kimmiinthemitten

FFIL suggested the dollar dance and a Honeyfund. We said we'd consider it and bean dipped fast!

Fortunately FI are pretty much on the same page.

[Deleted User]

NavyBlue143 said:

When H and I were planning our wedding, for the longest time he tried to talk me into a partial cash bar. Beer and wine provided, but liquor he wanted to charge for. Our venue allowed us to bring our own alcohol, so it was an immense cost saver. Most of our friends and family are on extremely limited budgets, and our wedding was out of town. I made that my hill to die on, no way were we charging our friends for liquor after they went to all that trouble to be there. I said we wouldn't have liquor at all if he was so worried about cost. He gave up, and thanked me after the wedding for saving him from being a gigantic douche.

Exactly. A lot of our guests will be travelling, and thankfully we're both of the same view re. food/beverages. FI also thinks it's important for me (and my sister as MH) to have bouquets. I'm not bothered one way or another about flowers, but that's HIS hill to die on 

Word has got around that we're planning a hosted bar, and FI's relatives are in shock. 

RomanceManaged

FI doesn't understand why everyone needs their own invitation. Severalof our friends live with room mates, and he thinks we should just send one bulk invitation to the house with everyones name on it. And last night we were watching Family Guy, and there was a wedding and everyone got an invitation. I told him if we have less etiquette than Family Guy we have a problem.

monkeysip

H just didn't understand why it's not ok to invite people without their spouses or to B-list or to put your registry info on invitations.  He's just kind of etiquette clueless.

He didn't push it... honestly he didn't even really care.  He just didn't get why it was wrong.  He still doesn't understand why a lot of things in Etiquette are the way they are.  But that's why he lets me make those kinds of decisions.

His mom, however, did originally want something like a money dance, and my Dad wanted to B-list (thankfully, my stepmother shut that down really quick).

I'm fortunate that I didn't have to have any major etiquette arguments with anyone.

WinstonsGirl

We were pretty much on the same page too, but DH didn't want to do thank you notes.  He felt a thank you phone call or an in person visit was more appropriate (so he did want to thank people, just not in a card).  He thought notes were too impersonal.  I ended up doing them all (except to his parents), had him sign them and left him to thank his friends in person/over the phone when he eventually spoke with them.  

If you want bad etiquette, the last wedding we were at included:

- B&G got married the day before cos they found out last minute their friend couldn't legally marry them.  They told 1-2 people (who we happened to know).
- They were late.  As in leaving the house 30 mins away when the wedding was supposed to start late
- Invite included a card that said no gifts, but donations to their HM would be appreciated.  They never took a HM.  They also had nowhere to put gifts for people who brought them, so they all ended up on the cake table, which worked out ok, since the cake didn't show.  
- If I remember it was either a twoonie bar or bait and switch (the norm here)
- 4 hours gap (also the norm here, not saying I agree with it)
- About 90 mins of speeches.  We actually had an intermission for pee breaks and then they started again.  I'm a little surprised that I didn't have to give a speech
- Head table was WP and no SO's.  Didn't affect me though
- Never received a thank you card

Other non-etiquette related stuff:
- Dinner was a trivia about the couple, based on your table numbers.  They started, then realized the head table hadn't eaten yet, stopped the line and let the B&G/WP eat, then started up again.  It was long and slow, cos it was all random questions about them.  Even their parents didn't know some of the answers.  We also got to sit through the shoe game.
- Since the cake didn't show, the only dessert was a candy bar.  Not really their fault though, but blue whales are not my idea of dessert
- No liquor license at the reception.  They somehow got around it and started serving with a photo of one. 

ETA - Spelling, clarity and whatever else I couldn't figure out the firs time around

indigo26

Right now our only etiquette discussion is that he wants his two friends to be our bartenders and I want to hire one from our caterer. He's already asked said friends and they're excited about doing it (seriously one of them won't shut up about it) and he doesn't want to ask them to step down in favor of a paid professional. I'm concerned about liabilities, the fact that one of the friends has a tendency to get pretty trashed himself (the other one is rather level-headed), oh and the fact that its RUDE to have your friends be unpaid labor for the wedding. 

But since my mother and I will be meeting with the caterer next week while he's at work to pick out table settings, guess who is going to hire that bartender anyways? 

drunkenwitch

BF isn't as etiquette conscious as I am, not that he's rude or a bad host but he didn't see things like a potluck reception or a cash bar as "a big deal". Thankfully I speak "engineer" and I am able to list all the reasons these things are rufe in way he'll understand. At this point in our relationship he defers to me when it comes to etiquette and hosting because he knows that I know more about it and it is something that is very important to me.

CMGragain

DH comes from basically the same background as I do.  His mother was very etiquette conscious.  No etiquette conflicts - just personal ones between the inlaws and my family.
DH is an engineer.  He is very practical.  He would do anything requested of him as long as the result was that we were married.

ILoveBeachMusic

For DD's wedding, one of the photographers they were considering offered an option to have guests "gift" photos to the couple. I said NO WAY! If you do that then Dad and I aren't paying for the wedding - guess what? They didn't do the photo fund! The other thing was talking them out of a B list. I finally won on that too, but they both still complain about it.

SP29

DH and I both had presumptions about weddings that were not etiquette approved (because that was all we knew, and had been told "everyone does this"). It was coming on here where I learned much of everything I know, which I started to share with DH.

My DH is also an engineer and very practical. Anything I explained to him with a reason he took well. 

I think what also helped, in general, was actually attending a variety of styles of events, and particularly well hosted ones. Once you've been well hosted, I find it changes everything you go, "Ah ha!"- it makes sense why the "rules" exist and you wouldn't go any other way again. There are things that neither DH or myself cared about before, that now we at least notice (and maybe comment between ourselves). 

drunkenwitch

SP29 said:

DH and I both had presumptions about weddings that were not etiquette approved (because that was all we knew, and had been told "everyone does this"). It was coming on here where I learned much of everything I know, which I started to share with DH.

My DH is also an engineer and very practical. Anything I explained to him with a reason he took well. 

I think what also helped, in general, was actually attending a variety of styles of events, and particularly well hosted ones. Once you've been well hosted, I find it changes everything you go, "Ah ha!"- it makes sense why the "rules" exist and you wouldn't go any other way again. There are things that neither DH or myself cared about before, that now we at least notice (and maybe comment between ourselves). 

One of the things I love about being with an engineer is he is always willing to listen to my side of things when I lay them it an orderly and calm manner. He may not always agree with my opinion, but I can always get him to see my point. I'm a very emotional person so he always gives me time and space when I say I need to collect my thoughts before we continue with the discussion. Then I have space to calm down and organize what I want to say.

lembaslover

For the most part DH was pretty good about etiquette when planning our wedding. He didn't know much about it but when I told him how it should be he listened except for one thing. 

Our venue tried to tell us that even though we only wanted to host beer and wine it was rude of us to not at least offer liquor that the guests could choose to pay for. I unfortunately hadn't been expecting to be told this as over the phone he seemed fine with just beer and wine and it was our last visit to make sure everything would be ok. At that point DH (then FI) agreed with him and when it was 2 against 1 there was no talking them out of it. I made signs that said Please enjoy beer, wine, & soda on the B&G that they did agree to put up at the bar. Thankfully I think most of our guests understood and no one ordered the liquor they insisted needed to be available anyways... I was pretty mad at the time and probably could have handled it better. 

My advice to future brides. Make sure you and your FI are on the same page on everything BEFORE you go to a meeting with a venue. They want to make money and will encourage you to do things that are against etiquette and even have the nerve to tell you you're the one being rude if you don't listen to them or they'll say it's done all the time. Trust me it's much harder to convince 2 people of something than just your FI alone.

kvruns

The only 2 conflicts I can think of:

1. No dates at the head table (ie wedding party separated from their dates). I put my foot down saying he doesn't like being in places where he doesn't know other people and wouldn't want to be at a table with people he didn't know (he had this at my friend's wedding the year before and he didn't like it!)

2. He sees no problem with a partial cash bar, like supply beer/wine but liquor is cash bar type of thing. It was a moot point because our venue allowed us to bring whatever we wanted so there would never be a cash bar anyway but if it was a different venue there would have been a fight haha

tigerlily6

I've never formally learned wedding etiquette myself, but have thankfully been picking up on a lot of things thanks to this message board. My mom's parents were immigrants, so had a small and very Polish wedding. My dad's parents eloped, and thus had no wedding planning. My parents had a pretty informal wedding with only about 15 people present, and celebrated casually with some food and beer at my mom's parents' house afterwards. 

The result is that I'm the first person in my family to plan a traditional American wedding for quite some time, and my parents are in many ways even more clueless than me when it comes to etiquette. Pretty sure my parents and even my brother think I'm crazy and picky for insisting we don't have a "gap" between the ceremony and the reception (especially since most of the weddings we've been to have them, so that's what they know). 

My mom was also aghast early on when I drafted our guest list to be about 150 people at first. I guess considering that this was 10 times the size of her wedding, she felt overwhelmed and asked why I had made the number so high and suggested I not let friends bring plus ones. Had to explain to her that this was terribly rude. Since her and my dad are paying, I did respect her wishes and successfully cut the list down to 100, but since then she keeps insisting we invite family friends, so it's crept back up to 135. I think I'm going to reserve an extra 10 more spaces, make the number 145, and say that's it. So glad I went with my gut instinct and made sure the reception venue would hold 200 people. 

tigerlily6

Oh, and my favorite mess up in planning so far is that my cousin, who got engaged about two months after FI and me, ended up also planning his wedding on the same day as us. Completely not upset with him, because he didn't know. I am not particularly close to this cousin as we haven't seen one another for quite some time, and don't have his phone number or his parents'. When I heard he was engaged, I joked with my mom that she better talk with my aunt and uncle and make sure we all got our calendars aligned for a summer full of weddings. I got my relatives' addresses from her and sent out Save the Dates two weeks after he got engaged, but by then he and his FI had already booked venues, as had we. It's unfortunate and frustrating, but that's how it is. On the bright side, I guess I won't forget his anniversary!

Mom was then upset that my side of the family will be less than FI's and actually suggested I not invite some of FI's relatives to balance things out. Obviously, even before I had TK to consult, I knew that was wrong and vetoed that immediately. I think this may be why my mom has been wanting to invite so many friends of the family from my side, though. 

marriedwithpoodles

FI and I are almost always on the same page about etiquette. We spent this weekend working on wedding details with our families and ran into all of these:

FMIL wanted a dollar dance. 
FFIL suggested that we didn't REALLY need enough seats for every guest. Surely some people would be fine to stand while they ate. (Even if we were just doing heavy apps, no. But we're doing roast beef and chicken piccata. So hell no.)
My sister had 5 people on a shower guest list who aren't invited to the wedding and threw a fit when I asked her to remove them. She insisted they wouldn't know it was poor etiquette. Eventually she removed them, but not without putting up a fight. 

Thankfully everything else has been easy. 

thisismynickname2

DH and I were not on the same page about b-listing. His view was everyone does it. My view was, but how do you FEEL when you are b-listed?
I won. But we also ended up far under our minimum spend at the venue and stuffed people with tons of food to make up the cost.

AddieCake

@DallasBtoBe  Did you suggest your FFIL be one of the ones to be fine to stand while eating?   JFC, what an asinine plan. 

banana468

Most of the time I'm on the same page as DH.   Recently we found out that he's going to be the BM in a PPD and thus far no one knows it's a PPD.    I have stayed far quieter than I would normally be on the matter.   There's nothing I can do and this is his best friend.     This was one of the few times that we didn't agree.   The only other time I can recall an etiquette disagreement was allowing dates for the RD if we allowed the same people to bring them to the wedding.

When it comes to other big ticket things like cash bars or sitting with SOs, he's on the same page.  

pinkcow13

We were on the same page, for the most part. There were some things that I explained to H, and once we talked about them, he was on board with me. FMIL tried pushing some rude stuff on to us, specifically telling us we HAD to put Adults Only or No Children on the invitation. His family is notorious for doing this. He did not think it was so terrible to do this, especially since everyone else does, but in the end he agreed with me. She also wanted us to B list, so we bean dipped whenever that topic came up. 

I think the Adults Only wording on the invitation was the only thing we weren't fully on the same page on, even though he agreed with me in the end. When it came to hosting everyone, we were on the same page.

Jen4948

Had my ex-BF and I gotten married (and we're still friendly, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that it will happen), there would have been an invitation wording issue.  His father is deceased and he really wanted to be listed as "son of MOG and the late FOG."  

My solution would have been to list no parents and just use "Together with our families" or the third-person wording for self-hosted weddings, but I don't know how well that would have gone down with him, his mother, and my parents.

KnickerGold

Jen4948 said:

Had my ex-BF and I gotten married (and we're still friendly, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that it will happen), there would have been an invitation wording issue.  His father is deceased and he really wanted to be listed as "son of MOG and the late FOG."  

My solution would have been to list no parents and just use "Together with our families" or the third-person wording for self-hosted weddings, but I don't know how well that would have gone down with him, his mother, and my parents.

Curious, why would this be wrong/poor etiquette? I've seen this before and think it's a nice way to acknowledge the parent. 

horriblegb

Oh man, I am anticipating huge etiquette issues on my side of the family.  They are a hot mess.  When I started expressing some of these concerns to my mother she laughed at me, and told me this story:

My paternal grandparents owned a restaurant, which my mother and my father ran for several years, both before and after they were married.  When my mother was marrying my father she asked my Grandma, her then FMIL, how many invitations she wanted for the wedding, since I guess that is the way the parents would invite people.  My grandma would not give an answer for weeks.

Finally my grandma said 25, and my mom gave her the invitations.  The next day, my mom went to work at the restaurant, where she sees her invitation tacked up on the bulletin board.  She was not thrilled. 

Jen4948

KnickerGold said:

Jen4948 said:

Had my ex-BF and I gotten married (and we're still friendly, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that it will happen), there would have been an invitation wording issue.  His father is deceased and he really wanted to be listed as "son of MOG and the late FOG."  

My solution would have been to list no parents and just use "Together with our families" or the third-person wording for self-hosted weddings, but I don't know how well that would have gone down with him, his mother, and my parents.

Curious, why would this be wrong/poor etiquette? I've seen this before and think it's a nice way to acknowledge the parent. 

Because it's improper to list anyone on an invitation other than the hosts and honorees (the couple). Deceased persons can't host.

The point of the invitation is not to "acknowledge" anyone, living or deceased, but to invite guests to attend an event.  It's not a playbill or family tree and doesn't "honor" anyone other than the recipients.

monkeysip

Jen4948 said:

KnickerGold said:

Jen4948 said:

Had my ex-BF and I gotten married (and we're still friendly, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that it will happen), there would have been an invitation wording issue.  His father is deceased and he really wanted to be listed as "son of MOG and the late FOG."  

My solution would have been to list no parents and just use "Together with our families" or the third-person wording for self-hosted weddings, but I don't know how well that would have gone down with him, his mother, and my parents.

Curious, why would this be wrong/poor etiquette? I've seen this before and think it's a nice way to acknowledge the parent. 

Because it's improper to list anyone on an invitation other than the hosts and honorees (the couple). Deceased persons can't host.

The point of the invitation is not to "acknowledge" anyone, living or deceased, but to invite guests to attend an event.  It's not a playbill or family tree and doesn't "honor" anyone other than the recipients.

I get that... but to me, it's one of those victimless etiquette crimes.  We list H's parents on the invitation even though they weren't hosting.  I don't think anyone was offended or anything...

Jen4948

monkeysip said:

Jen4948 said:

KnickerGold said:

Jen4948 said:

Had my ex-BF and I gotten married (and we're still friendly, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that it will happen), there would have been an invitation wording issue.  His father is deceased and he really wanted to be listed as "son of MOG and the late FOG."  

My solution would have been to list no parents and just use "Together with our families" or the third-person wording for self-hosted weddings, but I don't know how well that would have gone down with him, his mother, and my parents.

Curious, why would this be wrong/poor etiquette? I've seen this before and think it's a nice way to acknowledge the parent. 

Because it's improper to list anyone on an invitation other than the hosts and honorees (the couple). Deceased persons can't host.

The point of the invitation is not to "acknowledge" anyone, living or deceased, but to invite guests to attend an event.  It's not a playbill or family tree and doesn't "honor" anyone other than the recipients.

I get that... but to me, it's one of those victimless etiquette crimes.  We list H's parents on the invitation even though they weren't hosting.  I don't think anyone was offended or anything...

It's not about whether or not anyone was offended or whether there's a "victim."

It is about "there's a time and place" for everything. The invitation isn't the place to "honor" anyone who isn't the intended guest. Being listed on a wedding invitation doesn't "honor" them.

There are several appropriate ways to "honor" non-hosting parents, including deceased ones, but listing them on the invitation, which has a specific purpose, isn't one of them.

CMGragain

If I were "listed" on an invitation under my son's name, I would be embarrassed.  Seeking attention is not one of the things I like to do.  I don't need to be on his wedding invitation for people to know that I am his mother and that he loves me.  I certainly don't want to take credit for a wedding that I am not really hosting, either.
He honors me every just by being the wonderful, caring person that he is.

banana468

CMGragain said:

If I were "listed" on an invitation under my son's name, I would be embarrassed.  Seeking attention is not one of the things I like to do.  I don't need to be on his wedding invitation for people to know that I am his mother and that he loves me.  I certainly don't want to take credit for a wedding that I am not really hosting, either.
He honors me every just by being the wonderful, caring person that he is.

But that means that if your son was to get married, he wouldn't put you on there.  In some families, if the groom's parents want to be on the invitation, that's the way to do it so they aren't listed as hosts but it tells people who the groom is.    It walks a fine line but seeing the groom's parents on a wedding invitation shouldn't trigger pearl clutching.

It isn't traditional but it isn't wrong to put the groom's parents on the invitation the same way that it's wrong to put 'adults only' or '5 o'clock in the evening' on there.   And more and more couples are getting married far away from where their parents live.   Putting the groom's mom and dad on there is a pretty easy link for people to go, "Oh yeah, Jake is Bob and Doris' son."

   

anjemon

I think the only etiquette issue H and I had was related to B listing. For awhile he talked about wanting to invite some of his coworkers if we "had enough declines". But I never really gave him an answer to it and when it came time to look at our numbers he never brought it up again. So it never was a fight because he never tried to push it.

We did end up inviting one of his friends one week before the wedding. His friend got invited to the Bachelor party (I was never involved in that list so I didn't know) and drunk H invited him to the wedding. We had the room for the guy and he was an actual friend (I was surprised he wasn't on the guest list originally) so I agreed. H had already done it so there was no reason to go back on that invitation. I still feel a little bad about it, but we still see the guy regularly and it doesn't seem to have changed their friendship (which is not a reason to do it, just that I'm glad it didn't negatively impact their friendship).