Second Weddings

What are you doing (or did) that is non-traditional and maybe an etiquette faux pas?

This was on my month board, and I just thought I'd ask here, since a LOT of things can be different for second weddings. Here's what I posted:

- no bouquet or garter toss
-no showers, we have 2 households to combine
- didn't register because we need NOTHING
- printed my envelopes on my printer, not hand written (checked Martha Stewart Weddings first, LOL)
- let the bridesmaids choose their own black dresses, any style or length that is flattering to them
- guys & Kevin are wearing black suits (not tuxes) that they either had or purchased
- We are doing a first look and taking wedding party posed pics BEFORE the wedding
- wearing separate ceremony & reception dresses (although I think that is more common now)
- only serving beer, wine and a couple of signature drinks, no choice of liquors
- getting my bouquets, bouts and corsages from Costco's website

Think that's about it.

Re: What are you doing (or did) that is non-traditional and maybe an etiquette faux pas?

  • edited December 2011
    - not inviting anyone!!! Not necessarily telling anyone beforehand either.
    - not sending out any type of announcement
    - not registering/having any type of shower

    It's totally no frills, except that the destination (when we actually choose one), will be extremely unique, luxurious, and intimate. We have a very strong desire to have it be private and drama free.

     







  • Lisa50Lisa50 member
    5 Love Its Combo Breaker First Comment
    edited December 2011
    Non-traditional:
    No garter or bouquet toss (no garter toss at first wedding, either)
    No white dress (wore pink dress the first time)
    Best man (same as first wedding)
    Nothing monogrammed
    Processing in with the groom
    Greeting guests, one-by-one, to kick-off the ceremony
    Snakeskin pumps

    Etiquette faux pas:
    Invited a handful of folks after the first wave of declines came in
  • 2dBride2dBride member
    5 Love Its First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Comment
    edited December 2011
    For us:
    •         We had rather more than the usual number of brides (2), and fewer than the usual number of grooms (0).
    •         We didn't have engagement rings.
    •         We didn't have a wedding planner, not even a DOC.
    •         We didn't have save the dates.
    •         We printed our invitation envelopes on a computer, instead of hand writing them.
    •         Our RSVPs were all online.
    •         We declined having a shower.
    •         We had two joint bachelorette parties. One was at Dave & Buster's (restaurant with arcade games). The other was at a traditional Korean bathhouse.
    •         We saw each other's dresses before the ceremony. Actually, we shopped for them together, so we could get ones that would coordinate.
    •         We rented a big Victorian house so all our guests could stay there, and we could see each other outside of the ceremony/reception.
    •         The "rehearsal dinner" (there was no actual rehearsal) was pizzas we had delivered to the house.
    •         We stayed together the night before the wedding, and got ready together at the synagogue.
    •         Our chuppah (Jewish wedding canopy) was a DIY one, made on the frame of a portable popup gazebo.
    •         Our ceremony music was from a CD we made.
    •         Our wedding rings were plain gold bands.
    •         The bouquets we carried were arm/presentation/flat bouquets, not "normal" wedding bouquets.
    •         One of our two attendants was male. He declined to be a best man on the theory that the best man is a groom's attendant, and we lacked a groom. He was therefore the dude of honor.
    •         There were no child attendants.
    •         Our maid of honor and dude of honor wore clothes they already owned.
    •         There were no floral decorations for our ceremony or reception, just the personal flowers.
    •         My wife and I walked down the aisle together.
    •         We added the declarations and vows from the Church of England ceremony to our Jewish ceremony.
    •         Instead of having just the normal two witnesses to our ketubah (Jewish wedding contract), we had everyone in attendance sign as witnesses.
    •         My ex-husband gave the blessing over bread immediately following the ceremony.
    •         Although we had two bouquets and two garters, none of them got tossed.
    •         We had nothing monogrammed.
    •         At-home reception was in a private club that was a converted warehouse, rather than a traditional reception location. We decorated it ourselves with DIY uplighting, 127 paper lanterns in various sizes and with various lighting methods, etc.
    •         Our first dance was a swing dance.
    •         Our reception musician was an acoustic guitarist, not a DJ or band.
    •         We hired a couple of friends to buy food from BJ's, prepare it, serve it, and clean up, instead of having a traditional caterer.
    •         Our wedding cake was a cascading cake instead of a tiered one.
    •         Our cake topper (actually on the bottom layer of our cake) was a traditional Welsh love spoon.
    •         The top layer of our cake (the one saved for our anniversary) was the traditional British fruit cake with marzipan and royal icing--which is decidedly nontraditional in the US.
  • Sue-n-KevinSue-n-Kevin member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Answer First Comment
    edited December 2011
    2ndBride: While non-traditional, your wedding sounds like one that I would have LOVED to have attended! So much thought went into creating it.
  • edited December 2011
    I'm not too creative, so I'm going to borrow Sue's list to start....

    - No bouquet or garter toss
    -No showers, unless they throw one for me at my new job
    - Let the MOHs choose their own outfit, any style or length that is flattering to them
    - FI is wear slacks and an untucked shirt, guys are wearing coordinating outfits. 
    - We are taking wedding party posed pics BEFORE the wedding
    - Reception is at a casual family restaurant - everyone can just order off the menu.
    -Using silk flowers from Hobby Lobby for my bouquet - no other flowers
    -No first dance or any dancing

    Faux Pas
    -Using labels.  Couldn't figure out how to run my envelopes through the printer.  Alas.  I'll never be Martha Stewart.  :)
    Anniversary
  • edited December 2011
    No pre-wedding parties:  showers, bachelor/bachelorette parties
    Not registering as we prefer not to have gifts/money
    Invited all the families' children to participate in the wedding party
    Family member marrying us (predominately Catholic family)
    MOH can pick her own dress/style/color
    No rehersal
    Pictures before the ceremony
    Cousin/SIL are planning the ceremony
    FI planned 90% of the wedding
  • edited December 2011
    Etiquette no-no:  Invited more to our party next week than to the wedding. 

    Non-traditional: 
    Destination Wedding - to a non- resorty or traditional destination in Mexico...
    no WP
    no registry (no shower)
    no cake in Mexico
    the party next weekend is beer and wine only (venue limitation) (but if you need a rum & coke or 7 &7 - get the soda, cup and ice from inside - go out to Big D's truck where he has both rum and 7 for you...) 
    music - but not dancing like most receptions


  • edited December 2011
    I don't know about any faux pas, but we are leaving a lot of the tradition out...
    • no wedding party
    • ipod music for ceremony and reception
    • FI's cousin is marrying us
    • no dancing
    • no alcohol
    • no ceremony flowers
    • buffet style lunch reception following a late morning ceremony
    • no 'wedding' dress, wearing a champagne colored dress with a black lace overlay.
    • no professional photographer
    • no save-the-dates
    • no favors
    • cup cake tower instead of a wedding cake, although we will have a topper cake to save
    • no 'cake topper' for our topper cake
    • no tossing of anything 
    • no something old, new, borrowed, blue... although everything is blue
    Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end... Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • 2dBride2dBride member
    5 Love Its First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Comment
    edited December 2011
  • fireytigerfireytiger member
    First Anniversary First Comment
    edited December 2011
    Things we didn't do:
    -Spend a small fortune
    -Bouquet or garter toss
    -Have an expensive professional photographer (ours was a friend and did an amazing job for us as a wedding gift)
    -A speech from my father
    -Had our two closest grandmothers (DH's only surviving one, and mine that i've been close to for the last two decades) light our unity candle tapers instead of our mothers.
    -No guestbook, just best wishes cards
    -No "Bridal March", my church organist played one called Allegro Pomposo but I can't remember who composed it.
    -No alcohol at the wedding (I guess that's considered a faux pas nowadays by some people, but I say it's just an excuse for people to act stupid.)

    Things we did do:
    -Had two pastors co-officiate, my pastor from my church where we married, and DH's uncle who is a pastor and officiates at every one of his family's weddings.
    -Had silk flowers instead of live ones, and I don't regret it because they were gorgeous.
    -Wrote all of our mailing envelopes out entirely by hand with a calligraphy pen (now THAT doesn't happen often nowadays, and boy was it a time consuming chore!!)
    -Groomsmen wore black suits and white collared shirts they already owned. All we had to come up with were the ties so they'd match.
    -My best male friend ended up standing up as an honour attendant, although everyone seemed to think he was the replacement MOH after mine stepped down, he actually technically wasn't.
  • edited December 2011
    I'm still in the very early stages of planning our wedding (we're talking 2+ yrs out with no date set) but already know that there will be no garter toss, and possibly no boquet toss. If I'm the one writing out invitation envelopes, then they will be done by printer because I write like a doctor lol.  We'll probably also include my FI's boys in the ceremony and he and the boys will be wearing full Highland dress (kilt, jacket, hose, traditional footwear, etc) which is definitely not traditional in the states.  We're making sure we blend the traditions of a British Anglican boy and Catholic American girl so we don't miss out on anything important.  Bridesmaids will most likely be wearing non matching dresses since half live in the US and the others in the UK.  There will probably be more as we go along planning

     2dbride, I also checked out your bio and pictures and loved them!  I'm so happy that my state treated you warmly :)  I also got a smile from knowing yet another Brit/American couple who took the leap of faith and is living happily ever after.  I may have to steal your idea of a love spoon on the cake...hate most of the toppers out there and a love spoon is one of the first gifts that my FI sent me...besides, he proposed in a castle in Wales so it would just fit!  
  • DenyseSDenyseS member
    First Comment
    edited December 2011
    I am doing the same as many of you.

    No tosses
    Black suits the guys already own
    Best male friend as a man of honor
    Fi's sis on his side
    very minimal flowers
    Very short non religous ceremony
    my bridesmaid is picking her own dress as long as it is blue or purple and short
    My daughter (jr bridesmaid) will probably be in an ivory dress
    No rehersal or rehersal dinner
    nO pre wedding parties (not for me at least, me and man of honor or going out for pedicures and mimosas in leu of a bachlorette party, it's FI first wedding so he will be have a bachlor party which my man of honor took it upon himself to set up lol as FI's other friends are all from out of town, they are going golfing)
    No send off
    No registry
  • 2dBride2dBride member
    5 Love Its First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Comment
    edited December 2011
    Moonfae:  If you want a traditional Welsh love spoon, but your FI is no longer in a position to pick one up from Wales, you might check out Andeezartinwood.  That's where we got ours.  He offers free engraving on his love spoons.  He made ours promptly, and we loved it!  (I've deliberately blurred the inscription on the picture below.)


  • edited December 2011
    Things we're not doing....

    Not inviting anyone to ceremony - eloping. YAY! No one knows except parents - our kids dont even know.  :)
    No attendants unless you count sea life
    no showers or bach parties - I'm 40 something...who cares!
    No garter toss

    Things we are doing

    Reception 3 weeks later
    No full meal -apps only
    dress code: jeans!!!

    Created by Wedding Favors
  • edited December 2011
    2dBride, 
    Thank you so much for the info. That spoon is gorgeous!   I'll definitely save the info even though I'm pretty sure we'll have access to one from Wales.  His family has a caravan in North Wales and is there almost every weekend from March/November. They only live about 90 min from the van.  We're also planning to have Grasmere gingerbread as our favors so will either have to order and ship or have a family member bring it over :)
  • MikesAngieMikesAngie member
    Name Dropper 5 Love Its Combo Breaker First Comment
    edited December 2011
    There wasn't:
    • Garter toss
    • Bouquet toss
    • Fathers speeches (they're both deceased)
    • An aisle - we entered left and right of the officiant
    • A cake
    • A florist

    We did:
    • Allowed guests to seat themselves at umbrellaed tables for the outdoor ceremony
    • Non-traditional vows and readings (many were very moved by this)
    • Our moms escorted us both in 
    • Allowed our ladies to wear dresses of their choosing, just our color
    • Gents wore black tuxes either owned or rented with our color of vests and bow ties
    • Entire processional was to ONE 4.16 minute song and we all made it
    • We danced out for the recessional 
    • All of the flowers were DIY silk for both the ceremony and reception
    • We had custom made truffles and Mexican Wedding Cookies for dessert
    • Only had one formal speech given by the MOH and Best Man together
    • Mother- Son dance was cut into by my Mom and I danced with my MIL and we ended it with a group hug
    • DIY Invitations with fountain pen hand addressing
    • Did invite a few more after the first wave
    • Did a hosted cocktail hour - after that guests were on their own
    • Had a DJ for both the ceremony music and the reception
    • Stayed until the final call - no send off

    What I had wished I had done - worn another dress and shoes for the reception.

  • edited December 2011
    I did this on the August board too, but I will join in!

    No garter/bouquet toss
    printed on envelopes with printer
    my son is walking me down the aisle
    non traditional music for ceremony
    my friend is officiating
    no real flowers, except bouquets
    DIYing almost everything
    No children except my son, so no ring bearer or flower girl
    My girls got to choose their dresses
    Tree planting ceremony

    There is more, but I just drew a blank!
    Siggy Challenge~Fur Baby~September 2012 Board imageMy Bio Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • edited December 2011

    Things I am doing different:

    Broach bouquet for me, silk flowetrs for the girls
    no ring bearer, 2 flower girls who will also carry the rings
    Pale purple dress for me, girls in dark purple
    maid of honor, matron of honor & 2 best men
    My son is walking me down the aisle
    My kids are asking FH to join our family instead of giving me away
    Khaki pants & a white shirt for the guys with a tie that matches the girls dresses
    Printed lables for the invitations ... I will be in the middle of a school year when they need to go out and I do not have that much time.
    Hourglass for the unity ceremony
    no candles, very few flowers
    My brother is singing as i walk in
    Music from movie scores instead of the usual music

    I'm sure there is more that will come up as we go ... But it will be the way we want it, traditional or not ...

    Wedding Countdown Ticker PhotobucketPhotobucket June 2012 Siggy Challange - Shoes
  • edited December 2011
    My 4 yo son walked me down the aisle
    We had uneven numbers of attendants (1 MOH, 2 Best Men)
    No father's speeches
    My family/MOH didn't attend rehearsal
    No garter/bouquet toss
    I made our cake
    We couldn't find our cake servers, so we ate a cupcake instead of cutting our cake
    We invited everyone's children (20% of our guests were under age 8!)
    I danced with my mom at our reception
    We did first glance pics before the ceremony 
    We walked to the church together. 

    Faux Paus-
    I didn't realize this until afterwards, but our bartenders had a tip jar on the bar. Grr. 
  • ski2playski2play member
    First Anniversary First Comment
    edited December 2011
    We are getting married on a holiday "gasp, horror"....July 4!.....What can I say, the girl loves fireworks and having her family around so next July 4th I will be watching the fireworks with 60 of my favorite people!
  • edited December 2011
    I am pleased that so many of you have decided not to do the garter toss.  I've felt uncomfortable with it and think I'll delete it from my reception plan -- and maybe the bouquet toss, too.  There are not too many single ladies that will likely participate in such an event.  Now if there was a tossing event for new moms, that would be a big hit!  There are are at least 10 childeren under the age of one ( and their parents) on the guest list!
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