Garter/ Bouquet Toss Opinions....

kkidd28 · August 2010

Hey ladies....

So I know we have several weddings coming up this month and my own is next month! We've all been to weddings as well! What is everyone's opinion on this?

I have mixed feelings on it. Part of me says its fun - the other part of me doesnt want any of the singles to feel picked on. Has anyone else decided what they are doing here?

jrpetrik · August 2010

We're skipping both. The garter toss is just plain awkward and I don't like the bouquet tosses at weddings. It was FH's idea to skip the former and my idea to skip the latter, so we ended up in total agreement.

I've never thought of it as having the possibility of making singles feel picked on. (I've never felt that way at weddings, before, so it just never crossed my mind.) Interesting.

fpaemp2011 · August 2010

We're not doing either, but we are doing an Anniversary Dance. My opinion on the garter toss is that it's really awkward that he'll be going up my dress in front of both our families, and tossing what is essentially an undergarment at his friends and my male relatives. It's just always icked me out.
The bouquet toss isn't as awkward, but I've never found it fun, and, with my horrendous aim, I'd end up hitting a bystander.

mattycam · August 2010

Really? I don't know based on the weddings I've been to, the women can't wait for the bouquet toss, lol. Even though the story behind the bouquet tossing is a myth, it still seems to get women on the dance floor! What I do think, however, is that it should be an option. I don't think just because you are single you should be forced to catch a bouquet or a garter. If you want to go for it; if not, then don't!

SuMmErKuTiE · August 2010

We had both at our wedding and they were both a lot of fun and a big hit. It all depends on your crowd. We had a lot of friends at the wedding, and a lot of them aren't married yet so we were able to get a nice crowd up on the dance floor for them.

katanne9 · August 2010

I HATE the bouquet toss and FI HATES the garter toss. We are happily skipping both and I don't think anyone is disappointed.

Also, I only have about a handful of single friends anyways and I think that would be awkward.

kimp67 · August 2010

We're also skipping both. Most of our guests are already married, so there would be 6 people out there! LOL

kkidd28 · August 2010

Looks like a mix on this one so far! Can't wait to hear more -lol!

jgavigan3376 · August 2010

We're skipping both! We only have a few single people coming to our wedding and most of those people are under the age of 20. All of our friends are married already! lol

Calumet · August 2010

I think it depends on your crowd. We're the first of our friends to get married, so there were tons of single ladies, they loved the bouquet toss. That said garter toss grosses me out. We didn't do it. I didn't even wear one lol.

GJones27 · August 2010

We are doing both, but no garter removal. I'm the first to get married in my generation and group of friends, so everyone is excited to do it. I know I am at weddings!

iamjoesgurl · August 2010

We skipped them. I personally have always hated having to go out there as a single lady for the bouquet toss. We never even discussed it. It just never came up.

By the way, I totally forgot to even get a garter so that would have been funny if he went to retrieve it and I didn't even have one!

kkidd28 · August 2010

I haven't bought one yet...and my wedding is exactly 1 month. I really like GJones idea of doing it but without actually doing the removal part. One thing I'm noticing from the responses is it really depends on who's in your crowd. If there's only 1 single woman/man - its kind of awkward. So I guess you need to know your guest and know that they will be into it. I'll keep watching the responses and staring at my RSVP's to try and figure them out!

Jeffie86 · August 2010

My experience is that the girls all jostle each other for the bouquet (which I did let go of in enough time and it basically dropped right behind me) and the men all try to slowly back out of the room and everyone else gets a kick out of it (my husband flicked it the wrong way, then it didn't go very far and they made the closest guy take it).

I think they're fun, and don't read much into them. I was always more embarassed to have people watching my try to catch something that I was embarassed to be single.

Have you heard about the cake charm tradition? My friend did it for her closest girl friends, where they each pulled out a charm with a different fortune--married and single. Martha Stewart also suggested doing something like this with individual flowers with fortuens to be tossed to a wider audience.

heyimbren · August 2010

My cousins just had a bouquet at their wedding last weekend. I'll be honest, I didn't partake in it even though I'm single, but no one forced me to go up there either. There were a lot of single girls who were sitting out on it, but there was still a good sized crowd trying to catch it.

I'd suggest running the idea by a couple of your closest friends and see what they think- that should give you a better idea of the crowd.

CHarley2B · August 2010

Most of the weddings I have been to have done this but we are skipping both. By not having a toss bouquet my florist is giving me a credit towards the cake and like other ladies I don't think our crowd would really enjoy it. Most people are married. I'm not doing a lot of the more traditional things in the reception b/c I takes time away from the dancing.

AnnaW11 · August 2010

We are having a small wedding (~100) and about half of those will be single college students (we are getting married the Saturday after graduation, the first one in our friends), so we will be no means have a lack of single people but:

I'm pretty sure we will do the bouquet toss.

Garter toss: I had always planned on doing one, but somehwere along the way I never found out how far up your leg the garter was (I guess I'm pretty naive, I thoguht it was like on your calf, haha!) so I was kind of mortified when I realzied how far it was up your leg. Then I decided I had no desire for him to be feeling my leg for the first time in front of everyone. Plus, I think it would be particularly humiliating given our group of friends, since his guys friends are definitely the type to give him a hard time. I think we would both be beet red in the pictures! haha. So, I think we'll be passing on that one.

CourtneyBC · August 2010

I think a lot of it depends on age. I was one of the first of my friends to get married. So, I had a lot of friends who were super excited about the boquet toss. The bf of the girl who caught it actually approached me after the wedding to ask for wedding planner's phone number/email because he thought my friend might need her information soon.

Still hasn't proposed, but it hasn't even been three months since then yet. Also, all of my DH's friends were single. Some of his friends seemed pretty indifferent, and some seemed excited. There was even one, the BM actually, who checked to make sure we were still doing it!
It was kinda hard to settle on doing the garter toss, though. I've never been to a wedding that didn't have one, and every time my DH had been to one where they had it, it was highly distasteful! My cousin's H actually grabbed it off her leg with his TEETH. Her mother and our grandmother looked like they were about to die. I talked DH into doing it, promising that I wouldn't put the garter up too high, and we selected a tasteful song.

I think if you want to take part in these traditions, you should! If you're concerned about your friends thoughts, why don't you ask them? Hope this helps!!

TimsGirl10 · August 2010

I am not sure what we are doing. Not a lot of our friends/family is single, so we might just skip them both.

I have caught the bouquet at every wedding I've been to since I was 15. At first it was "awww... I wanna be the next on to get married!!" lol and it soon became "Well, I've caught it at x amount of weddings, I need to continue to catch it" to "Well, now its just tradition- I'm most likely not getting married, but its tradition that I catch the bouquet!!" LOL

felkels · August 2010

Okay funny story...I cought my own bouquet! I accidentally threw it straight in the air and if I didn't put my hands out it would have pelted me in the head! So I got 2 trys!
So to answer your question:
We did have both the bouquet and garter toss. There were enough single girls there to make the bouquet toss fun. However, there were really not enough single guys there to make the garter toss any fun. We had one single groomsman, and one DJ, and a few little boys that people threw in just to make it look like a crowd. I wish we would have skipped that part atleast for that reason. If there were more guys it would have been fun. So, both really depend on your crowds. I had one girl who was there with her boyfriend come down for the bouquet toss just cause she wanted to try to inspire him to pop the question.

HuskiesJacketsBears · August 2010

I never liked being forced out to the dance floor to try to catch the bouquet so I'm not doing a traditional bouquet toss. We have a decent number of little kids at the wedding so I am considering tossing my bouquet to the kids (although a bit concerned that there will be tears by someone that wanted to catch the prize).

Kris

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