Etiquette
grumbledore
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Worst Wedding You've Ever Been To?
grumbledore
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in Etiquette
Since we get a fair number of posters who insist that they can do something rude and...
- No one will care/be offended
- No one will remember
- It won't change any of their relationships
how about we share the things we did care about/were offended by, remember, and/or that make us feel differently about the couple offenders?
I'll start - I've been to a few bad ones but I'll start with the furthest back. About 8 years ago, I attended a family wedding where there was a cash bar, the bride&groom had a (very) upgraded meal compared to the guests (we had a very unappetizing piece of chicken, they had steak and lobster), and they never sent thank you notes for the bridal shower OR wedding gift, which combined totaled about $500 ($300 of which was cash).
In order of degree of offense personally taken, from most to least:
- No thank you note
- Different meal from what was served to guests
- Cash bar
I remember, and if I still had a relationship with these people (family of XH), they would never get another gift from me again. I decided that as soon as the thank you note window closed.
And for those who think etiquette is for old ladies - I was 25 when I made that decision.
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Re: Worst Wedding You've Ever Been To?
He was starting a job in Paris and it made applying for residency, etc. easier if they were married.
I had to buy matching dress and shoes, was told which salon to get my hair done at, which I then had to pay for. They had a makeup artist at the house who did everyone's makeup. Apparently they never worked out payment in advance because after the fact the bridesmaids were told to chip in to pay her.
The whole think was such a shitshow. The bride and I never spoke again afterward. I just felt really taken advantage of and disrespected. Oh, and I should mention that I lived several states away and had to travel. Theres more but those are the highlights.
Go Pats!
It was my husband's, then-fiance's, cousin's wedding.
Invitation was from the bride's mother and deceased father.
I felt sad for the bride that her father wasn't with her anymore, but also very confused by how he was going to manage to host a wedding.
Registry info on the invite.
2pm Catholic Ceremony, 5pm cocktail hour.
However that could have been worse, since it was almost an hour drive to the reception site.
It was all out in a nearly rural area and there wasn't anything to do, so we all showed up at the reception at 4 since the doors were open and did nothing but try to find tables together since the tables weren't assigned (and I realize open seating isn't against etiquette, but I still hate it).
Finally cocktail hour happens, but there is no food. The favor was a chocolate covered pretzel stick so everyone at our table at that readily. We were all starving since we all had a very early lunch before making the drive out to the wedding.
Cocktail hour ends around 6:30... this is when the bar started charging... unless you were in the bridal party. Then you still drank for free while the rest of us paid.
(One of our cousins happened to be dressed almost just like the groomsmen. When the bartender mistook him and wasn't charging, we didn't correct him. Our cousin was the resident drink-getter for our table the rest of the night. Yeah, yeah, two wrongs don't make a right. Whatever.)
Pictures ran long. Bride and groom didn't show up until 7:30. (so, still no food, and an hour since drinks were being hosted).
Head table (and I noticed SO were not seated with their partners).
Dollar dance.
Then they had sandwich makings later in the night, which was really nice! But it would have been so much more appreciated at 6 when we were all starving.
The real kicker actually occurred after.
My FI and I were traveling from out of town and hadn't brought the gift with us. We sent it after the wedding. Yes, bad us. But I figured we had a year anyway and I didn't think much of it... until...
My FMIL fowarded us the email the cousin had sent her.
>I just wanted to check with you on something. *Husband* and I were going through
> our wedding stuff this weekend getting ready to do our thank-you cards and I
> noticed there wasn’t anything from *My FI* and Aurianna. I just wanted to check
> with you and make sure I didn’t misplace something.
I was totally livid that she'd essentially go to my FMIL and tell her we didn't give them a present. The next day my FMIL and I forwarded the email with the subject line "Just kidding!" that said she'd gotten our gift the day after her first email.
The only other thing is that the music most of the night was country music. And that's fine. But it's not everyone's thing and there was really almost no one on the dance floor all night. And then at my wedding three months later, the bride's mother was complainging to my FIL that he was dancing so much at our wedding but hadn't danced at all at the cousin's wedding. What?
Outdoor reception in the heat with no a/c and plenty of bugs. Partial cash bar. The thing that bothered us most was the heat, FH doesn't tolerate heat and humidity well.
I've also sort of encountered the 6 hour gap this year.
DH & I drove an hour to get to the ceremony.
The ceremony was at noon and the reception at 6. There was supposed to be a hosted appetizer buffet in between for ceremony attendees, so DH & I figured we could entertain ourselves and visit with relatives.
I'm the first cousin once removed of the bride. When DH & I arrived at the church, we were surprised to find that the ceremony was apparently "private" and somehow we had accidentally received a ceremony invite thus being incredibly out of place among the bride and groom's immediate families.
With all of the side-eyes we got for "crashing" the ceremony, we went home right after.
We did get a thank you card from her. A pre-printed photo card with no personalized message. It wasn't even hand-signed by the bride and groom.
---
Someone else at our table went up and was told that they didn't have enough for seconds. His girlfriend was a BM (they were separated - she was at the head table and he was among guests he didn't know) and she came by to visit and he complained to her that he was hungry and wanted to grab some fast food and she offered to get seconds for him because she had special privileges.
Wait, so you, the other fsil, and other "guests" were not invited to watch the ceremony?? Wtf?!
The worst wedding was one 2 months after ours. They had rain problems, so things didn't go as planned but a big group of old coworkers and I were talking after the ceremony when guests went inside the house for cocktail hour. We were asked by their coordinator to help set up. Like the guys help carry in tables since they needed to squeeze everyone inside. This turned into a handful of us getting roped into settling up everything! Like tables, chairs, linens, folding napkins, centerpieces, figuring out what the table numbers were....which funny story, the coordinator said to bring in 12 tables and I looked at the table numbers and told h to go in and get our escort cards. We were at table 17! We had to scramble to cram 5 more tables in so we would even have seats ourselves! I did all of this because I felt bad for my friend and knew as a recent bride that would have devastated me.
Here we are 9 months later with no thank you for our wedding gift....or setting up their whole wedding. I've never outright told her what we did, but I can't believe the coordinator friend or her parents, who came in during the napkin folding, didn't tell them. Flabbergasted! And to those brides who say their guests are ok with it, I've never once told my friend, who I see daily, that I was offended by all of this. I asked 6 months after if they received the gift because I wanted to know, and she gave me, yeah we are so behind on thank yous!! Still nothing.... I secretly judge.
Live fast, die young. Bad Girls do it well. Suki Zuki.
Worst wedding ever was definitely the wedding for my ex's sister. Here's a list of the issues in no particular order of irritation.
1. Cash bar - at the reception you were issued 2 drink tickets, after that there was a charge for everything including soda and tea.
2. Head Table - I had to sit by myself since my ex was a groomsman. I sat with another lady who was a FI to another groomsman.
3. Dollar Dance
4. They auctioned off the bride's garter. Whoever paid the most was going to be allowed to remove it but in the end the groom stepped in and did it. The whole auction thing was still super gross.
5. We never got a thank you letter...I made her a photo booth (and paid for the materials too) and brought a gift. I didn't get a separate thank you note nor did ex-BF and I get one as a couple. I also set up the food for the rehearsal dinner while the ceremony rehearsal was going on.
In order of degree of offense personally taken, from most to least:
1. Cash Bar (Including Pop and Juice, I am not paying for my 7-up!)
2. No thank you note (gave a bride- my now ex-nail girl who I was good friends with, a card and $100 before her destination Las Vegas wedding, no thank you, no anything. AND the wedding never happened(!) turns out that he was cheating on her for 1 1/2 years before (I would never condone sleeping with another woman’s man but I honestly can't say I blame him, she was awful to him) I chalked this up to I lost out on $100 and learned my lesson.
3. Being told to not give a gift and give cash instead
4. Being invited to a PPD (never happened to me but would really piss me off!)
5. Invited to the reception/celebration of wedding (not a PPD) and not the actual wedding- to me it’s just a gift grab, if you don't want me to see you get married then why would you want me to see you all dress up and at a celebration?
6. Different meal from what was served to guests (has never happened to me)
7. The bride asking my grandmother (her great aunt in-law) to tell the caterer that they were done the ceremony and ready for their snack tray (Get someone else to do this, not a guest and NOT someone you met the day before!)
8. Being seated at a crappy table (Kids table, without my SO, a bunch of people I don't know)
9. E-invites or non-handwritten thank you cards
10. Cash bar- free non alcoholic
I don't post much, but I have to join in on this. I've got two:
#1 I was a BM in a friend's wedding 6 years ago. I love this girl to death, but 6 years later I still judge this, so keep in mind that your friends will probably never tell you if you piss them off with your rude plans. They will just remember the rudeness for a long time.
There was a huge gap (I'm talking 11am ceremony, 6pm reception) with no hosted cocktail hour. Luckily, I was in the wedding party so B&G had arranged a limo to drive us all around and there was plenty of booze for all. Unluckily, I had about two drinks since the last thing I had eaten was a bagel while we were getting our hair done at 8am. Reception began at 6pm. So yeah, I was starving. I actually would've rather been a guest who had no accommodations made for me since I could've run to McDonald's.
Wedding #2 was by far the fanciest most elegant wedding I have ever been to. It was in this super ritzy hotel downtown and there was just every amenity you could think of, they definitely spared no expense. And although the reception was in an adjoining room to the ceremony area, we were all herded into the cocktail area while the wedding party took pictures for 3 hours. Again, booze was flowing. In this case, there were also tons of passed apps, so we were all fine to wait for dinner. But...there wasn't a chair in the joint. Luckily there were a couple alcoves with cushioned benches that the elderly guests could sit on but the other 200 or so guests were SOL. These people spent probably double my annual salary on their wedding and the one thing that sticks out in my memory is how much my damn feet hurt.