What NOT to do!

jenn77b · October 2013

I'm watching Four Weddings and the one girl had only sweets at her reception. The other brides ordered a pizza and ate it in the parking lot. Just watching them eat the sweets made me nauseous. Made me think to post this...tell us one major thing you have encountered at a wedding reception that was the worst or weirdest experience you've had as a wedding guest.

KatWAG · October 2013

My worst was a 4 hour gap at a destination wedding. Yuck.

jenn77b · October 2013

Ouch. Sounds like torture, unless you were all wearing swim suits and could lay on the beach?

KatWAG · October 2013

I was in Seattle... and it was raining.

manateehugger · October 2013

I was a bridesmaid in a PPD but didn't know it was a PPD until 2 weeks after.

ashleyep · October 2013

jenn77b said:

Ouch. Sounds like torture, unless you were all wearing swim suits and could lay on the beach?

I flew to a wedding in Phoenix a few weeks ago with a gap. You better believedI put my bathing suit on and hung out by the pool. I took a bath so I wouldn't have to redo my hair before the ceremony :P

But I can't even imagine why anyone would go on Four Weddings when they're clearly being such a bad host. Everyone keeps joking with me that we should go on it and all I can think of is that there's no way I want to be judged or nitpicked on national television and I'm trying very hard to be a good host!

JMalettas · October 2013

I can't say I've had a bad experience at a wedding myself, but a girlfriend of mine was in a wedding party last year, that the Bride/Groom invited to an upscale restaurant in town for the rehearsal dinner. At the end of the evening, each guest had to pick up their own tab! :S I'm not sure if this was made clear before hand or not, but seriously....!

jenn77b · October 2013

KatWAG said:

I was in Seattle... and it was raining.

Well that sums it up...that is torture.

I actually experienced a gap of maybe up to two hours...maybe not that long, but definitely felt that way. We were at some outdoor private gun club, it was tent only with a nearby campground as the bathrooms. VERY hot summer day. No music playing, just sitting under the tent, we could see the bride & groom doing their photo shoot near the lake there. We had drinks, no appetizers. It's traditional in my town to have a cookie table so everyone just started eating the cookies since we were starving. It dragged out way too long so that we really didn't want to stick around once we ate and the band finally started playing. A group of us ended up going to someone's house and having more fun there.

strow34 · October 2013

^Same thing happened to us.

One of my best friends had a destination wedding earlier this year, I was a bridesmaid and I love this friend dearly so there's no way I'd miss it. We spent over 800 dollars just to get there (we actually saved money by staying with a friend who lived about an hour away). We went to the rehearsal dinner the night before at a nice little Italian restaurant and learned that the our bill was on us. My FH was currently out of work so we ended up splitting an appetizer and a dessert. It made us very uncomfortable that we couldn't order like we normally would want (and how MOST everyone else ordered their own dish) and just made it harder to have an enjoyable meal. But we just shrugged it off.

Also, at the reception for the same wedding, we had one free drink and then had to pay for the rest. Another uncomfortable situation, esp since the groom went around telling everyone. Having waiters having to figure out who drank what and how many was just madness.

j.hlinka · October 2013

I never had any bad experiences at weddings that jump out to me however i do want to comment on the gap discussion.

I unfortunately have not option but to have a gap at the wedding. My family's church will not do a wedding service later then 1:30 and the wedding hall is booked for 6. So in those types of situations its hard to accommodate everyone.

KatWAG · October 2013

j.hlinka said:

I never had any bad experiences at weddings that jump out to me however i do want to comment on the gap discussion.
I unfortunately have not option but to have a gap at the wedding. My family's church will not do a wedding service later then 1:30 and the wedding hall is booked for 6. So in those types of situations its hard to accommodate everyone.

Yes you do have an option. You could have your reception start at 2:30.

grumbledore · October 2013

I never had any bad experiences at weddings that jump out to me however i do want to comment on the gap discussion.
I unfortunately have not option but to have a gap at the wedding. My family's church will not do a wedding service later then 1:30 and the wedding hall is booked for 6. So in those types of situations its hard to accommodate everyone.

You have a choice. You are choosing to start your reception at 6. You should choose to start your reception earlier to accommodate your guests properly.

NYCMercedes · October 2013

j.hlinka said:

I never had any bad experiences at weddings that jump out to me however i do want to comment on the gap discussion.
I unfortunately have not option but to have a gap at the wedding. My family's church will not do a wedding service later then 1:30 and the wedding hall is booked for 6. So in those types of situations its hard to accommodate everyone.

As PP have said, you do have a choice and you made an incredibly wrong choice. Your reception should start right after the ceremony. You should have chosen to treat your guests politely. You just want an evening party.

Tomandlesley · October 2013

I saw that episode of four brides. I love sweets but I couldn't handle all that. Yuck

Tomandlesley · October 2013

Worst experience for me was a friends wedding... I originally was asked to be in the wedding party then was removed for a groomsman's wife. The wedding was at 6pm in downtown cincy. For dinner they served a roast beef option or pork buffet. (I and several other guest don't eat redmeat or pork) the only drinks were lemonade fruit punch and coffee. The mashed potatoes and green beans were fab though lol

Jen4948 · October 2013

j.hlinka said:

I never had any bad experiences at weddings that jump out to me however i do want to comment on the gap discussion.
I unfortunately have not option but to have a gap at the wedding. My family's church will not do a wedding service later then 1:30 and the wedding hall is booked for 6. So in those types of situations its hard to accommodate everyone.

The bolded is not true. You either need to change your ceremony venue to somewhere other than your family's church that will allow you to hold the wedding ceremony closer to 6pm and remove/minimize the gap, or you need to change your reception venue to someplace where you can start the reception as soon as the ceremony ends and lose the idea of starting at 6pm. Planning for gaps is inconsiderate of your guests.

kitty8403 · October 2013

ETA: felt would be more appropriate on another thread.

My weirdest single thing was probably the one with the wedding party smoking pot throughout the reception.

pumpkinsandturkeys · October 2013

We attended a wedding at a venue that has multiple ballrooms, and therefore, multiple wedding receptions and other events going on at the same time. We spent an hour and a half waiting in a common reception area with guests for all of the other events prior to the reception with no food or drinks, and then got maybe one hors d'oeuvre apiece once inside our ballroom. The dinner was completely mushy pasta followed by tough and fatty beef (I couldn't even eat mine) served table side, and the server dripped gravy on someone at our table. Also, it was 20 mins before we got extra gravy, and we never got salt and pepper. If you left your drink unattended for any length of time, it would get cleared away, but you couldn't find a server when you needed one. The DJ refused to play any requested songs, and played too much ethnic music that no one danced to. Finally, you knew it was bad when even the bride and groom's family members were sneaking off to the other ballrooms to party there!

sarahmarie409 · October 2013

went to a wedding in july that was cash bar all night, head table, SO's not invited to rehearsal dinner, terrible DJ.. the tacky just did not stop

jenniferurs · October 2013

KatWAG said:

My worst was a 4 hour gap at a destination wedding. Yuck.

Someone had a destination wedding in Seattle?

jenniferurs · October 2013

Worst wedding I ever went to was an appetizer-only wedding at dinner time. There weren't enough appetizers to compile a whole meal and to make matters worse, appetizers that were meant to be hot were served cold. To top it off, they only had seating for about half the guests, so the majority of us were just standing around the entire night, with no desire to dance, because they were playing soft jazz the entire night. Just an all around disaster.

Fishing Quilter · October 2013

jhlinka said:

I never had any bad experiences at weddings that jump out to me however i do want to comment on the gap discussion.
I unfortunately have not option but to have a gap at the wedding. My family's church will not do a wedding service later then 1:30 and the wedding hall is booked for 6. So in those types of situations its hard to accommodate everyone.

***
That's the tradition where I live, too. But this is more of a rural area, and most family and friends live here,, so it's expected. I personally don't agree that you must accommodate your guests by "closing that gap", but it is nice if you can somehow find a way to provide activities for the guests who may not have a place to go for the "in-between" time.

Fishing Quilter · October 2013

I think the tackiest thing I've ever seen at a wedding was the reception where the guests brought a dish to pass. I don't recall that there was any kind of "main dish/meat" provided by the family of either the Bride or Groom. I was completely appalled. There were 7 or 8 jello dishes, cold mashed potatoes, and a terrible selection. We were not asked to bring a dish (maybe because we weren't "family" or part of the couple's "church family"), but I thought it was really tacky. The layout was not done with any care or concern, it seemed ... I just know it could have been done better.

Xstatic3333 · October 2013

My worst was when there was nowhere to sit at cocktail hour, but they wouldn't open the main hall for some arbitrary reason.

KatWAG · October 2013

jenniferurs said:

KatWAG said:

My worst was a 4 hour gap at a destination wedding. Yuck.

Someone had a destination wedding in Seattle?

@jenniferurs, sad but true. I was also part of her bridal group but not really a bridesmaid. Oh, and they are having a AHR.

Jen4948 · October 2013

The tackiest thing I've ever personally witnessed at a wedding (I've mentioned this in another thread) was seeing my aunt, mother of the groom, come back up the aisle at the end of the ceremony talking on her cell phone.

mysticl · October 2013

Outdoor wedding ceremony, in Virginia, in September. It was 90+ outside. The bride was late, all her bridesmaids were at the alter and there was no sign of her. Someone asked the groom if she was going to show. Then cocktail hour was in the front two rooms of the clubhouse, you could barely move. The cash bar was also there. The dinner was in another building that was more of a covered veranda. You had to exit this and go back to the main clubhouse to get to the bar and the restrooms. The bride, groom, and a lot of their friends were smokers so people kept leaving to stand outside and smoke. The people walking back and forth to the bar would stop and talk to the smokers. As a result hardly anyone was in the reception room. To the point that the parents of the bride and groom were absent when they did the anniversary dance. The food was okay.

MissMWood · October 2013

kitty8403 said:

ETA: felt would be more appropriate on another thread. My weirdest single thing was probably the one with the wedding party smoking pot throughout the reception.

Oh my god! Did we go to the same wedding? Haha! It was like everyone was on the dance floor, then I look around and everyone is gone and downstairs smoking pot! I just stayed on the dance floor and did some twirls on my own!

Dreamergirl8812 · October 2013

MissMWood said:

kitty8403 said:

ETA: felt would be more appropriate on another thread. My weirdest single thing was probably the one with the wedding party smoking pot throughout the reception.

Oh my god! Did we go to the same wedding? Haha! It was like everyone was on the dance floor, then I look around and everyone is gone and downstairs smoking pot! I just stayed on the dance floor and did some twirls on my own!

Ven&Radio · October 2013

Last summer I went to a wedding where the entree choices were chicken, fish, or vegetarian. However, what the RSVP card didn't indicate was both the fish and chicken entrees were a duo with steak. Lots of people eat chicken or fish, but not red meat. Just at my table, there were probably 3 people who didn't eat the entree because they were horrified their chicken or fish was in the same sauce as the steak. A duo plate is fine when you know what you're ordering, but I'd never do it without fully informing the guests of the main items to be on their plates -- you just never know what know what kind of allergies or other dietary restrictions people have.

ChiGirl2013 · October 2013

My dad just got remarried (for the 5th time) and his new wife has never accepted me or my sister, despite our many efforts to try to get to know her. When we arrived at the reception, she greeted me with a half a hug and said "I know you hate me, but it's important to your dad that you're here so I guess I'm glad you came." Gee, thanks. B!tch. I then proceeded to my table, which was directly in front of the DJ table, and watched my 6 year old get her eardrums blown out while her grandfather completely ignored her existence all night long.

Can't wait until the family Christmas celebration.

What NOT to do!

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