Some people are just genuinely clueless....

Vivandiere8 · October 2013

There was a topic about no shows, but does anyone have stories of uninvited guests or wedding crashers?

Having helped my sister with her wedding, and now planning my own I have learned a lot about wedding etiquette and the reasons behind them, but i have come to realise that so many people out there are genuinely clueless about the incoviniences or embaressment their faux pause are causing. Some people you just know they are being awful on purpose (like a mother in law wearing a slutty white dress to the wedding, etc). But a lot of people don't think about what it means if they are a no show, or bring a plus one that you aren't aware of.

My sister had a very good friend tell them he couldn't make it to the wedding... buuuut when he found out he could come after all he decided to show up and "surprise them" on their big day. We had no idea until he came walking up. Thankfully it didn't actually matter because a car with a bunch of cousins broke down on the way there (they were driving from three states away) and it couldn't get fixed until the next day so they were a last minute cancel, but it could have been a very awkward situation seating and food wise.

But honestly I think it's best to prepare your head before hand for the very real possibility that a lot of people just don't think. They probably aren't trying to be rude, they just have no idea the cost, inconvenience, etc (or they are lazy and evil but thinking that just raises the stress level on what should be a wonderful day)

MGP · October 2013

We had a crasher. The week before the wedding my husband communicated to all of his coworkers that he would be out of the office for the wedding and honeymoon. In a very casual conversation one of his employees said "oh congrats where is the wedding" and my husband replied "the ceremony is at This Church and the reception is at This Venue". Nothing more than that. So the wedding comes and apparently this guy took the conversation as a verbal invitation because he showed up. With a date. We were shocked to see them but I didn't want to be the bitch bride so was gracious, thanked them for coming, and pointed them to some empty chairs from a few no shows.

Another coworker saw the crasher there and approached him and said "hey I didn't know you guys were close" and the crasher said "well we talked about the wedding earlier in the week so here I am" and the other guy said "do you really think that meant were you invited? Did you get an invitation? IN THE MAIL?" and suddenly it hit him that he was in fact a crasher. They left soon after that and made a BS excuse that his date was "shy and felt uncomfortable because she didn't know anyone".

Luckily we didn't have any adding extra heads to the RSVP cards or other horror stories I have seen on here. The things people do will never cease to amaze me.

HisGirlFriday13 · October 2013

I think you're right, OP -- I think on balance people don't think about how their actions will affect the bride/groom.

We had one of DH's co-workers write on her RSVP card -- after both the STDate AND the invitation were addressed to 'Ms. HerFirst HerLast' -- '2' for number of people coming and add the note, 'I'm not sure who I'm bringing, but don't worry, I'll find a date!'

Uhm...no. So DH politely told her, 'I'm so sorry, but the invitation was just for you.'

Then she ended up no-showing anyway because her basement flooded.

But I honestly think it just didn't occur to her that this is LITERALLY a by-invitation-only event, that DH and I were controlling the guest list, and there were people we might have wanted to invite but didn't because of budget issues and that it's not a potluck party or backyard BBQ where one additional person is NBD because there's a ton of food and no assigned seating and everyone brings stuff anyway.

Doesntplaynice82 · October 2013

There should be a mandatory class in school that teaches you simple life things like: How to balance a check book, how to buy a car, how to budget, how to RSVP, etc... This topic should be covered as well

Vivandiere8 · October 2013

MGP said:

We had a crasher. The week before the wedding my husband communicated to all of his coworkers that he would be out of the office for the wedding and honeymoon. In a very casual conversation one of his employees said "oh congrats where is the wedding" and my husband replied "the ceremony is at This Church and the reception is at This Venue". Nothing more than that. So the wedding comes and apparently this guy took the conversation as a verbal invitation because he showed up. With a date. We were shocked to see them but I didn't want to be the bitch bride so was gracious, thanked them for coming, and pointed them to some empty chairs from a few no shows.

Another coworker saw the crasher there and approached him and said "hey I didn't know you guys were close" and the crasher said "well we talked about the wedding earlier in the week so here I am" and the other guy said "do you really think that meant were you invited? Did you get an invitation? IN THE MAIL?" and suddenly it hit him that he was in fact a crasher. They left soon after that and made a BS excuse that his date was "shy and felt uncomfortable because she didn't know anyone".

Luckily we didn't have any adding extra heads to the RSVP cards or other horror stories I have seen on here. The things people do will never cease to amaze me.

Just like i was saying. Clearly he had no clue. Probably thought that's how weddings work. i think some people think a wedding is like a funeral. You don't get an invitation to a funeral, you just hear about where it's going to be, or you might ask, and then you show up. I have to say I love that one of your other guests took care of the crashes for you. Who want to be explaining such things to people at their own wedding and the deal with the person afterwards.

csuave · October 2013

I have a picture with our crasher

Our reception was at a hotel. After dinner I see MOH dancing with a guy in tennis shoes, shorts and a tee shirt (he stuck out like a sore thumb). I'm staring at him and realize he is not a person either H or I know and it hits me....we have a real deal wedding crasher drinking our booze and making nice with a bridesmaid! MOH was without a date and seemed to be enjoying his company (and he wasn't doing anything obnoxious) so I just went with it. We took a picture and later I find out he dropped a "thank you" $20 on the gift table.

huskypuppy14 · October 2013

I think that people showing up after RSVPing no is not as big a deal as people no showing (as long as it's 1 or 2 people and not a family of 10!). My venue makes more food than the head count anyway, and if most people have a couple people no showing so it's no big deal. Still rude, but if you invited this person anyway- who cares. It looks bad on them, if you didn't have anywhere for them to sit, but I'm sure they could be squeezed in.

phira · October 2013

@laurynm84 I think no shows aren't as bad as crashers. We have limited appetizers during cocktail hour, and our bar is by consumption and we have a $ limit. So if uninvited guests show up, or if people show up after RSVPing no, we might run out of apps, and we'll hit the bar limit early on.

APDSS22 · October 2013

Doesntplaynice82 said:

There should be a mandatory class in school that teaches you simple life things like: How to balance a check book, how to buy a car, how to budget, how to RSVP, etc... This topic should be covered as well

Most of that was covered in the home economics course I had in middle school. It wasn't mandatory but I wanted to learn how to sew. I've often thought that those sorts of classes are more useful than a lot of mandatory classes where the teachers have to teach you things only to pass standardized tests.

mysticl · October 2013

We didn't have any crahsers. Our wedding and reception were on a military base so the only people who could crash the wedding were those with base access or who could catch a ride with someone with base access. Part of the RSVP process for our wedding was providing the information for the list to be given to the gate guards. Two days before the wedding DH (then FI) got a call from his mom telling him that his one uncle's work schedule had changed and he had already booked a flight for the wedding. A couple of hours later I read an e-mail from one of his aunts saying one of her sons didn't need to study that weekend (college student) and he was on his way. Now both of these people had been invited and had declined. We had to pay for 100 people at our reception venue but didn't have that many attending so food and drink weren't going to be an issue. However, base security could have been. I was able to get a hold of my contact at the reception venue and get her to add their information to list that had already been turned in. If she hadn't been able to do that we would have had to arrange rides with some of DH's coworkers.

huskypuppy14 · October 2013

mysticl said:

We didn't have any crahsers. Our wedding and reception were on a military base so the only people who could crash the wedding were those with base access or who could catch a ride with someone with base access. Part of the RSVP process for our wedding was providing the information for the list to be given to the gate guards. Two days before the wedding DH (then FI) got a call from his mom telling him that his one uncle's work schedule had changed and he had already booked a flight for the wedding. A couple of hours later I read an e-mail from one of his aunts saying one of her sons didn't need to study that weekend (college student) and he was on his way. Now both of these people had been invited and had declined. We had to pay for 100 people at our reception venue but didn't have that many attending so food and drink weren't going to be an issue. However, base security could have been. I was able to get a hold of my contact at the reception venue and get her to add their information to list that had already been turned in. If she hadn't been able to do that we would have had to arrange rides with some of DH's coworkers.

Obviously what I said above was only for people that were actually invited but declined, like this example. But if you were not able to get access for these extra people, you would not be rude to be "sorry it's too late notice to get you base access." I've never declined a wedding, but if I did, and my plans changed, I would definitely call the bride or groom and ask them if it's ok if I came, not book a flight and then tell them.

huskypuppy14 · October 2013

@phira I don't mean crashers as people you don't even know, but people that were invited but declined. I can understand the appetizer issue, I didn't even think about that. But I don't understand the bar issue. If you have a money limit, is it like once it reaches $3000 it's converting to cash? Because you should budget for 100 % attendance anyway, so if 1 or 2 show up it shouldn't be a problem. Though, now that I think about, if you get a certain amount of people decline, you might upgrade the bar or whatever, and then if some people do show up that could mess it up. But like I said, if it's 1 or 2 people, it shouldn't be a problem. If it's 10 people that's a different story.

Iloveshanej · October 2013

I hope we don't have any crashers but I had 3 crashers for my bacholerette party last night that showed up with no money and asked for everyone else to pay their way in. My sister was nice and paid their way in (which was $10 a piece) and then they spent at least $100 in alcohol, hung out by themselves and left without saying a word. Keep in mind that when my sister planned this she offered to cover everyone's meal and $10 cover for the bar. All of those who RSVP'd told her they would pay for their part. One of the crashers was the mother of one of the girls my sister invited and she was not invited to begin with. The other two never RSVP'd to my sister's invitation and never returned her follow up call so she assumed they were declines. They were standing in from of the bar when we got there. Ugh. I will definitely say something after our wedding because I don't want the drama before!

mysticl · October 2013

laurynm84 said:

mysticl said:

We didn't have any crahsers. Our wedding and reception were on a military base so the only people who could crash the wedding were those with base access or who could catch a ride with someone with base access. Part of the RSVP process for our wedding was providing the information for the list to be given to the gate guards. Two days before the wedding DH (then FI) got a call from his mom telling him that his one uncle's work schedule had changed and he had already booked a flight for the wedding. A couple of hours later I read an e-mail from one of his aunts saying one of her sons didn't need to study that weekend (college student) and he was on his way. Now both of these people had been invited and had declined. We had to pay for 100 people at our reception venue but didn't have that many attending so food and drink weren't going to be an issue. However, base security could have been. I was able to get a hold of my contact at the reception venue and get her to add their information to list that had already been turned in. If she hadn't been able to do that we would have had to arrange rides with some of DH's coworkers.

Obviously what I said above was only for people that were actually invited but declined, like this example. But if you were not able to get access for these extra people, you would not be rude to be "sorry it's too late notice to get you base access." I've never declined a wedding, but if I did, and my plans changed, I would definitely call the bride or groom and ask them if it's ok if I came, not book a flight and then tell them.

I'm pretty sure MIL told her brother it was fine that he come and the aunt told me that her son could have her lunch and wouldn't drink anything since he was underage. I honestly don't think they understood the issue with base access. A lot of our non-military guests have had very little dealings with the military and just didn't get that if we did not have accurate information they could be turned away by armed guards. I will say after I got the e-mail from the aunt I just sat and laughed hysterically for a minute or two. Then I ranted to my MOH, her dad spent over 30 years in the military so she understands.

SP29 · October 2013

Agreed- I think some people are just clueless.

I would never think to just show up at wedding, particularly if I had previously decline. Or, to bring a guest. Yeesh.

What bothers me most is when people don't RSVP at all, for any event. This happened with my bridal shower. A few (seemed like a lot, since the gathering was small), didn't respond period. Fortunately they didn't show up anyway, but geesh, do people not know what an RSVP is? If you can't come, that's totally fine, but let us know so the host isn't trying to guess if you're going to come or not. Some of these people were even contacted personally once the RSVP passed, and again, most didn't respond or were "maybes" (then didn't come).

Really not the end of the world, but it's one thing that bugs me.

I agree with you Doesn'tplaynice82- we should have classes in school like that. Those are topics we don't learn from school and are truly valuable- how to create a budget, what a loan means and how to take one out (buying a car, mortgage), how to RSVP(!!), how to buy a house, insurance and savings accounts. All useful, and since I've left school, I've used calculus how many times? None :P.

lizandmark2014 · October 2013

I think people ASUME that if they do not RSVP they are counted as a decline or are declining by not responding.

kitty8403 · October 2013

lizandmark2014 said:
I think people ASUME that if they do not RSVP they are counted as a decline or are declining by not responding.

^Yup. Lots of people interpret RSVP as "tell us *if you are coming,*" so if they dont plan to come or they have iffy schedules, they often wont feel the need to respond. Or get it into their heads that they did respond when they actually forgot or failed to get through. If someone doesn't respond to follow-up efforts, I count that person as a decline.

To whoever mentioned that people treat weddings like funerals and randomly show up, YES! Small towns are the worst for this. I've seen couples post newspaper ads in lieu of local invites with just the location, date, and time--they can wind up with hundreds of extra people. Wedding = random community party. FI actually asked "why not?" when we were working on the guest list yesterday and I pointed out that we couldn't invite the town.

ETA: maybe it's just my area, but it doesn't really seem to matter to most people whose name is on the envelope. They'll assume it's meant for the family and that SOs are welcome. So even though we are "officially" inviting a certain number of people, I have a running count of their little ones and of the singles who might grab a date, and unless we hear otherwise, that's the real number we're budgeting for.

climbingsingle · October 2013

Some people are most definitely clueless. For my first wedding, I had two people that never responded to the RSVPs. My mother and I called them two weeks before the wedding. They never returned our calls. Then they showed up the day of. There was no seating for them. It was a very awkward situation.

Also, the girl that didn't RSVP - she gave us a check that was post-dated for two weeks ahead. I didn't even notice. I deposited it and it bounced. I would have rather her not give anything.

tmclawchick · October 2013

Iloveshanej said:

I hope we don't have any crashers but I had 3 crashers for my bacholerette party last night that showed up with no money and asked for everyone else to pay their way in. My sister was nice and paid their way in (which was $10 a piece) and then they spent at least $100 in alcohol, hung out by themselves and left without saying a word. Keep in mind that when my sister planned this she offered to cover everyone's meal and $10 cover for the bar. All of those who RSVP'd told her they would pay for their part. One of the crashers was the mother of one of the girls my sister invited and she was not invited to begin with. The other two never RSVP'd to my sister's invitation and never returned her follow up call so she assumed they were declines. They were standing in from of the bar when we got there. Ugh. I will definitely say something after our wedding because I don't want the drama before!

Holy crap are you serious? Wow...

Iloveshanej · October 2013

tmclawchick said:

Iloveshanej said:

I hope we don't have any crashers but I had 3 crashers for my bacholerette party last night that showed up with no money and asked for everyone else to pay their way in. My sister was nice and paid their way in (which was $10 a piece) and then they spent at least $100 in alcohol, hung out by themselves and left without saying a word. Keep in mind that when my sister planned this she offered to cover everyone's meal and $10 cover for the bar. All of those who RSVP'd told her they would pay for their part. One of the crashers was the mother of one of the girls my sister invited and she was not invited to begin with. The other two never RSVP'd to my sister's invitation and never returned her follow up call so she assumed they were declines. They were standing in from of the bar when we got there. Ugh. I will definitely say something after our wedding because I don't want the drama before!
Holy crap are you serious? Wow...

Yep, crazy huh? People just have no respect. It's ridiculous but it showed me their true colors.

XrebeccaX · October 2013

My cousin's wedding reception was at some kind of hall in the middle of downtown (it was a very small town)...I want to say an Elks or American Legion hall or something of the sort. Anyway my aunt told me that all kinds of random people would show up for "free" beer and food, and sure enough they did. She said the town is so small that it is virtually assured there will be a wedding reception there most weekends and people just crash them because you always know someone who knows someone.

Also my mom and I just had a "discussion" to put it politely about all the invites she wanted me to send out addressed to "Mr and Mrs Joe Smith and family." I told her absolutely not because to some people that is open to WIDE interpretation. If their minor children who live at home are invited, they will be named on the invite; if their adult children are invited they'll get their own!

Inkdancer · October 2013

I accidentally crashed a really good friend's bridal shower. I got the BP invite via Facebook, so I went and had a great time with everyone. At midnight, while rather sloshed, the bride said to me "why aren't you coming to my shower tomorrow? I miss you". Turns out that the invitation for me had gone to FI's house, gotten lost somewhere in the shuffle, and I never got my paper shower or BP invitations! I ended up being able to crash at a BM's house so I could go to the shower the next day, but it was crazy times.

All this being to say, don't assume that no RSVP means they don't want to come!

princessleia22 · October 2013

mysticl said:

We didn't have any crahsers. Our wedding and reception were on a military base so the only people who could crash the wedding were those with base access or who could catch a ride with someone with base access. Part of the RSVP process for our wedding was providing the information for the list to be given to the gate guards. Two days before the wedding DH (then FI) got a call from his mom telling him that his one uncle's work schedule had changed and he had already booked a flight for the wedding. A couple of hours later I read an e-mail from one of his aunts saying one of her sons didn't need to study that weekend (college student) and he was on his way. Now both of these people had been invited and had declined. We had to pay for 100 people at our reception venue but didn't have that many attending so food and drink weren't going to be an issue. However, base security could have been. I was able to get a hold of my contact at the reception venue and get her to add their information to list that had already been turned in. If she hadn't been able to do that we would have had to arrange rides with some of DH's coworkers.

I have a similar issue with my wedding next year and am fearful of same thing... especially since all my guests are out of town so that would mean they put time & money to get there if they decide to crash. We are getting married on a cruise ship and all guests have to get cleared through customs to attend wedding and we need to provide a final guest list (with name, birthday, address, and drivers license or passport number) at least 30 days before wedding. There cannot be any additions or changes to the guest list once it is submitted, no exceptions whatsoever for any reason.

And after the final guest list is submitted, we are stuck paying $40/person for each listed guest, even if they are no show. I'd feel much worse about people travelling and getting turned away than having to pay for a no-show though.

mysticl · October 2013

nicoann said:

mysticl said:

We didn't have any crahsers. Our wedding and reception were on a military base so the only people who could crash the wedding were those with base access or who could catch a ride with someone with base access. Part of the RSVP process for our wedding was providing the information for the list to be given to the gate guards. Two days before the wedding DH (then FI) got a call from his mom telling him that his one uncle's work schedule had changed and he had already booked a flight for the wedding. A couple of hours later I read an e-mail from one of his aunts saying one of her sons didn't need to study that weekend (college student) and he was on his way. Now both of these people had been invited and had declined. We had to pay for 100 people at our reception venue but didn't have that many attending so food and drink weren't going to be an issue. However, base security could have been. I was able to get a hold of my contact at the reception venue and get her to add their information to list that had already been turned in. If she hadn't been able to do that we would have had to arrange rides with some of DH's coworkers.

I have a similar issue with my wedding next year and am fearful of same thing... especially since all my guests are out of town so that would mean they put time & money to get there if they decide to crash. We are getting married on a cruise ship and all guests have to get cleared through customs to attend wedding and we need to provide a final guest list (with name, birthday, address, and drivers license or passport number) at least 30 days before wedding. There cannot be any additions or changes to the guest list once it is submitted, no exceptions whatsoever for any reason.
And after the final guest list is submitted, we are stuck paying $40/person for each listed guest, even if they are no show. I'd feel much worse about people travelling and getting turned away than having to pay for a no-show though.

We put it in the invitation so they could return the required information with their RSVP and it was on the website. It came down to some people not getting how serious the military is about their security.

We had to provide make, model and license plate number of the car they would be using, we could just list "rental car" if that was the case. One of the aunts who was flying in said she and her partner would just catch a ride with some of her family (they were all staying in the same hotel). I was like "no, I need to assign you to a car". It ended up that the guards didn't care so much about which car you were in (a few people decided to change cars) as long as your name was on the list but they could have just as easily turned them around and denied them entry.

All you can do is give your guests the information and explain how important it is that they RSVP with all needed information.

Vivandiere8 · October 2013

From some of the stories of wedding crashers and fears of multiple added plus ones I'm thinking some brides on here might be wishing their receptions were on military bases. No need to higher security at the door to turn the uninvited trouble makers away away.

daveANDkristen · October 2013

Inkdancer said:

I accidentally crashed a really good friend's bridal shower. I got the BP invite via Facebook, so I went and had a great time with everyone. At midnight, while rather sloshed, the bride said to me "why aren't you coming to my shower tomorrow? I miss you". Turns out that the invitation for me had gone to FI's house, gotten lost somewhere in the shuffle, and I never got my paper shower or BP invitations! I ended up being able to crash at a BM's house so I could go to the shower the next day, but it was crazy times.

All this being to say, don't assume that no RSVP means they don't want to come!

It's not exactly "crashing" if you were invited.

syoun1nj · October 2013

We had two crashers. Friends of an invited guest that my husband knew way back when. Guest told them to come on by! They showed up after dinner time, dressed appropriately. We had two no-shows so our numbers evened out anyway, and they gave us a card and $100.63, so...whatevs. I never spoke to them but husband did...I was busy dancing!
Except now we can't find an address to send them a thank you card for the gift...

aurorajanette · October 2013

syoun1nj said:

We had two crashers. Friends of an invited guest that my husband knew way back when. Guest told them to come on by! They showed up after dinner time, dressed appropriately. We had two no-shows so our numbers evened out anyway, and they gave us a card and $100.63, so...whatevs. I never spoke to them but husband did...I was busy dancing!
Except now we can't find an address to send them a thank you card for the gift...

That is an oddly specific amount. Do you know the reason for that?

MrsMack10612 · October 2013

We had one crasher and two would be crashers.

The actual crasher was in full costume (I got married in Salem MA in October) and made it up the the reception area before our PD detail escorted them out, our photog got a picture.

The two would be's were friends we had made on St. Pat's and they joked about crashing; they didn't show up til the party was in full swing. The cop wouldn't let them up, but we wouldn't have cared if he had.

Inkdancer · October 2013

@daveANDkristen I know but I still felt bad about it. I didn't technically RSVP.

offthemarket915 · October 2013

I have to say that reading these posts makes me happy (for a new reason) that we're hosting an out of state wedding,and will be renting the entire property

Some people are just genuinely clueless....

Re: Some people are just genuinely clueless....

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