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Wedding Etiquette Forum
olviabean_23570442
member
Getting the Side Eye from Friends on Reception
Hi all.
My FI and myself are paying for our wedding entirely. We're inviting around 75 or so people to attend our cake/punch reception. The ceremony is starting at 2:00, should be over by 2:30 and guests walk a block to our reception venue. Our menu is finger sandwiches, a fruit and vegetable tray, cake, punch and other sweet treats. We might add something like meatballs or another kind of meat. We are also not providing any alcohol as to not upset our families who oppose to any kind of drinking.
Members of our bridal party have been giving FI and myself crap for not providing a meal or alcohol and want to sneak in their own drinks. To the few friends we've mentioned that we're going down the dry wedding cake/punch reception, they have expressed to us how they may not have as much fun since we aren't providing full meal and alcohol.
FI and I think we're being good hosts. We're not mentioning any other details to friends except for including the cake/punch line on invitations so everyone knows to not expect a full meal. Are cake/punch receptions unheard of? Is having a dry wedding that big of a deal?
My FI and myself are paying for our wedding entirely. We're inviting around 75 or so people to attend our cake/punch reception. The ceremony is starting at 2:00, should be over by 2:30 and guests walk a block to our reception venue. Our menu is finger sandwiches, a fruit and vegetable tray, cake, punch and other sweet treats. We might add something like meatballs or another kind of meat. We are also not providing any alcohol as to not upset our families who oppose to any kind of drinking.
Members of our bridal party have been giving FI and myself crap for not providing a meal or alcohol and want to sneak in their own drinks. To the few friends we've mentioned that we're going down the dry wedding cake/punch reception, they have expressed to us how they may not have as much fun since we aren't providing full meal and alcohol.
FI and I think we're being good hosts. We're not mentioning any other details to friends except for including the cake/punch line on invitations so everyone knows to not expect a full meal. Are cake/punch receptions unheard of? Is having a dry wedding that big of a deal?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Getting the Side Eye from Friends on Reception
Thanks for settling my worries!
This has made me feel immensely better about our reception plans which are exactly what FI and I want.
Though... I gotta be a bad guy and ask:
Is your wedding on a weekday and/or at a location that a lot of guests (especially the many complainers) will need to travel more than an hour by car? If so, as bad as it sounds, I understand a guest being disappointed in taking off work and/or spending time/money to travel to a wedding and not even get a meal (I know the true purpose of going to a wedding is sharing a special time with people you care about... but it's a side effect).
Even if that is the case, this is NO excuse for your friend's behavior. Your wedding sounds perfectly nice and completely polite.
But perhaps that would shed some light, at least, on why they are being so nasty.
I'm really sorry they are taking your joy away over this. It's not nice of them at all. The day you planned sounds nice, and while I enjoy night time party weddings, I also enjoy pleasant daytime weddings that give me my evening to do whatever I want.
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I may be in the minority, but I look at shows like Four Weddings and some of the weddings I've attended in the last couple years and the standard full meal full of standard banquet hall food with a bunch of strangers (depending on your relationship to the bride and groom), everyone getting drunk, loud DJ with partying into night just gets boring and seems unappealing to me after awhile.
Not being a bad guy at all! Our wedding is in June 2015 on a Saturday. For our guests, most will have less than an hour and half drive in, maybe two hours depending if those guests RSVP. All of our wedding party is local and won't have more than a 20 minute drive in. The main reasons behind a cake/punch reception is that are very simple people who are happy as clams to have cake, punch and maybe a sandwich. While we both enjoy a great cocktail, we may drink once a week or every two weeks with friends. When looking at our wants/budget, we realized a cake/punch reception sounds awesome and by not having any alcohol, no one is getting the lecture from either side's family. We both come from religious families so it's important to us to not be disrespectful to them.
Thank you very much for your responses. I agree our friends are being rude when they give us crap about "what are we taking shots of? Lemonade?!" I think since they all had big blow out receptions that they feel it's the norm. They all also drink every weekend, and probably were looking forward to free wine and beer, honestly.
They could just be kidding around and not realizing how bad they are being. If you feel up to it, if it happens again you could say something like, "Friend, I know you don't mean to, but this kind of talk hurts my feelings. This is the wedding day FI and I can afford and that we want to have. We've done our research and know this is a completely appropriate way to host a 2pm wedding, so it hurts when you say things that make me feel like we are lacking in how we plan to treat our guests. I do not expect you to be as excited about our wedding as my FI and I are, but I'd appreciate if you stopped ripping on it. Thanks. Oh, hey, btw, I found the most awesome bean dip recipe!"
But it's up to you on if that would cause a confrontation you're prepared to handle.
Only because you mentioned to us wanting to add more food, one suggestion I have is to have pasta salad. It's inexpensive, easy to make ahead of time (if you want to) and doesn't require the extra equipment and set up that hot foods do (chafing racks, dishes, sterno cans). Or perhaps a meat and cheese tray?