Wedding etiquette rules your family regularly breaks with no remorse

MandyMost · September 2014

RebeccaFlower said:

Cash bars are totally normal. Someone actually called us snobs because we had open beer & wine, but everyone else thought we were awesome.

This is exactly what I'm dealing with for my wedding!

sarahufl · September 2014

We always set up and take down in my circle. It is never requested, usually people just say "when can I be there to help?" That said, I still expect gratitude and thanks for doing it. I went to a wedding the other day for a sort of fringe family friend and they just did NOTHING to arrange for set up and assumed people would do it for them. My mom, SIL and I got stuck doing more than we wanted to because it just would not have happened without us. And the groom didn't even say one word of thanks for it. We did dollar dances in my family my whole life and it just never phased me. I have cousins who regularly have dry weddings and receptions that last an hour.

slothiegal · September 2014

RebeccaFlower said:

Cash bars are totally normal. Someone actually called us snobs because we had open beer & wine, but everyone else thought we were awesome.

So, I forgot what thread I was reading since I have about ten open right now and read the bolded and my face looked a little something like this:

Then I remembered where I was. So thanks for the early morning heart attack.

ssammii · September 2014

wrigleyville said:

- Gaps. Ohhhhh god so many gaps. My family is Catholic, so it's common to have a 10:00 wedding with a 5:00 cocktail hour and then dinner at 6:00. Even with that insane gap, the B&G are almost always late because they and the WP were pre-gaming on the party bus.

Polish here too totally agree the long gaps are just assumed to part of the package...and the waiting for the B&G

My favorite part of the Catholic mass/recpetion gap is the outfit changes. Every woman in my family sees it as an opportunity to wear a classy/conservative outfit to church and then whip out her most bedazzled, provactive, or slorish-but-still-"classy" outfit for the reception

Senecaf · September 2014

There have not been many weddings in my family. Mine was the first in over a aside from my cousin's 3 weeks prior.
But asking for help is not a problem. You don't ever really have to because volunteers come from everywhere when there is a event or anytype. I was actually overwhelmed with the love and offers of help for my wedding. It made me cry because I am a sap.

PrettyGirlLost · September 2014

RebeccaFlower said:

lolo883 said:

Everyone keeps telling me to just assign someone to set up my centerpieces and pack everything back up. I keep insisting "I can't ask them! They have to volunteer!" and they retort "how will they know you need help if you don't tell them?!" And... I don't really have a good answer for that.

They were also all pretty stunned that the WP will be sitting with their SOs.

I'm just going to throw this out there (non E approved). If you have a close friend/family, I think it's fine to ask. Have a clear, easy to do plan.

What is NOT COOL and happened to me, is couple flew off to the Bahamas at like 9am the day after the wedding and there was no fucking plan!Mom & I picked up everything/dropped off rentals. I am still pissy about it. I only helped because if I didn't it would have been left to my momma.

I agree with you 100%

As long as you have no expectations that anyone else helps or agrees to help, you ask very politely with all humility, you have a clearly defined task that you need help with, not I need an unpaid assistant for 12 hours, and you give them a very heartfelt thank you gift.

[Deleted User] · September 2014

- Wine and beer hosted is becoming more common in the past 10 years before that you were the rich family. A fully stocked bar is still really really out there. I was at one and ordered a captin in coke and actually got "talked to" from a family member because it was to expensive and the brides/groom will have to pay for that.

- Personal attendents I found my parents wedding program from 43 years ago (yes they are still married) she had two listed

- Guest Book attendents/ cake cutters (all family members)

- My dad is ALWAYS taking pictures and use the photographer has had to talk to him before lol poor dad just doesn't get it

-Adding +1's, just showing up with a date etc

-Dollar dance..This one I really do not like but it's been at every wedding i've been to I think I'm at 25 now give or take....

sophhabobopha · September 2014

My family and Fi's are super crazy helpful too. They also advocate cash bars, and WP gifts are always jewlery for the wedding. The last two are hills I'm dying on.

holyguacamole79 · September 2014

larrygaga said:

sarahbear31 said:

@larrygaga‌, I agree with that last point. My sister lives 4 hours away and my husband couldn't take off work the day before her wedding (we both took the Friday afternoon). Everyone else in our family was there helping to set up for the wedding and I showed up half way through the rehearsal. I felt so badly even though I knew it was out of my hands.

Obviously there is forgiveness if there is a legit excuse to not be there. If it's just laziness then you get into trouble.

Yeah, I know. I'm Catholic, so the guilt was automatic

[Deleted User] · September 2014

sophhabobopha said:

My family and Fi's are super crazy helpful too. They also advocate cash bars, and WP gifts are always jewlery for the wedding. The last two are hills I'm dying on.

HAHA I forgot about the jewlery thats all I've ever seen or been given

That seems so automatic and the thing to do. I dont think anyone around me would know what to do.. HAHA I can hear it now "What jewlery am I to wear then?"

kgd7357 · September 2014

We stay on our parent's invites until forever, which is so annoying. Now that I'm married I get my own, but my 29 year-old brother (who lives with my parent's) is still on mom and dad's invite. My silent protest is that I wont give a gift unless I get my very own invite.

theartistformerlyknownas · September 2014

RebeccaFlower said:

lolo883 said:

Everyone keeps telling me to just assign someone to set up my centerpieces and pack everything back up. I keep insisting "I can't ask them! They have to volunteer!" and they retort "how will they know you need help if you don't tell them?!" And... I don't really have a good answer for that.

They were also all pretty stunned that the WP will be sitting with their SOs.

I'm just going to throw this out there (non E approved). If you have a close friend/family, I think it's fine to ask. Have a clear, easy to do plan.

What is NOT COOL and happened to me, is couple flew off to the Bahamas at like 9am the day after the wedding and there was no fucking plan!Mom & I picked up everything/dropped off rentals. I am still pissy about it. I only helped because if I didn't it would have been left to my momma.

Well that's the problem. All the close friends/family members I would feel comfortable asking are in the wedding, aka a tad preoccupied. Or they're married to people in the wedding and have their kids to wrangle, like my super helpful and awesome BIL.

FMIL asked FI's aunt and FBIL's GF if they would help set up centerpieces, and I'll let them even though they were sort of voluntold. I figure I'm off the hook since I didn't do the asking.

moutonrouge · September 2014

kgd7357 said:

We stay on our parent's invites until forever, which is so annoying. Now that I'm married I get my own, but my 29 year-old brother (who lives with my parent's) is still on mom and dad's invite. My silent protest is that I wont give a gift unless I get my very own invite.

I forgot about this. I've been on my parents' invites to 3 weddings in the past 3 years, and I haven't lived with them in 10 years. My parents, I think, know this is rude, so they'll call me and sort-of apologize and ask if I want them to RSVP yes for me.

anndee2020 · September 2014

Hail from a Catholic family too so gaps, gaps, gaps. Normal wedding has the ceremony at 1 then the reception doesn't start until 5.

wrigleyville with the WP showing up late because of pre-gaming/ bar hoping. (FI is actually a little upset because he wants a long gap so he can bar hop but that is not happening. He can bar hop any other day of the year, on this point I'm not moving.)

Cash bars, dollar dances, garter and bouquet tosses are also the norm for the area.

When I first came on here it was very eye opening. (Though I have never agreed with the dollar dances. Even as a kid I thought they were really weird.)

holyguacamole79 · September 2014

As a lifelong Texas Catholic, I had never heard of the gap until I went to a wedding with my friends from Cleveland. Maybe it's a regional thing? But then again, I went to a wedding in Colorado a few years ago that had a gap, too.

sophhabobopha · September 2014

RachelLee83 said:

sophhabobopha said:

My family and Fi's are super crazy helpful too. They also advocate cash bars, and WP gifts are always jewlery for the wedding. The last two are hills I'm dying on.

HAHA I forgot about the jewlery thats all I've ever seen or been given That seems so automatic and the thing to do. I dont think anyone around me would know what to do.. HAHA I can hear it now "What jewlery am I to wear then?"

Me too!

And I know FSIL/MOH is going to say that, haha!

pinklilly122 · September 2014

Oh so many lol
All the weddings I have been to were cash bar, have dollar dances, gaps usually without a cocktail hour, registry info in invites.
At the risk of looking stupid, I've actually never heard of any of these rules until here. Cash bar is totally normal and expected. Dollar dances are the norm, although I've always found them SO boring. I've never been to a wedding with a cocktail hour, just usually an hour gap while pictures are done.

saacjw · September 2014

sarahbear31 said:

As a lifelong Texas Catholic, I had never heard of the gap until I went to a wedding with my friends from Cleveland. Maybe it's a regional thing? But then again, I went to a wedding in Colorado a few years ago that had a gap, too.

It might be. I'm from the midwest and almost every Catholic wedding I've been to has had some large gap. I know a lot of the excuses claim Saturday masses and multiple weddings scheduled for one day at any given church (The wedding I was at this summer had 2 other weddings right after it).

Aray82 · September 2014

ssammii said:

wrigleyville said:

- Gaps. Ohhhhh god so many gaps. My family is Catholic, so it's common to have a 10:00 wedding with a 5:00 cocktail hour and then dinner at 6:00. Even with that insane gap, the B&G are almost always late because they and the WP were pre-gaming on the party bus.

Polish here too totally agree the long gaps are just assumed to part of the package...and the waiting for the B&G
My favorite part of the Catholic mass/recpetion gap is the outfit changes. Every woman in my family sees it as an opportunity to wear a classy/conservative outfit to church and then whip out her most bedazzled, provactive, or slorish-but-still-"classy" outfit for the reception

Yes! My family too, with the outfit change and gaps. You can hear the women in church whispering before the ceremony about how their reception dresses and how they're going to to do their hair. My aunts will often set up a bar in their hotel rooms to pregame while we style each other's hair. If the gap wasn't at a wedding with my family where I know everyone it would be much more irritating. But I've never seen any gaps outside my family's weddings.

larrygaga · September 2014

The dollar dance is a big thing in my family, but that's where I put my foot down. Am I a stripper? WTF.

If a family members wants to dance with me, well damn let's dance.

pinklilly122 · September 2014

Yeah we're definitely not doing the dollar dance. I never really thought they were rude, just boring. After reading here it will not be happening

thisismynickname2 · September 2014

My own family is all overseas, so I'll say two things: 1) My friends are gap-tastic due to the Catholic excuse. We're definitely not having one because I've always thought it was plain annoying before I ever knew it was rude. 2) I'm marrying into a family with a shaky grasp of etiquette. Every time I try to do something for the convenience of our guests, FI and his mom fluster over their own inconvenience. Like, I said we should have snacks available all day so our bridal party doesn't faint (and this was requested by my sister, BTW), but both FI and his mom thought that was too much work for us. Yesterday, FI was saying he wanted a combination of all our entrees as his entree, and that he was the groom so should get it. No, he doesn't care what others thing. Seriously, FI seems to think that he always bends over backwards for other people, so now he's the groom and he'll do what he wants and everyone will understand because he's the groom. <<facepalm>>

jaygeejay · September 2014

Gaps are the norm in my family/circle. When my friend got married in June, I barely looked at the invite and assumed it started at 1. When I actually read it I realized it was at 4;30 with the reception right after and was pleasantly surprised!

Also I had never heard of SO's sitting with the bridal party. My fiance has been in so many weddings, I am so use to sitting with the other bridal party dates! I always thought it was normal. I have never even heard of a kings table or sweethearts table.

Fairyjen1 · September 2014

My mom's generation were all open bar, my grandfather wouldn't have it any other way. In my generation, cash bars abound!. Even friends wedding around here have them. I sort of get it in one sense, one cousin marrying into the family decided to do a full open bar on a consumption basis, she ended up with an 8K bar bill for 150 or so people! We seriously had people ordering a drink, putting it down and losing it, so they order another, there were probably at least 100 almost full glasses at the end of the night, we also had uncles ordering 200$ bottles of wine and bottles of whiskey to take back to the tables (it was in a restaurants banquet room and the bride told the bartender, give them whatever they want! This was her first mistake! I don't think it was actually legal for the restaurant to hand out bottles of whiskey.

I can't afford that, and I won't do a cash bar , so it's just one of the many reasons I did a small, immediate family wedding at lunch with hosted beer, wine and soda. She divorced my cousin later ( the bride married into the family). She was big into etiquette and I always secretly wondered if she left because she was tired of the families etiquette breaches.

Everyone but my sister and myself has had a honeymoon fund (I don't think they were a thing when my sister got married).

We do food right, however. There's always lots of it and it's always really good and no one is ever asked to provide any of it by the hosts. We also tend to not expect family to help set up or tear down. We'll usually pay someone for that.

We have only had a few dollar dances. I don't like them, but other people seem to. We aren't having one at my wedding.

kmmssg · September 2014

Oh jeez where to begin...
My family thinks my nose is in the clouds of snooty wedding etiquette Heaven it isn't even funny. I am pretty much the only one i know of.who did not JOP. The overwhelming majority thinks a wedding is waste of money. I was in love with my Bridal Barie and it went from there. God help you if i missed the annual showing of Cinderella and missed the wedding scene.
My family will gossip about the foolishness of the cost for an open bar. Anything more than appys cake and punch is insane to consider paying for. To be continued...

mollybarker11 · September 2014

I haven't been to many family weddings but every wedding I've been to has had a cash bar & anyone who gets wind of a wedding will show up to the dance portion after the dinner. There have been two weddings in my department since I started working there a few months ago and I received an invite via mass email to the dances for both. No one brings gifts to the dances so it isn't seen as gift-grabby, just "hey come have a fun time and celebrate with us!" Now that I've read more about wedding planning here it seems like a logistical nightmare and I don't know how they do it.

My cousin's wedding a few years back had a gap (after what seemed like a really long cocktail 'hour' but that could have been time standing still). My brother was in the WP so SIL took the rest of our family back to her house and we pre-gamed the reception while he went off in the party bus to get photos taken. None of this struck me as strange at the time -- aside from my brother being asked to sub in that morning for a groomsman who didn't show. Did I mention my parents were asked to coordinate the lawn parking when we arrived?

lalalorelai · September 2014

Gaps. All. The. Time. My mom actually started pouting when I told her I wasn't going to have the gap because she wanted to host a "party" in her hotel room in between. She'll get over it.

My mom also was semi-horrified when I told her we were going to have the bridal party sit with their SO's. Her only reason was "but that's not how it's done."

We do the bar thing right, at least! My family would stage an all out protest if it were a dry wedding or cash bar. Like they would set up camp in the parking lot with their coolers and lawn chairs.

FH's family is more on the casual side--they're all about the come as you are, invite anyone you've ever met, kids running around type of wedding. They also are okay with inviting some people to just the "dance" portion and not the ceremony or the dinner. But they do hate gaps!! FSIL is also super concerned that I'm going to make her have a certain hairstyle. The last wedding she was in, the bride made them wear their hair in this awkward beehive type thing. When I told her she could wear her hair anyway she wanted, and I was trying to budget to pay for it, she about fainted.

[Deleted User] · September 2014

Both mine and my husband's family have had cash bars, and I think I got on people's nerves saying over and over "We can't have that decoration, because it comes out of the bar budget".
I was such a scrooge we wound up upgrading the open bar, and to this day I keep hearing that my wedding was the best wedding ever.

Money dances happen, even though very few people go up. I don't get it.

Wedding party gets split from their SOs at the main table. I admit I'm guilty of this one. I never even knew that wasn't a thing. I have yet to go to a wedding, family or friend, where they weren't split up. I'm very lucky that the only two couples I split were people who had lots of friends and family to keep them from being lonely.

It's pretty normal for family and friends to help break down, but I haven't been to a wedding yet where I was forced to. People just won't leave and are very "What can I do? Can I help? Does the caterer need help? What car are these gifts going to, I'll help carry them so it's done faster. "

My family is bad about visiting tables, but very good about receiving lines. I didn't want one, and one happened while I was putting on my jacket. I'm actually very glad, because people were hopping around so much at my reception that I couldn't get to their tables fast enough to visit.

WinstonsGirl · September 2014

My family doesn't really have a lot, but I seem to live in an area where etiquette breeches are totally norm, so I'll give you those instead.

1. Gaps. And I have never been to a Catholic wedding. 99% of weddings here (and all of the ones I've attended) occur about 1-2pm and the reception begins about 6 (cocktails about 5 maybe). On wedding where I was a BM, the parents of the Bride actually threw a mini party at their house for their and Groom's family and the WP. Food, alcohol, it was pretty much a reception without cake. This was after an hour of photos and a 30 minute drive back home. All other WP's do photos during this time, or go for a drink either in a pub or a hotel room at the reception site. ETA - most guests go out for lunch, walk a main street to sightsee, etc. I've even been to the casino once, where I won $25 to buy my drinks with!!

2. Cash bars. I've never been to a wedding without one, except mine. Often they're twoonie bars (everything is $2), or drinks are paid for up till a certain time (cocktail hour only, or beginning of dinner) and then switch to paid.

3. Head tables, always with wedding party only. I've never minded in the past, cos I was always single when I was a BM, but not crazy about that now.

4. Bouquet toss/Garter - not really a breech, but I've never been a fan. Last wedding didn't have this, but she didn't have flowers, so no toss needed.

5. Registry cards. They're always included with the invite, so you know where to go to buy them stuff.

6. Inviting everyone to the stagette. I'm more ok with this, cos they are always separate from the shower, so technically not a gift giving event, but everyone still chips in for the Bride, so you can end up paying for stuff even if you're not invited to the wedding.

All of this is so common in my area that no one even thinks to do it differently. Many people don't even see it as a breech of etiquette, though I'm sure some people are offended. They're just too polite to mention it I suppose (where the B and G can hear at least)

LabLove86 · September 2014

The ones in my area tend to be "normal" breeches of etiquette -

- Gaps, especially the ones held at a site separate from reception. But I actually went to one where the wedding was at the reception site, and there was still a 45 minute gap between the last person getting out of the receiving line (I know because that I was only 3rd from the back) and the cocktail hour starting.

- Head Tables w/o SO's. Sweetheart tables are becoming more common around here. But I had never even heard of a Kings table until TK.

- Garter/Bouquet

- Inviting those not invited to Stag N Does/Bachelor(ette) parties. I have experienced this with bachelorette parities - but fortunately have not yet happened with Showers.

Gaps annoy me, head tables annoy me. I don't like garter toss/bouquet throw. I could care less about being invited to a pre-wedding party but not being invited to the wedding. Unless it was a close friend, then I'd be pissed.

Wedding etiquette rules your family regularly breaks with no remorse

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