I waited a while to post this just in case the bride or groom were on here.
My husband and I went to a wedding back in October. It had etiquette fails so huge that even my husband was bothered by them.
We go into the church. We are among the first people there, so we just find a seat making sure it's not in the first couple of rows. I had to explain to H why. He didn't understand that unless we had been asked to or were immediate family that we shouldn't. Well we accidentally sat on the "bride's" side (do people honestly still do that?). We got lectured by someone on the bride's side about it. H told me later that he thought there should've been signs if that was so important. H also thought that since everyone was there to celebrate the couple, that segregating families made no sense.
Then we went next door to the reception hall for cocktail hour. Lasted over an hour which irritated both of us. H's comment: "why invite us if you are going to spend forever doing pictures rather than spend time with us?"
Once they came in, they do really lame introductions (dj's fault, he made up fake facts about the wedding party). Then toasts that last forever. Then games to test how much the newly weds know about each other.
When dinner is finally served, they say that they'll do it row by row. Some how it never got to our row, so we just went to get food after waiting forever and got in trouble for it.
On the tables there were also "favors". The quotation marks because they were donations to some charity. It also happened to be one that I hate. The cause is great (diabetes research) but this particular one takes the majority of the donation and only a tiny portion goes to further the cause. H pointed out that he wouldn't notice the lack of favors but it certainly looked like they were trying to pat themselves on the back with these "favors".
Then we danced. Towards the end of the night, what else, a dollar dance. I'm actually surprised H didn't give some money (he's normally very generous). I would normally have just side eyed it. But then the FOG pressured H to do it, which made me ragey. H said he had no money. Nobody else did it either, until FOG started giving the children money to do it. TACKY!!!!!! H actually went on a long rant later. His policy was if he couldn't afford to go to Disneyland, he wasn't going to send someone else on our dime. He also mentioned that the dancing for money thing reminded him of a stripper.
Keep in mind, my husband never thinks bad of his family. And the only time that he judges anyone is if they're severely hurting other people (like abuse). But he wasn't happy with all this.
Just thought you guys would enjoy.