Trouble in Paradise
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Stolen from MM: Worst Wedding Etiquette
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"Evolutionary game theorists...ignoring beebees on the nest since 2005"
Re: Stolen from MM: Worst Wedding Etiquette
Is it really bad etiquette to not plan an entire weekend of events when people travel for your wedding? And not give them welcome gift baskets? We are planning a cookout the night before the wedding and perhaps a breakfast the morning after the wedding (depending on how many people have stayed that long), but I was not planning on providing presents to my family/friends for coming other than wedding favors. Which are nice IMO!!
One wedding we did not even get an invite to, it was FI's friend and it was very small, but it was confusing (the invite was made over a phone conversation) and I later found out that they did send out invites - we just weren't included. We did stay at their beach house for free though, which was nice.
We're going to a bar mitzvah in August and they've planned the entire weekend. I'm very "eh" about it. There will be a lot of family there and we want to see family - but we dont' really need/want everything to be a HUGE gathering. We actually purposely made plans w/ one family where it would be just us so that our boys (a month apart) could meet and hang out.
Gift baskets- 1/2 the stuff will probably go to waste anyhow. The only thing that would be nice, though, is at least a welcome letter. Giving details on what you are hosting, but then maybe just some other ideas of places to go while in town.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
That's a good idea! Most people haven't been to our area before or spent a lot of time here, so I don't want them to be wrapped up in wedding stuff if they want to go explore. That's one of the biggest reasons we chose not to have a wedding party so people didn't feel obligated to do anything but visit, enjoy the wedding and relax!
We had 2 couples not show up to our wedding. One I found out the night before. The other was MIL's BFF from like the 8th grade. I didn't even want to invite her but we did and then she didn't show.
I don't have anything that could compare to some of the stories over on MM. People are RUDE yo!
DH's cousin beat the crap out of DH's coworker at our wedding. Luckily it happened off to the side and I didn't notice any of it, DH dealt with it.
We're not white trash, I swear.
I went to a wedding where the next day, the groom had to be up at 6 to help set up for the 11am bbq they'd planned. He was in a horrible mood and I didn't blame him, since the party didn't stop from the night before until about 2am.
Aye yai yai.
lol in some families, it's not an official wedding unless someone gets beat up. Or so drunk they puke on the bride's dress (happened to a friend of mine).
I'll copy and paste from MM because I'm lazy:
This just reminds me of all the TY notes I've never received (wedding or not) and some of the faux pas I made at my own wedding (some my fault, and some I couldn't control).
I don't get some of them.
First of all, who keeps track of who didn't show? I have some very good friends who were no-shows. I still talk to them.
I was a no-show at a wedding. My boss told me I could take the day off, then changed her mind. Not to mention at the time I was just barely pregnant and puking all the time and it was a six hour drive.
Shiit happens.
Our wedding had mostly good behavior until the bus ride back to the hotel...we had paid for a luxury bus to shuttle back and forth so that our guests could come and go as they pleased - no one lived in the town where our wedding was held so everyone stayed at hotels - and one of the best men got in a screaming fight with one of the groomsmen. The groomsman was SO drunk and apparently had been needling the best man all night and finally he (the BM) just lost it. Like, screaming, in his face, calling him the dirty P word in front of H and my great aunts lost it. That was...not cool. The best man came up to me the next morning, in tears, and apologized effusively. The groomsman got on his plane the next morning and we never heard from him again.
I did make baskets for the hotel rooms - I included a welcome letter with some info about the travel arrangements for the wedding, a list of our favorite things to do in the city, and explanation of the babysitting setup for the wedding. Then we put in a couple bottles of water (hotel water is expensive, yo!), a box of nice crackers, a couple of oranges, a box of saltwater taffy (popular in the area), mints, and a few other random things like pens and paper, brochures about the city, a map of the downtown area, etc. This was all packed into a tin bucket that was seashell-themed and the hotel put the buckets into our guests rooms so they'd be there on arrival. It was really cute but I know it was also totally unnecessary...we just loved the idea and had the money to do it.
Really?? I definately kept track of the no-shows. That is the worst in my opinion. If you absolutely cannot make it, then have the decency to let the couple know ahead of time. Whether they are paying $200 per plate or $10 per plate, that's still money out of their pockets that could have been avoided if you just would have told them.
We had 150 people at our wedding and 2 couples were a no-show. The first was out professor, who's friend died that day so totally understood that one. The other one was a girlfriend of my friend's little brother. I was asked if she could be brought to the wedding (she wasn't invited) and I said yes, and then she didn't show. NOT COOL.
I was invited to a family friend's wedding and RSVPed yes. The week before the wedding I was unsuccessfully fighting off a bad cold. Two days before the wedding I called with the little voice I had left and said I couldn't come. My voice was so bad she didn't even know it was me until I repeated my name a few times.
We had a couple who was meant to be married 3 months later break up at our reception, but I didn't know about it until later. Good riddance to him. He was a dud and that was the best decision that girl ever made. She is now marrying someone else. On a Friday.
I've made so many faux pas over the years that I can't fault others too much for theirs, but I do think it is rude just not to show up when you said you would or to make people hunt you down to RSVP or whatever. Brad's family were all major diicks about that.
DL, I do think it's nice to have something the night before for OOT guests and maybe something the day of so that people have something to do and can meet and mingle before the wedding. We made info sheets on what to do in town and transport arrangements for the wedding and whatnot, but I found out later that the stupid hotel didn't pass it out until it was too late. Good thing we opted not to get them any treats!
We had two no-shows at our wedding, and I wasn't at all surprised at who it was (an uncle and his wife who didn't rsvp until my dad called them). And we did gift bags for the hotel guests, but they were small and cheap. We went to the dollar store and bought gift bags, then added a couple of bottles of water, some crackers/cheez-it/Oreos (for the drunk eating later), and directions to the venue, plus some the numbers for some cab companies.
We had one person who didn't give us a gift or a card. She also was late picking us up for our shower, and we got there 45 minutes after it started. At the wedding, she pulled me aside while I was talking to my elderly aunts to find out who she "should talk to" about the shoe she ruined when she wasn't paying attention and scraped it on a grate in the floor. Oh, and then she stalked my husband's friend's whole life after they hooked up post-wedding, including calling him at work. Yeah, we're not friends anymore.
Oh my.
My husband's friend was waaasted at our wedding, and he hit on every single woman at my wedding. Some of them while they were standing with their husbands, including my SIL. We found out the next day that when they got back to the hotel, he kept drinking. Apparently, he hit on some random guy's girlfriend right in front of him, then had words with the guy. The guy knocked on a door and like 10 guys piled out and started beating the crap out of him. He ended up with a broken nose, a cracked rib, and a busted face. His brother spent the entire night sitting in the ER with him.
I still want to know how he explained it to his wife the next day when he got home.
Is this bad etiquette?
This is from my wedding. It's something of a family tradition that my cousin's H does this. At my wedding, their 11yo son joined him in the shirtlessness.
What song does he dance to? If you guessed "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred, you'd be correct.
Yes, it is a pattern of behavior for this particular part of the family. The stories I could tell about the cousin's own wedding...
Oh! I have an interesting one.
H's dad and stepMIL did not give us a gift. Nor a card. Nothing.
I was shocked, SHOCKED. They are loaded and they spend A LOT of money on us when there is no special occasion to be had, so I was completely flabbergasted that they didn't even give us a card.
Even weirder is that a few weeks before the wedding, stepMIL was all "we got you guys SO GOOD for your wedding present!" Sometimes they say things like that and don't follow through, which I find awkward, but to say it about a wedding gift and then never do anything...it was just the weirdest thing.
I invited one of my BFFs from high school and she even called me to said she would be coming and that she was excited, etc.
And she didn't show. She was the only one I really looked for, seeing as she called me personally to say she would be there.
I get that shiit happens, but it still bums me out.
As far as bad etiquette? We didn't have any alcohol at our wedding except for champagne. Not because we didn't want to, but because we couldn't afford it.
My mom's toast to DH at our Rehearsal Dinner/BBQ.
"Most mothers want their daughters to marry a doctor or a lawyer, but you make her happy, so you'll do."
Since people may be flying and probably don't have the extra room to pack a gift basket (or check a bag) I don't think it's an issue.
I don't think you need to plan activities for guests either.....
We put a list of "attractions in the area" on our wedding website but did not "plan" any events for our OOT wedding.Most of our guests either spent their free time relaxing and enjoying their "mini vacation" or hung out with other guests or found something on the list to go to on their own (if they really wanted to do something else).
My oldest brother was a no-show at my wedding. He was too busy playing softball.
We got a lot of shi!t from several family members for not putting registry info on our invites. My mind, it was boggled.
Blog
My sil is getting married in June. The ceremony is at 11am and the reception is at 7pm. Thats how she planned it. Its not because that's the only time stuff was available. Wtf are people supposed to do for 6+ hours?
On a different note, I didn't send out thank yous until 6 months later. I was in grad school and was writing my thesis at the time. I felt bad about it, but etiquette books say you have up to a year, so I`m covered.
After reading the post on MM, don`t get why people get so butthurt over gifts though. Its rude, but who really remembers that so and so didnt give you a card?
Edited to add paragraphs. I posted from my phone, which apparently hates them.
We had a pretty packed wedding reception. We paid about $10/person for each dinner.
My in-laws' friends' kids and their kids (so we're talking 10 people) showed up uninvited to our reception and took over the table their parents were at. The waitstaff had to run in the back, yank out this old crusty table and set it up in some dark corner so the displaced 10 invited guests who now had no seat could have a place to eat. They also proceeded to eat 10 plates of food that we had to pay almost double the agreed cost for, since it was last minute and wasn't paid for ahead of time, since they weren't invited.
Not to mention not one of them bothered to say hello to us or congratulations, and although it sounds bad to say it, they didn't even give us a dang card. We paid $200 for these people's food who weren't invited (plus another fee for going over the maximum guest limit, don't remember what it was but I think it was under $150) and they couldn't even be bothered to say hello, plus we looked like a$$holes to the guests who got shoved off in a corner, although I did explain to them what happened and they all understood (and were as shocked as we were).
Seriously, I've seen them a few times over the years and I can't even look them in the eye. I was pissssssed. WTF does that? My in-laws were embarrassed, I do remember that.
At my cousin's wedding the bartender pulled me aside and told me that she saw my DS (13 yrs old at the time) staggering out of the bathroom and then saw him outside with a bottle of vodka trying to break into the gazebo which was locked. I confronted my DS, he was crying and I was confused. I checked his eyes and smelled his breath to see if I could smell alcohol. Somehow my cousin (his wedding) got involved and his wife was pissed because she thought my DS did it. My cousin figured that my DS was innocent and asked to see the security camera tape. They wouldn't let him.
The next day I called the country club where the reception was held and talked to the manager and he pretty much told me we weren't allowed back. Later that day I found out from my cousin that the person they saw doing these things was actually a friend of my cousin who happened to look very similar to my DS from a distance and he was happy to let my DS take the blame for it (he apparently admitted to doing it the next day. He thought it was funny.). The country club still insisted it was my DS. Really? You can't tell the difference between a 13 yr old and a man in his mid 20's?
My DS never got an apology from anyone for wrongly accusing him when he didn't do anything wrong.
You must be kidding. I paid $150/person for people to be at my reception. You better bet your ass I noticed who didn't show.
Oh! My co-worker told me one of the most appalling stories ever. So they got forced to invite some great aunt and uncle she'd not seen in forever. The aunt and uncle send back the RSVP card for 6 people (their two kids and their spouses). So she calls her grandmother and tells her to fix it.her grandmother calls them to explain that the invite was just for them. They say ok.
The day of the wedding, the great aunt and uncle showed up at the church, then left. Then one of the kids and their spouse showed up at the cocktail reception, and left. At dinner, the other kid and spouse show up for dinner. They took shifts! I can't even imagine being that ballsy.