Wedding Etiquette Dilemna

But doesn't the bride have to be a willing participant to those "fantasies?"

 

Yeah, but the Dan Band (from Old School) doesn't actually play weddings so our dreams are shot down from the start.

 

The guys have bachelor party fantasies.

 

LOL yeah, right. Does it involve strippers?


Venus/Mars

 

ballscribe, are you kidding? my and my wife's family has problems but when i hear stuff like this, i thank god that we don't have anyone that fucked up. all of our family members at least have a basic capacity for rational thinking and being somewhat reasonable.

no offense to your cousins-in-law but having the gall to ask if your kids can bring dates is beyond the pale. unless she called and prefaced it with something like 'i know this is gonna sound weird and i'd be eternally grateful if you let us do this," this family is the poster-family for selfish assholes.

 

There's an element to the size/wedding discussion that has been left out so far.

If you are like me, and you marry the oldest daughter in her generation, in a gigantic Catholic family full of daughters, you will have a humongous church wedding and gigantic reception, and you'll like it. (And I did.) And the parents likely will pay for the whole thing. (And they did.)

 

Ironically, my spouse and I were just watching videos (official, my dad's version and my uncle's version) of our wedding a few days ago.

We got married six years ago and I believe my parents told me the tab for the whole weekend - wedding, rehearsel dinner and party Friday night - was about $40,000. But I have a huge family. There were 200 people from my family at the wedding.

Also, I guess traditions vary by family or region, but, with my family, we have a long-established tradition that out of town guests get invited to the rehearsel dinner. Is that just a thing my family does or do other SportsJournalists.commers do that/have heard of that being done?

As for a cash bar, I'll admit we're not big drinkers in my family, but that's something we'd never consider. I understand there are finances involved. But this was how such a thing was explained to me. It's almost like charging your guests for admission. You just don't invite people to something and then have them pony up money. If finances are a consideration, then, as was mentioned earlier, just go with beer and wine. Or cut in other areas. But a cash bar is just tacky.

As an aside, I know there are different wedding traditions in different regions, but I also think the Midwest tradition of the dollar dance is extremely tacky, worse than the cash bar. It's like just flat out begging for money to "help the young couple starting out." Ack!

Getting back to the original thread, it's been six years, but I think we made the effort for most single people to find out who they were dating at the time and invited them directly. (In wedding etiquette, I think that's better than just the + guest.) I know we did for people in the wedding party and close relatives. But I was fortunate in that my parents were in a position to let me do that. Certainly guests shouldn't be expecting or demanding that.

One quick comment on seating charts: I am so glad that Southern tradition dictates that weddings are buffet style, which means no seating chart. Plus, having been to non-Southern weddings with sit down dinners, I just honestly thing Southern weddings are more fun. You can mingle more and it's a more casual athmosphere.

 

Compared to what a lot of my friends went through, my issues were relatively minor. Oh, other than the fact that one particular cousin, who made my husband's life hell through his early childhood and scarred him for life, was NOT invited. My mother-in-law was appalled: all the cousins had to be invited. I mean, what would she tell her sister?

This discussion happened at the dinner table with my parents; the two sets were really meeting formally for the first time even though their kids had been going out together for 8 years. So ballscribe tells mom-in-law that if she has an issue telling her sister why the SOB wasn't invited, I'd be quite happy to phone her myself and not only that, outline exactly the reasons why and spill all the stupid dysfunctional family secrets. Having had a few Scotches, she started crying. My parents just looked at each other and said, man, we are SO normal.

But, as I said, few quibbles. I was on the road; my dad and my husband (who were the ones who really wanted the whole production, not my mother or I) did pretty much everything.
All I did was the table placement, the bridal bouquets, and organized the extremely expensive designer ballscribe bridesbabe dresses (which had to be that way, because we had 10 days between the end of the season and the wedding and there was no time for design or fittings or whatever else bridesbabes go through - and yes, I paid for them all. Each cost more than my own dress). And then, I showed up on the right day, sober, with big hair.

The rest was done. There was a gospel choir at the church beltin' it out, because the hubby had always wanted that. And people still talk, nearly 8 years later, about what a blast they had.

I, of course, claim all the credit now.

 

I've always thought it was a bit presumptuous to bring a "date," rather than a "significant other." And frankly, bringing the significant other is a slippery slope, too, unless the topic already has been discussed.

 

I went to a wedding with an ex when we were dating. Well, I went to a reception. We went to the wrong place for the wedding and missed his friends' ceremony.

But I went to the reception, never thought it signaled anything about our future, never even crossed my mind. It's someone ELSE'S wedding.

 

You guys are crazy.
If your invitation says you can bring a date, and you are seeing someone, you bring her. Something happens to a single girl at a wedding. Guaranteed night of fun.

 

Correct. Many of them driven the jealousy.