Yep, this strikes me as something a child would do.
I wonder what the guests would have to wear.
Not always bots; there is, for example, the saga of Jorts (and Jean):
Now with 223K followers on Twitter.
ETA: The comments are hilarious; the update is even funnier than the original AITA.
ETA2: Leading after the update to the immortal comment: “i can’t believe she fuckin buttered jorts.”
Depends on the wedding - I’ve been to plenty of weddings that probably didn’t need rehearsals, but people tend to need at least one dry run on the processional, if it’s a religious ceremony some of the participants may not be familiar with it or their part in it ( I wouldn’t want to do a reading at a wedding without practicing it, including getting to the lectern ). For example, I got married in a Catholic ceremony but my husband was unbaptized. Because of this , our ceremony was slightly different than the other Catholic weddings I attended and his relatives who were in the bridal party had most likely never seen a Catholic ceremony of any sort. I’ve never seen a bride and groom read from anything at a Catholic wedding so they actually do have to memorize their part and it’s always easier to participate in a ceremony when you know what’s coming next which some of the bridal party may not know. The rehearsal only takes about an hour or so - you might as well have every there so you people don’t have people walking too fast/slow up the aisle during the processional , sitting when they should be standing and so on.
( Funny thing - the only person who flubbed a line at my wedding was the priest . He left out the word “in” so he had me marrying Christ)
…Is there really ANY difference between asking guests to wear blue and asking for formal attire other than one is more of a common concept. Hell, the formal attire request is FAR more burdensome than the other. But one is “reasonable”? Nah.
That doesn’t add up.
Also… a nudist wedding is a great example. Noone but the pettiest of persons would think you’re an asshole for not attending that. And only the pettiest person would think your relative is an asshole
for having the wedding they want.
Never been in a weddng party before, huh?
There’s a lot of choreography that goes on with most weddings–where to stand, when things need to happen, music cues, etc.
Pretty much. There’s much ado about nothing here. Perhaps some weddings the bride and groom are a bunch of self-absorbed Aholes. That happens. Don’t mistake that for the norm. I’m in the industry, as I said, and of the 400-500-ish weddings I’ve worked, I can’t think of a single one where I got a sense of “it’s all about me! It’s all about us!” I could very well be lucky, but I doubt it. I get a sense of a bit of strawmanning going on here. There’s no generational divide I see, no extra focus on “memememe” these days, just the usual media bullshit to make us feel better because WE were such good brides and grooms in our day but THESE clueless self-absorbed fuckers are just THE WORST. It’s horseshit.
I really just wondered if these were real things and/or common. I’ve gotten my answers from folks who appear to have experience. I really wasn’t trying to do the “back in my day blah blah”. I do feel that your guests at your wedding (and this includes the reception) should be treated like guests and not props. I think a costume wedding is cool though I don’t think if you really want someone there you should demand that they dress in costume. That’s just my opinion.
I don’t think it’s a generational thing. If these things happen, and I have only one personal anecdote that they do, I just think it’s sort of rude. I’m more than sure that someone “back in the day” would have done this stuff if they’d thought of it.
I was going to respond to some other posts, but it occurs to me that my issue is really with the whole framing itself. AITA is framed as a place to judge people. So, yeah, of course people are going to be judged. In that context, it makes sense.
But, in general, I’d say the principle is “live and let live.” Maybe these people will have a wedding in a way you don’t like, or that your cultural understanding is rude. But if the guests don’t think that way, then it really doesn’t matter.
This all seems to be about cultural expectations. And the guests are likely to have similar cultural expectations to those who they invite. Thus they are likely to find whatever is asked to be reasonable to ask. The exception would be the type of wedding that invites everyone interested. But, at that point, I do think it makes sense to argue they can just decide not to come if they don’t want to meet the expectations. (Or they can just meet them anyways, even though they’d prefer not to.)
I would also note that I consider bridezillas something completely separate. The image there is of the bride acting like some sort of giant monster terrorizing a city. She’s not just impolite or asking for unreasonable things, but getting very upset and being mean and hateful.
That’s where I would feel comfortable judging if she was an asshole. And, even then, I’d acknowledge that stress can make people who are ordinarily good wind up temporary assholes.
I’m wondering if the people who think it’s fine to ask the guests to wear steampunk, or whatever (and no offense to any of you), perhaps think of more traditional formal wedding attire – suits and ties, long dresses, polished shoes, etc. – as a special costume in itself. So, perhaps, they think, what’s the difference?
If I have a traditional, old-school wedding, and I’m implicitly or explicitly asking the guests to wear their best appropriately formal clothes, then for some people, depending on my guest list, I’m very much asking them to wear a special costume. From there, for different styles of weddings, we’re only talking about exchanging one costume for another.
I’ve gotten married, if that helps.
Before the wedding we gave the DJ a list of our song cues, both during the ceremony and during the party, and made sure he had them all (this was during CD days). We also spoke with the rabbi ahead of time to make sure we were on the same page about the ceremony. As for ourselves, all we had to do was walk down the aisle, repeat what the rabbi said, and break a glass. What’s there to rehearse? People stood where they stood. Everything went fine, but if something had gone wrong we’d have laughed and moved on.
I’ve written and performed seven ceremonies in my life (the only couple not still together are dead. They were in their 90s and in poor health when I did their wedding18 years ago). I’m not a pro.
After each wedding I’ve done, I’ve sworn I’d never do another.
…do you understand that your single personal and very specific instance is not indicative of what most people experience?
I understand why a rehearsal wasn’t necessary for your ceremony - but surely you can understand that other people have different ceremonies, some of which are much more complicated than yours. Ceremonies that take place at a different location from the party portion which requires both a processional and a recessional, possibly a receiving line, an organist and singer providing music rather than a DJ , a ritual that involves more than walking down the aisle and repeating what the officiant says , singers and readers who do not do weddings professionally ( maybe I’m having my cousin sing). Will guests seat themselves or will ushers seat them? Either way , will the mothers of the bride and groom be seated by ushers - and which usher will seat which mother? Do they know that the bride’s mother is seated last, just before the processional starts ?
We had a rehearsal and a rehearsal dinner. We had a lot of bridesmaids/groomsmen yadda yadda. I wouldn’t have had that many in retrospect. I also had to threaten the creeptastic minister with not repeating the vows if he said “obey”. Long story. We needed a rehearsal and the dinner was at a small local diner.
Often the “rehearsal” dinner is a meal/get together the night before for the wedding party and maybe out of town family. That’s what mine was. The actual rehearsal was a quick run through a couple of hours before the ceremony.
No, but it’s typical of the vast majority of weddings I’ve been to.
Please understand: I wasn’t being sarcastic or rhetorical - when I asked “What’s to rehearse?”, I genuinely wanted to know. @doreen gave me a good answer.
Have you ever been to a mixed marriage wedding?
Depends - Does Sephardic/Ashkenazic count?*
(*) It doesn’t.
LOL. No. Just wonderin’.