I agree with a lot of what’s been said. It’s been a little disturbing to hear some of the comments people make to the bride assuming she is doing/feeling certain things. My wedding is in November and already people are coming up to be with sympathetic eyes saying “Oh you must be so stressed out!”
Why should I be? We’re having a party! I’m excited to have a party! My family and his family are going to share a meal and meet each other and we will all have a great time celebrating several generations of love and commitment. I love that idea!
People are also asking me about my budget. Hello? Tacky anyone? It’s not your business how much my dress cost, it’s a dress for pete’s sake.
It’s as if people assume that I’m some basket case who must be freaking about about mothers in law, dress fittings and flowers. Hell no! I’m having a great time tasting cakes, anticipating the grand party with my future husband, and generally re-connecting with old friends as I get their advice and suggestions. This wedding planning has been fun and fairly stress free–mostly because I refuse to take something as silly as linens deadly seriously.
I went into this thinking ‘low-stress-high-fun’ and it’s working out great so far. I want to have a day to celebrate love and the lessons our parents instilled in us about how to create lasting marriages and to just plain throw a fun party. It shouldn’t be more complex than that.
The wedding reception is a chance for everyone to enjoy a party to celebrate a happy occasion. If the bride and groom cared only about themselves they could have a private party. At the same time, they should only feel compelled to invite and celebrate with those they love, not the whole community.
So, I agree with you about being sure the guests are happy, but I can’t agree with this:
If the bride and groom are morally opposed to meat, I wouldn’t expect them to relax that for a party, just because they themselves won’t be eating meat. They would be contributing to something they think is morally wrong and no one should ask that of them. No one died from not getting rubber chicken at one wedding.
I think many Americans are extremely selfish towards their children, and sadly are raising children selfish towards them. I think the “You’re a grown up, don’t look to me for help!” attitude is breeding the same kids who think, “Mom’ll have to go in a home, it would just be too inconvenient to have her here.” Popular culture feeds this, too. It’s all about “ME”. Wedding culture is just a shining example.
In general, American households haven’t been three-generation for about 50 years.
This whole debate really centers around the word “primarily.” It’s the couple getting married, and so I think it has to be primarily their event. It’s something they are choosing to celebrate with those close to them. I have never planned a wedding, but I doubt it can be done without considering the needs of the people in attendance. There’s no strict dichotomy and I’m not sure how much difference it makes.
I don’t think vegetarians should feel obligated to serve meat at their wedding reception. Nor should people who keep kosher feel obligated to serve non-kosher food, nor should people who don’t believe in drinking alcohol be obligated to have alcoholic drinks available for guests, nor should atheists be obliged to have a priest, minister, or rabbi (or whatever) perform their wedding. Polite guests should not complain about this sort of thing- if they want meat, alcohol, or whatever, they can go somewhere after the reception and get it. If they feel a need to pray for the couple, they can do it silently on their own or go to their church or temple (or whatever) some other time and do it.
But you should obviously take into account what your guests would enjoy when planning a wedding (or any other party). Don’t have your wedding in costume at a renaissance faire if a lot of your family and friends aren’t comfortable with dressing in costume. Don’t play music at the ceremony or reception that you know is going to offend some of your guests.
There’s a middle ground somewhere in here.
That’s certainly what we did, and our wedding turned out well. It wasn’t anybody’s perfect day, something was different from the “perfect wedding” for everybody there, but it went OK.
My parents raised me and paid for an education so that I would be an independent person, and not have to ask them for anything else. They felt this was their responsibility for having brought me into the world. I owe them nothing. I happen to like my parents, or at least Mom, and I would do what I can out of friendship. But I don’t consider it selfish to not take my parents in.
I was speaking in more general terms. Simple stuff like making sure there is enough food, enough variety of food, enough to drink, the seats are comfy, the seating arrangements are well thought out and the day flows at a good pace with your guests looked after at all times. No long delays between ceremony, reception, speeches etc where guests might be left twiddling their thumbs. What you do style and culture-wise is up to you.
There’s an art to being a good guest too. If your hosts are vegetarian Mennonites, don’t expect red wine and steak.
Unfortunately, wedding culture in the States has primarily turned into an excuse for unbridled attention whoring by the bride. The bridal industry is probably largely to blame for this, but the media doesn’t help either by placing way too much importance on wedding ceremonies and not enough on marriages.
Weddings should be about the guests. It is a party for the guests, not the couple.
It is a pernicious canard that “your wedding day is the most important day of your life.” It is not. The decision to get married is important. The ceremony is not. The wedding day is the least important day of a marriage.
My wedding day has, so far, been the worst day of my marriage, not the best (I don’t enjoy being the center of attention and having everybody watch me). I hope that’s always the case. At other people’s weddings, I tell them that, and tell them I hope for the same for them.
I mean this quite sincerely, so please, please, please don’t take this the wrong way (seriously, I know I have a way of coming across as more hostile than I intend. I think you’re good people, I promise).
If you hate being the center of attention, why on earth would you have a wedding ceremony? I’m sure the answer will be “for the guests”, which is fine of course. But I imagine that your guests were folks that know you well and care about you (hence their presence), so wouldn’t they rather you be happy and comfortable? I mean, I imagine you’re close with them, so surely they’d know your particular thing about being in the spotlight.
How is it reasonable to make yourself horribly miserable-- better yet, for them to expect you to to be miserable (worst day of your marriage, you even say) for the entertainment of others?
I’m not sure whether I should post this in this tread of the destination wedding tread; it applies to either.
Do all of you who think weddings should be about what the guests want instead of what the couple wants think it’s rude when people get married at the courthouse and don’t have a reception? Are people allowed to get married because they want to or is the only purpose to have a big party (where half the people are only there because they feel like they have to be)?
Because people call you selfish if you want to elope. You’re selfish if you want it to be just you, your spouse-to-be, and the officiant and witnesses. You’re breaking your dear gramma’s heart if you don’t haul out the whole dog-and-pony show and put on the stupid white poofy dress and parade down the freaking aisle in front of every relative and friend on both sides, not to mention those friends of your mother who you’ve barely met, and your future father-in-law’s business associates.
Years ago, my husband (boyfriend back then) and I went to St. Thomas as the only guests, as well as being the maid of honor and best man, of two dear friends of ours when they got married there. Before we left, my then-future-FIL told my husband that he would be disowned - not just in terms of an inheritance, but also in him being welcome in the family - if he did the same thing for our marriage.
I hated planning our wedding, but we were paying for it, so that was our responsibility - plus I could at least make it as manageable as possible. Hated finding a caterer and haggling over all the little details. I got a dress off the rack from a non-wedding collection and didn’t get it tailored. I did my own makeup at home that morning and just pulled my hair up. I picked the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah as the recessional march because I knew I’d be really freaking glad it was over. If I had to do it over again, I’d ask my husband if he minded being disowned.
As has been mentioned already, I totally disagree with this. I’m a vegetarian and it would RUIN my wedding for me if there was meat there. It would horrify me that animals were killed for my wedding. I can’t even express to you how that would devastate me–I’d probably want to leave and just go cry somewhere rather than participate. In most situations I don’t care if those around me eat meat (hell, my boyfriend is not a vegetarian), but not when it’s the meal to celebrate my wedding, for pete’s sake!! Animal welfare is HUGELY important to me. Why would I allow what I see as murder to play a part in my wedding celebration?
Now I’m not saying that I’d serve a bunch of “weird vegetarian food” at the reception, but I’d pick food options that happened to be vegetarian. Broccoli quiche… cheese tortellini… vegetable lasagna… the options are endless and chances are the guests wouldn’t even notice that it was all vegetarian.
All that stuff sounds disgusting to me, and yes, I would notice.
Basically, you would be showing a contemptuous disregard for the preferences of your guests in order to impose your own santimonious morality on them. If you’re not willing to serve people something they want to eat, don’t invite them to dinner. That’s incredibly rude on your part.
I don’t think it’s rude. There is no obligation to throw a party, but if you ARE going to thrwo a party, then it has to be about the guests, not about you.
That doesn’t make sense. If I go to someone’s house for dinner, do I have a right to get upset that I wasn’t served steak and lobster? Hell no. I eat what they give me and shut my trap, provided it doesn’t violate any allergies or moral/religious beliefs. I fail to see why a wedding should be any different. Yes, the couple should try to be accomodating as much as possible, but the bottom line is that if the bride and groom are paying, they have every right to say what goes.
And anyone who can’t get through one lousy meal without eating meat has serious problems.
Would you say the same thing if the couple were doing so for religious reasons and a portion of the guests did not follow these religious dietary restrictions? If not, then why the hysteria over a deeply held conviction about certain types of food? I’d be more than happy to have a change in food from the rubber chicken or overcooked piece of beef with soggy vegetables and stale dinner rolls that are so common at weddings. :rolleyes:
There’s a distinction between what you “have the right” to do and what it is polite to do. You may have the “right” to invite people to dinner and then refuse to serve them anything but rabbit food, but that doesn’t mean it’s a polite thing to do and it would make you an ungracious host.
Right back at you. Anyone who can’t stand to serve a little meat to their guests (or maybe even just STFU and eat a hamburger once in a while) has serious problems. I find ethical vegetarianism to be naive at best (do you know how many animals get killed to harvest a field of lettuce or soybeans?) and annoyingly self-righteous at worst.
I say that as somebody who went through a vegan stage at the height of my youthful, hippie radicalism. It didn’t feel natural, I was always inconveniencing people, I felt hungry all the time and I wasn’t really saving any animals. It was all just fashion and grandstanding. I grew out of it.
No shit. My vegetarian cousin and his bride put on a lovely, elegant mid-afternoon hors d’oeuvre buffet, all gourmet vegetarian items and even some smoked salmon for the carnivores. But all my crass aunts and uncles could do was whine about how there was “nothing to eat” :rolleyes:, and one uncle invited everybody over to his place for burgers so no one would starve. Hello, it wasn’t intended as a meal (note the time of day), and if you can’t have a non-meat snack without whining, there’s no hope for you.
(There was, however, that much more of the lovely eats for Mr. S and me! :D)
