Where are you? chembug and I recently drove ten hours to a wedding reception in Kentucky, where were served … meatballs. Seriously. Also, little finger sandwiches that consisted of ham or turkey on a White-Castle-sized hamburger bun, with no condiments whatever.
Apparently this is typical for a “Southern” wedding, but since the groom’s family is ENTIRELY from Pennsylvania, shouldn’t they have WARNED us Northerners that we were supposed to eat before the reception? Maybe I am at fault here, but “Reception at 7PM” usually means there will be something resembling a meal. Doesn’t it?
Anyway … after all that (thank Og the Steak N Shake is open 24 hours), we’d be willing to come out for all the ice cream we can eat. At least we’d KNOW what we’d be getting ourselves into. I’ll bring plenty of singles for the “dollar disco” and my World Famous Chicken Dance Shoes!!
If you hadn’t said Kentucky, I’d think you were my best friend, who recently attended a wedding with a 7 pm reception, and said that there was one plate of food for the entire group, and then a station for pasta, which was served on salad plates.
Apparently the booze was flowing freely, however, and since she didn’t get enough to eat, my friend woke up the next morning, still wearing her dress (her husband hadn’t been able to figure out how to get it off of her, since she’d rigged herself up with safety pins to prevent bra peekage.
Anyway, we’re in Kansas . . .
. . . but as I said, Skip put the kibosh on the reception his parents wanted to host. He said it was because he felt they’d done so much for us already (can’t argue with that), and that he didn’t feel right having them pay for a reception as well.
But now I know that it’s really about the ice cream and the chicken dance.
At any rate, we’ll still buy you ice cream if you come. We’ll just have to make 2 stops–one at the DQ for Skip, and one for us trashy BR folks.
It is indeed common for weddings in the Kentucky/Tennessee area to feature heavy hors d’oerves, although they’re not normally held around dinner time. Mid-to-late afternoon is more common. If they are held near a meal-time, there’s usually plenty of that food to make a meal from.
This is more casual, easier to set up, and a hell of a lot less expensive than the dinner-dance with live band, seating chart, and place cards that seems to be de riguer in the North. That’s why weddings in New York run $30K and take 2-4 years to plan, while weddings at home run about $5K for the same number of people and are usually planned in a year or less.
Oh, and FYI, those were sausage balls. They’re pretty standard appetizer/hors d’oerves around home. Don’t tell me you heathen Yankees have spent your lives being deprived of sausage balls on little toothpicks! :eek:
(And, of course, the fact that the groom’s family was not considerate enough to warn you that the wedding wouldn’t be what you were used to is just further proof that them thar Yankees ain’t got no raisin’ at all. )
And I think what you may have had were ham biscuits. A good salty ham on small rolls, no condiments. Sounds pretty normal, although I see where this could seem odd to a yankee.
CrazyCatLady, do you serve your sausage balls with a little sauce made of currant jelly and mustard?
They were probably country ham biscuits, to boot, and only a Yankee would ever dream of polluting a good country ham bicuit with any type of condiment.
I’ve never made sausage balls myself (never had occasion to, my aunts have always made them for family gatherings), but the only sauce I remember having with them was grease. There’s a reason these only come out at big family gatherings, after all.
Of course, the line between perfectly normal tradition and utter tackiness is always a fine one, drawn in the eyes of the beholder. The whole garter thing is pretty traditional, and nobody thinks much of it. But, as I pointed out to someone looking for a song to play during the garter toss (she was afraid “The Stripper” would make it seem trashy), you’re letting a man run his hand up your skirt in front of an audience, pull off part of your underwear and throw said underwear into a crowd of his friends, and you’re worried about some music making it seem trashy? Um, okay.
I don’t know what she finally decided on. It was on the UltimateWedding boards. I do know she wasn’t all that impressed with my take on the situation, though.
And when the hell is someone going to tell me what a Flying Dutchman is? The longer you guys put it off, the worse my mental pictures get, you know.
CCL, I have never heard of the Flying Dutchman, but I bet it’s something my family does without even knowing it.
Skip - what is the carnfounded Flying Dutchman, huh? Cite?
And for whatever it’s worth, at our wedding, when we did the garter toss, etc., our DJ played “Hot Stuff,” which if you ask me is just the bee’s knees. But then again, I am also very in touch with my inner slut.
I think I remember somebody saying they were sausage balls, now that you mention it. Do they always come in BBQ sauce? Here up North, if we eat any kind of sausage on a toothpick, it’s usually “summer sausage,” a/k/a Lebanon bologna, which is a whole 'nother thing.
FWIW, I have no idea what the Flying Dutchman is, either. But I’m hoping that Skip posts the answer here, instead of giving me a demonstration of it this weekend.
Well congratulations to the two of you! If there’s ever another Doperfest here in the Land of Oz let me know and I’ll buy you guys a drink… or two or three or four!!
OK, after all of the lamenting over the poor choice of wedding invitations, what is a good way to do this??
My SO and I are in our mid 30s. We have been living together for 10+ years and are (happily) monitarily fine.
We have been tossing around the idea of getting married, and I’m sure our friends and family won’t let us get away with a Vegas trip. (besides, I was want to throw a back yard bash with catered chili and rootbeer floats.)
We don’t need towel/sheet/ silverware. I would have no idea what to do with an engraved silver serving tray.
Here is the idea we had: Find a tactfull way to tell people they don’t need to bring gifts, but if they feel they HAVE to give something, here are 2 or 3 charities we would love to support.
At least for me, how to do this is one of the reasons we haven’t tied the knot yet.
The proper way to handle this is just like the proper way to handle a registry: wait until someone asks you what you’d like or where you registered, then say, “Oh, we don’t really want or need anything. But if you really want to do something to commemmorate our wedding, here are a few charities we’d really like to support more.”
