My SO is a lovable guy, friends with everybody, jovial, gregarious, and loves to have fun on the dance floor. After I was introduced to you as his serious girlfriend and that was made clear, I’ve got no problem with you getting down along with him out there under the disco lights. That’s perfectly cool. But here’s what you can’t do, as a matter of etiquette (IMHO):
Try to monopolize his time on the dance floor
Throw your arms around him
Try to kiss him
Back off, wouldya? It’s not in good form. Go dance with your friends some, or find a single guy to mack on. But get yourself out of the immediate personal space of my man.
She was young and drunk and clearly unversed in the etiquette of behavior in the presence of a taken man, and my SO happened to be the father of the groom, so I wasn’t going to cause any drama by calling her out on her inappropriate behavior. He avoided her as much as possible, and it was what it was. But damn did I want to revert back to my college self and have a good, old-fashioned catfight!
Anybody have any bad wedding behavior stories to share?
Well, an obvious one that comes to mind for me is the “relative/friend who must be invited, even though they are a jerk”. In this case, the best friend of the bride did not get along with the sister of the bride, but both were bridesmaids. Everyone knew they didn’t like each other, and both were warned to be on their best behavior, but naturally they had to get into it at the wedding and had a screaming match in the bathroom that almost came to blows which had to be broken up by the groom.
Really? Both of you thought that was a good idea? You couldn’t put your damned differences aside, or at least avoid each other all night to prevent making a scene? Apparently not. Now whenever anyone talks about their wedding, it’s always remembered as the “one where the bridesmaids almost beat the shit out of each other”, instead of the otherwise nice occasion it was. I’m amazed that there are adults who seem to pick fights wherever they go, and don’t feel at all bad about the consequences when it happens. Equally fun is the asshole with a chip on his shoulder who turns normal chit chat at a wedding into a personal crusade and can’t wait to attack other guests because they don’t have the same religious beliefs, vote the same, support the same causes, etc. as they do.
Our wedding started half an hour late because my sister (who was not in the tiny wedding party) and her husband were a half hour late. We had a very small wedding (about 20 guests), so we didn’t want to start without immediate family all being there. Nothing like standing around waiting for half an hour when you’re already incredibly nervous!
I used to be a security guard at a banquet hall in LaGrange, IL - the stuff I’ve seen at wedding receptions?? The fights? The drunken behavior? Oh Good Lord! Why do you think I got married this time in a courthouse?
Ha, a young one did this to my dad one time at a wedding. My mam was a bit pissed off or more just thought it was bizarre. However, the young one is at other family weddings and keeps apologising to my mother about it. My dad has been dead for 6 years.
A very hot groomsman with a very shiny, thick wedding band tried to do the same thing to me last weekend. After realizing it wasn’t a coincidence, I asked him point blank where his wife was and he responded that she was at home taking care of their toddler :smack: I get that you’re probably up to your ears in baby shit and nagging and unfulfilled dreams and that this is your one night to let loose but please, you made your bed and now you gotta lie in it.
The girls shrieking before the bouquet toss. It’s so incredibly tacky.
The drunken fat and/or balding guys trying to grind on poor girls.
Ahh, I always detest the MC/DJ/Officiant. One of the three (or two) of them is always so awkward and invasive. Feels terribly out of place.
Also, if your wedding has more than 75 people, you need two bar areas. Even if it’s just two card tables, one with a bucket for tips and beers and the other with wines and hard liquors and mixers, you need two areas so people don’t waste time standing in lines at the one bar.
My dad and his brother almost came to blows at my sister’s wedding. Uncle was late getting to the ceremony because he went to the wrong church.
Somehow Uncle got it in his head that the ceremony was at the same church that Mom and Dad were married at instead of the church we attended at the time.
Even though the name and address of the church was clearly printed in the invitations. And we put maps showing exactly where the church was in the invitations.
Uncle was shouting at Dad in the church lobby, Dad was trying to walk away. Mom’s brother (a very large man) appeared and ordered Uncle to shut up or leave. Uncle still doesn’t think he was in the wrong.
Not sure I could have handled that as well as you did, I would’ve gone after the girl! My brother is getting married next year and I’m just waiting to see what that reception is like as there are crazies in both families.
Why are you so het up about it? look, either your guy will laff it off (in which case nothing is lost) or he will go for her, in which case you are better off without him.
Well, there was my cousin’s stepdaughter’s wedding. Stepdaugher and her bridegroom had two children together.
My husband and I were sitting at a family table with another cousin and some other relatives. A boyfriend of one of the bridesmaids, who clearly had been to the bar one too many times, came over and struck up a conversation with my husband. The topic he chose was the alleged paternity of the happy couple’s children.
My husband said “Are you sure I’m the person you should be discussing this with?”
At my friend’s wedding, one of the bridesmaids brought a date she had just picked up off the side of the road – literally. Some strange guy’s car had broken down and she stopped to see if he needed help, decided he looked like good times and brought him to the traditional fancy wedding in his jeans and flannel shirt. I won’t say there was anything wrong with him (he didn’t start a fight or get obnoxiously drunk) but it was amusingly memorable as a breach of standard wedding protocol.
In college I was an on-call bartender for a reception hall and worked a lot of weddings. It’s quite fun to attend a wedding reception as a disinterested party!
I didn’t see many fights, but I will say that weddings tend to bring out the, shall we say, romantic side in people.
Call me an old-fashioned stodgy, kind Sir, uncle of the bride, but I feel strongly that pants that are worn on to the dance floor should remain steadfastly attached to the person on whom they are worn. They should not be undone or removed barring a medical emergency upon their wearer regardless of the wearer’s intense love of a particular song.
I must insist that goes for both your shirts as well.
