You’re kidding, right?
Copying traditions from other countries that you have no idea what they mean or where they came from but hey, you saw it on TV. May as well get a Buddhist wedding since you’re at it… what do you mean, you’re both Catholic? Well, you’re also from Spain so FFS why are you quoting me your reason to wear a blue garter that isn’t supporting anything… in freaking English?
That would be pretty much impossible to do in countries where people live in flats… I can see your point, though. A couple times I’ve seen “morning weddings” get kicked out of the restaurant because the afternoon wedding had arrived.
I hate the whole stupid thing. I hate having to take time off work or use up my weekend day. I hate sitting with people I barely know. I hate the creep borderline incestuos daddy/daughter dance thing. I hate the Barbie Dream Wedding whitebread cheesy just like everyone else’s wedding vibe. I hate the crappy food. I hate how there is always an unmarried, but wants to be married friend of the bride who is jealous with a stink up her ass telling people to dance.
I hate that people are spending thousands of dollars on crap. II hate how people say they just want to have a big party for all their friends (a lie). I hate the bride thinking that somehow this event allows her to act like a total jerk. I hate being invited. I hate having to go. I hate looking at the pictures afterwards. I hate listening to the reading from some crappy book by a friend (I’m going to make my bestman read from The Naked Lunch). I hate how sad and desparate the whole thing looks.
I hate the whole tacky mess.
Good lord, that sounds nightmarish. It’s a wedding, not a kegger. Maybe it’s just me (and the fact that I’m old!), but the last thing on earth I’d want is 100 people invading my home, with no intention of leaving until their hangovers subside.
Booking a block of rooms for guests at a hotel provides people who wish to party all night the opportunity, *and * allows people to escape to their rooms when they’ve had enough. It also means that the hotel gets to clean up after the “pajama party”.
madmonk28, I went to two weddings, a year apart, for two sisters. They were exactly the same. Same venues, same ceremonies, same receptions, same bridal party, same guests. The only thing different was the dresses. I think they should have just held out for a double wedding. Of course, then each girl wouldn’t get “her own” special day. :rolleyes:
This is more or less what I was going to say. I hate the one-size-fits-all off-the-shelf streamlined indutrialised schtick.
And since when were fireworks part of a traditional English wedding?
From Miss Manners’s book on weddings (paraphrased):
What should the bride and groom do the night before the wedding?
Oh, quit your giggling. Nowadays, the bride and groom isn’t doing anything like that the night of the wedding, if Miss Manners’s mail is any indication. The bride and groom will stay at the wedding party for as long as someone is there to entertain them.
Worse than the open bar or the closed bar is the cash bar. Tackiest thing evah. :rolleyes:
Seriously. If I couldn’t afford an open bar, I’d skip the whole thing. IMO it’s an insult to your guests to invite them to a party to which they’re expected to bring gifts, and then charge them for booze. Again, it’s a wedding, not a kegger. It should not be BYOB.
I’ve thankfully never been to a wedding where cake was smashed on anyone’s face, but I’d probably leave the room or hide my eyes rather than witness such a spectacle.
Christian wedding ceremonies where the minister feels compelled to insult gay people and/or opine about how wonderful it is that only straight people can get married. I’ve never actually walked out of someone’s wedding but I’ve come close.
Buffets. I hate them in general, not just at weddings. If you’re going to serve me the food, than serve me the food, goddamnit. If I want to get up and prepare a plate for myself, I’ll do it at home, where I don’t have to wait in line.
Large wedding parties. To each their own, but I find it annoying when someone just has to have their 29 closest buddies (“I love you, man!”) up there with them. My wife and I had a bridal party of four, all family members, and that was just fine.
Custom vows. There’s a reason the traditional vows are traditional: they’re lovely, concise, and relevant. It’s quite unlikely that schmaltzy crap you wrote is an improvement. Side story: When my wife were going through our Catholic wedding preparations, there was another couple who suddenly got pissed when they realized that they couldn’t use the custom vows they’d prepared (including parts for the priest to say). Seque into…
People who want to get married in a church because it’s a pretty building, even though the actual religious tradition doesn’t mean a thing to them.
I hate this:
My Beloved is like a gazelle, like a young stag.
HE IS!!??
You mean that schlubby 30 year old guy with the bald spot who sits on his couch all day watching football and playing video games? He’s like a young stag?
I don’t think I’ve encountered this at any of the weddings I’ve attended or participated in - can someone please explain?
It’s just a Saturday to your guests. I mean that with love. Your “special day” is an inconvenience to your guests, who’d rather be doing other things. Not that we aren’t happy for you, but, you don’t get the entirety of my day. Also, you don’t get the evening before, or the day after, to do whatever, without advance notice. I’m a busy guy, really. I can’t just drop everything at the last minute to go to the rehersal dinner when you can’t be bothered to tell me about it until I ask the Sunday before the Friday dinner, just to pick a random example…
I can’t stand when people from the “marrying families” or their parties (bride, groom, future in-laws, bridesmaids, etc) treat the wedding as an EVENT rather than a profession of love and commitment between the ones actually being married.
Or the bride and groom treating their wedding as a “money making” event.
Truthfully, one soon-to-be-married couple actually said to GrizzWife and me that “we’re barely going to break even on the wedding”.
Buffets, and I’ll tell you why.
Most wedding buffets get called by table, one table at a time, since 100+ people all running for the buffet at once would be chaos. Let’s say you have 12 tables. By the time table 12 gets up to get food, table 1 is done eating and waiting for things to start. No matter what, most of the tables are going to be sitting there waiting to eat, or waiting for others to finish. That, or the table 12 schmucks are still eating when everyone else is up and mingling/dancing already.
It’s not a problem if you have a smaller wedding, or something like a casual outdoor bbq where food is going to be served all night, but for a bigger and/or more formal wedding it’s easier for everyone if they get their food at the same time.
I believe this, too. And it’s a doubly bad sign for the marriage if anyone goes into debt to pay for the wedding. It’s a party that will be over within a day- it’s not worth going into debt for.
I promised myself when I was 7 that there would be no cake-smashing at my wedding. That was when I first heard of that- some family friends were getting divorced, and my mom told me that, at their wedding, the bride had viciously smashed the cake into the groom’s face. I remember thinking, “I’m too mature for that, and I’m only seven”. My mother-in-law wanted us to do cake smashing, but I stood by my guns and we didn’t do it. We didn’t feed each other cake, either- we’re both such klutzes, that would have turned into a cake smash.
We didn’t do the bouquet and garter toss, either. I think the garter toss is just plain tacky (and that’s if there is no removing the garter with teeth or seeing how many inches above the knee the guy who catches it can get it). I always hated the bouquet toss at weddings, because it made me feel miserable about being single.
We didn’t do a receiving line- we did a Jewish custom that’s coming back into vogue, called yichud, where the bride and groom spend a few minutes alone together in a room after the ceremony. It gave us a nice chance to catch our breath between the ceremony and reception.
We didn’t do vows, either- Jewish weddings traditionally don’t include them. The “as long as we both shall love” vows annoy me, too.
For those of you who say you hate all weddings, of any kind, why do you even go? Make up a legitimate sounding excuse (if you even feel you need one), and do something you enjoy.
The LONG wait between ceremony and reception. Take 30 minutes max for the post wedding photos, then get your newlywed butts to the reception so your guests can eat! No long limo ride where the wedding party gets plastered, and the guests have to wait two hours for you to FINALLY show up.
Overcrowded receptions. Sure, that hall told you that they could seat 300 people. They didn’t say they could be sat comfortably. I’ve been to receptions where you could not get out of your seat once the person directly behind you sat down. Hint- when you place tables and chairs, just because you can walk between them when the chairs are pushed in does NOT necessarily mean that your guests will have room to sit.
Photo shows off the bride and groom on the big screen. YAWN.
Buffet nazis that make darn sure that you’re not going to get enough to eat.
[QUOTE=Sonia Montdore]
First, I’m sorry for the late reply. I read through both pages to make sure what I mentioned had not been addressed before posting this, and yes in hind sight I should have been more specific.
At the end of the reception, the bride and groom usually go from table to table collecting the gifts from the guests. Usually, the bride has a silk white bag on her wrist to slip envelopes into. Now, for me as a guest, this is the most fun part of the wedding as its may be the only chance I get to actualy say two words to either of them and wish them well before they’re off to Hawaii or whatever. Sure its cheesy, but I really do like to tell the bride how beautiful she looks, and tell them both what a great couple they make and how much fun I had there that day.
Still, I know that this is the end of a long day for them and they are probably tired (usually they’re damn lucky if, with all the wedding event shanninigans, they’ve gotten even two full mouthfuls of over-priced food down between the myrad of beers, wine, hard liquor, and Somebody’s Grampa’s Moonshine shoved at them all night). But a tired and gracious smile goes a long way. Lately, I don’t even get that.
Lately, I’ve been getting the “yeah, yeah, putcher check in the bag and beat it to the parking lot” attitude from the bride as they walk around our reception table instead.
One wedding? Well, she’s just tired. Three weddings? Its a trend and Pretty Princess Wedding or not, its just not appreciated. Hell, people, if you don’t want us there, don’t freaking invite us; its a Wedding, not a Tom Keane fund-raiser. And even if you are just whoring up the guest list for bigger bucks, at least try to put on a smile as you grab up the checks. :dubious:
Wow. Lot’s of wedding hatred in this thread.
I think the main problem with weddings is that a wedding is a big event that basically needs a project manager. Most people aren’t good project managers, so despite spending lots of money and time planning the wedding many of them aren’t very good.
However, some of the stuff people here are describing seems like it has to be exaggerated to me. I’ve been to many tacky and boring weddings, but I’ve never ever even heard of some of the stuff you folks are coming up with.
As to my wedding, I think we did great despite doing a couple of the things people here are mentioning.
We had a large wedding party. So what? I can’t imagine why this bothers anybody.
We also had wedding favors. It wasn’t expensive and every wedding has them so I don’t know why anybody would object to this custom either.
We had self written vows. But, it was a nicely done and quick non-religious ceremony. A friend married us and did a good job. Everyone could hear due to a good soundsystem that we tested beforehand. That’s one of my wedding complaints. Many times you can’t hear a word of the ceremony. This IME is true in both religious and alternative weddings.
We skipped the garter belt toss, and instructed the DJ to have no lame forced dancing routines. He obeyed. (He’s a friend of mine.) However, my father wanted us to do the cake eating routine and made a strong case, so we did it to make him happy. It’s a nice tradition that many people expect, he explained. Also, as a wedding photographer, he knew that good pics come out of this. We didn’t smash cake in eachothers faces, though. I’ve never seen or heard of this outside of the movies. After going through such lengths to get makeup and hair perfect, what bride would allow cake to be smeared on her head?
We did a cash bar, which was never closed. I actually never heard of a bar being closed to the crowd during dinner until I saw it for myself at a wedding last Saturday. I can see people being put off by this, but it does keep folks in their seats more until dinner is finished so I understand them doing it. (They also had bottles of wine on the table for while you eat.)
Most weddings in my area (Boston suburbs) are cash bars. People expect this and it’s not a big deal. I hear that around NYC, it’s always an open bar. I think it’s rather silly to compare a cash bar to BYOB. The booze is provided, you just need to pay the bartender for it. It’s not like I’m making anything off the deal.
One thing that does bug me at weddings is the people who take advantage of the open bar. I drink what I feel like drinking. If I want a martini, I’ll order one. I don’t care if beer and wine is free. I want a martini. People will actually loudly change their orders based on what’s free an what’s not. Or, they load up just as the bar is switching over to cash. How tacky. Do they even realize that the bride and groom are paying for the drinks?
Our wedding was very non-traditional, and that might have bothered a few people. We had a mail bridal attendant on the brides side along with the bridesmaids. One annoying family member was overheard asking “Why is that boy standing with the girls?” Meh.
Finally, you posters that clearly hate weddings and don’t want to go to them: My advice to you is don’t go. If taking a Saturday afternoon to attend a wedding seems like an inconvenience to you, then it probably shows in your attitude at the event. Rather than moping about and dragging your feet at the wedding, just make up an excuse that you can’t attend and send a card with a check in the mail around the wedding date. It’s better to be though of as too busy to attend than the sourpuss who stands in the back frowning during the bouquet toss.