Wedding Etiquette?

Idiophreak

jtr2803 wrote: »

1) Would you RSVP just for yourself and then turn up with a +1 without asking if this was ok prior to the event?
No. Just no.
2) Would you spend the entire evening at the event without even saying hello to the bride or introducing your unknown +1?
Possibly, actually...as above, if the groom didn't introduce me, I'd probably feel a bit weird about walking up to the bride and saying hello...brides have a lot on, random people hassling them is the last thing they need. That said, I've never been to a wedding where I don't know the bride, thinking about it.
3) Would you go to a reception without even a card?
No.
4) Would you go to a wedding, with not even a token gift, have a free drink on the B&G, sit outside in the smoking area all night only visiting the room when the buffet appeared before helping yourself to cupcakes and then stuffing your pockets with sweet cones before leaving without saying goodbye?
No.

Shocked some people seem to expect people to turn up with random +1s. We had one person ask us if they could bring a +1 (who we knew anyway) and that was it. In fact, our worst issue was a couple of no-shows...

sk00bie1

1) Would you RSVP just for yourself and then turn up with a +1 without asking if this was ok prior to the event? No, definitely not!

2) Would you spend the entire evening at the event without even saying hello to the bride or introducing your unknown +1?I would make every effort to do so but if the bride and groom were obviously busy I wouldn't go barging in to say hi! That said my cousin got married recently and I went along (by myself, no +1 allowed, even though I'd been with my then bf -now husband for 5 years) I had never met her new husband but we weren't introduced which I found a bit odd. At our recent reception I made sure to introduce my husband to those of my friends he hadn't met, but maybe that's just me?

3) Would you go to a reception without even a card? Definitely not if it were a wedding of my or OHs friend or relative. However I didn't take one once, when I was invited at the last minute to the reception of friend of a friend as a +1. I did make sure I congratulated the happy couple and thanked them for their hospitality thought! I'm sure some guests came to our reception without a card but I haven't checked, we're just glad they came.(see below!)

4) Would you go to a wedding, with not even a token gift, have a free drink on the B&G, sit outside in the smoking area all night only visiting the room when the buffet appeared before helping yourself to cupcakes and then stuffing your pockets with sweet cones before leaving without saying goodbye? I think this one is a bit relative... The gift/card part we've covered and not even bringing a card is very rude if they are friends/relatives of the bride or groom. However the staying outside part is a bit more of a grey area.

It might seem that they only came in for the food but some are more comfortable away from people, or perhaps this was the only place to sit as a group? I could see myself doing this if inside was busy and the bride and groom were occupied with other friends and family.

At our reception (Hi reception date twin! ) we had some guests sit outside all night, most likely cause because they were smokers? We didn't have any more food after the meal thought so who knows if they would have come in for it or not. Taken all together though, it does come across as rude and definitely something I wouldn't do! As others have said, some people have no manners!


I don't think we had any randoms turn up to ours, although we did have some last minute changes to numbers, mainly people asking if +1s could come for a drink after the meal and then us bumping them up to the whole thing when others dropped out.

I'm only really upset with the two groups of OHs family who didn't turn up, without any message to say that they couldn't make it. Oh and his cousin who gave one reason (family issues) for not being able to make it when they declined the RSVP but then sent a message afterwards giving another! (they had accepted another invitation to a friends wedding first)

Just goes to show for most it's just another party luckily we'd realised this early on, when we sent out the invitations! Ah well, it was their loss, all our guests that did come said they had a great time

Try not to let it bother you jtr, just concentrate on the good memories. :beer:

mysk_girl

I would never do any of the above. If anyone had turned up with a +1 that hadn't been invited to ours, they would have been asked to leave. We had everyone to the whole day, and it was a sit down meal. We had the maximum that our venue could accommodate and I hadn't been able to invite everyone I wanted due to space (and budget) limitations. Someone bringing an uninvited guest and expecting them to be fed would have been given extremely short shrift and the extra would have been firmly told that we couldn't accommodate them.

split_second

jtr2803 wrote: »

Having had a discussion with my other half today following our reception last night it seems that we both have very different ideas of what is/isn't appropriate at a wedding and I am really interested to hear if I am just old fashion, if it's man/woman thing, or we just know lots of rude people :rotfl:

1) Would you RSVP just for yourself and then turn up with a +1 without asking if this was ok prior to the event?
2) Would you spend the entire evening at the event without even saying hello to the bride or introducing your unknown +1?
3) Would you go to a reception without even a card?
4) Would you go to a wedding, with not even a token gift, have a free drink on the B&G, sit outside in the smoking area all night only visiting the room when the buffet appeared before helping yourself to cupcakes and then stuffing your pockets with sweet cones before leaving without saying goodbye?

Maybe it's me but I just couldn't imagine doing any of those! Yet, each single scenario happened last night, mostly with my OHs mates. At one point I was staring at a group of girls who were helping themselves to our main course buffet and I didn't have a single clue who they were. I feel really shocked and let down by their behaviour to be frank......

On the other hand my other half doesn't quite get why I was so surprised, he thought most of those were fairly 'normal' :eek: If he is right and I am wrong then my life might be about to get a lot cheaper!!

I wouldnt do any of those things, but every wedding has to have at least one !!!!!!!!!! masquerading as a normal person all the rest of the time.

I remember at one wedding we were sat at our table and half a dozen people turned up and started eating buffet, as they were drinking they were getting louder and the discussion turned to 'have any of us bought them a present'
'no'
and then laughter.

my fiancee informs me that there were another load at another wedding we went to.

if you arent well off then surely a bottle of expensive looking wine or a nice photo frame is still nice to give, but then again I believe every adult guest should have a +1, even if they choose not to use it. I have relatives being invited to our wedding that I havent seen for years due to distance, I know they have partners but havent met them, I wouldnt turn round and say they arent allowed to have a +1, especially as some are coming from abroad to be there.

Peanut2013

No, no and no!!

I've seen some sticklers recently though.

One friends (upcoming) wedding her MIL asked how many invites she had. She's had no input into the wedding and has said she'll be too busy to help with any of it and (in her words) it's not 'her place' to financially assist, thats her parents job. They agreed a few (about 2 or 3) of her friends could come to the evening. So instead of waiting for invites to be sent she's had her own invites printed which are from her inviting them to the wedding of her son. It looks like she's hosting the whole thing! And she's invites 20 people! Bride = FURIOUS!

Another friends engagement party a load of her friends commented that they were looking forward to catching up with each other as they hadn't seen each other for so long. So they decided to go to dinner before the party and drinks after the party. They ended up turning up at about 9ish, stayed for half an hour and then vanished as they wanted to hit the bars. They'd all RSVP'd yes (15 of them!) and so were all catered for and none of them ate and half didn't even say hello to the couple as they were in and out too quick. They did however have the free first drink the couple had put on....

LittleMissAspie

1) Would you RSVP just for yourself and then turn up with a +1 without asking if this was ok prior to the event?
No

2) Would you spend the entire evening at the event without even saying hello to the bride or introducing your unknown +1?
Maybe, depends how well I knew the bride. If I didn't know them I would keep to myself and not bother them.

3) Would you go to a reception without even a card?
Yes.

4) Would you go to a wedding, with not even a token gift,
Yes. I went to two weddings without realising that people still gave wedding gifts/cards. It never crossed my mind to get a present and no-one ever mentioned presents and I didn't see any. It was a few months afterwards when I read something about presents on here that I started wondering.

have a free drink on the B&G,
Well yes, if the bar was free then you wouldn't pay.

sit outside in the smoking area all night only visiting the room when the buffet appeared before
No

helping yourself to cupcakes
Absolutely.

and then stuffing your pockets with sweet cones
Er, no. How weird.

before leaving without saying goodbye?
As for question 2.

Not everyone is completely up to date on what to do at weddings. I've only been to three in my whole life and no-one gave cards or presents at any of them, that I saw.

Idiophreak

Peanut2013 wrote: »

One friends (upcoming) wedding her MIL asked how many invites she had. She's had no input into the wedding and has said she'll be too busy to help with any of it and (in her words) it's not 'her place' to financially assist, thats her parents job. They agreed a few (about 2 or 3) of her friends could come to the evening. So instead of waiting for invites to be sent she's had her own invites printed which are from her inviting them to the wedding of her son. It looks like she's hosting the whole thing! And she's invites 20 people! Bride = FURIOUS!

OMGz...someone's going to be making some fairly embarrassing calls to their friends...

74jax

Peanut2013 wrote: »

One friends (upcoming) wedding her MIL asked how many invites she had. She's had no input into the wedding and has said she'll be too busy to help with any of it and (in her words) it's not 'her place' to financially assist, thats her parents job. They agreed a few (about 2 or 3) of her friends could come to the evening. So instead of waiting for invites to be sent she's had her own invites printed which are from her inviting them to the wedding of her son. It looks like she's hosting the whole thing! And she's invites 20 people! Bride = FURIOUS!

....

Please please come back and tell us how this turned out. What did MIL say/do? I would have loved to have beena fly on the wall when she had to uninvite them :rotfl:

Peanut2013

I don't think she's uninvited them out of pure embarrassment. I'm pretty sure she's just made room but the MIL is pretty much blacklisted...

Idiophreak

Peanut2013 wrote: »

I don't think she's uninvited them out of pure embarrassment. I'm pretty sure she's just made room but the MIL is pretty much blacklisted...

I suspected this would be the case...grr...Sure, it would have been *fairly* embarrassing for the MIL to call them up and cancel...but it would have served as a valuable life lesson for her

Personally, it would have been over my dead body that a bunch of people I didn't know or want there got invited to my wedding.