Is it helpful for anyone planning a wedding to have a "what guests don't appreciate" thread?

[A580Hojas]

Looking back on my wedding nearly 30 years ago, I realise I made some mistakes (cheers MN!) in terms of what my guests would have liked.

And having been to a wedding very recently, I would say that this 2022 bride and groom made some mistakes too.

I'm not posting in any sort of judgemental way about this 2022 B&G by the way, but if they were my son or daughter now I think I'd gently advise otherwise in terms of what was good for their guests. When you are planning a wedding it can sometimes happen that you forget your guests.

So ... does anyone want to contribute to a helpful "what not to do if you're getting married" thread?

I once went to a wedding where the speeches were before the meal. We were all sat down at the tables having not eaten for hours and had to sit through 3 very long speeches before we got any food. Worst wedding ever.

I also think there are loads of little things that end up costing a fortune which are a total waste of time and money and designed to extract more money from the bride and groom. Specifically, wedding favours. I couldn’t tell you where a single one of the multitude of wedding favours that I’ve received over the years is now.

Oh yes. Wedding favours - very silly waste of money. I think they have been and gone tbh.

Avoid:
Weddings in the middle of nowhere, or put on a couple of minibuses for guests.
Leaving guests waiting around with nothing to do and nowhere to sit for hours.
Gendered food: chicken for the ladies, beef for the men... unbelievably this is still a thing.
Buffets that run out halfway through the queue.
Venues that rely on it being a glorious sunny day and end with cold, wet guests when the weather doesn't go according to plan.
Long speeches that are only meaningful/funny if you're one of the "in" crowd.

Really? I'd advise against attending a wedding in Ireland. Band then DJ finish up 3 or 4am.

Most important thing for me is food. Don't need anything fancy. Just a good decent feed. (And not sandwiches as the main meal.)

Like pp said, weddings in the middle of nowhere that are difficult to get to and don't have accommodation onsite.

One of my friends had a barn wedding in the middle of a national park - despite the fact that they both live in London, as did one of their families. It was an absolute nightmare to get to - only 2 (not direct) trains a day from London to the nearest station, which wasn't very near at all. Then there weren't any hotels, or non-bonkers Air BnBs very close, which meant shelling out a fortune on Taxis, and the because of the dodgy train schedule on Sunday, having to get out of bed at the crack of dawn post-wedding to catch the train.

Please make it easy for your guests to actually get to your wedding! Especially if everyone has to travel because no one is local.

The 3 hour drive part sounds very specific 🤣 I'd expect guests to stay in a hotel such as a Premier Inn if they have a journey over 1.5/2 hours.

It's not unreasonable to believe guests may still be there at 11.30pm. A 1.00pm ceremony means the ceremony will likely end at 1.30pm. Let's say there's confetti straight after and then people want to say hello and mingle, that's 2.00pm. Drinks reception takes you to 3.45pm and seated for dinner at 4.00pm. 2 hours for a three course meal, 30 mins for speeches, then some venues need to turn the room around - we're now at 6.30pm and cake cut is at 7.30pm so an hour to mingle, go to the bar. Cake cut at 7.30pm, then first dance, evening guests arrive, evening food served at 9.00pm... yeah, I'd probably still be dancing at 11.30pm.

Staying later at a wedding isn't mandatory but things take time! Many brides and grooms will say their own wedding day went by in a flash - whereas some guests who perhaps don't know a lot of people at the wedding may find there are lulls. It's only natural.

My best advice is to make sure people have somewhere to sit during reception drinks, put some garden games out to entertain guests and kids, make a plan in case the weather isn't good and the whole day has to be indoors, and have plenty of canapes and drinks to tide people over to dinner.

People here saying the photos the photos... I'm a wedding photographer and I can assure you many of us don't take long to do photos. And as for the staged formal group shots - the couple chooses those. So if there's hundreds of them, that's the couple's choice :)

Oh I've just thought of another, don't try to force guests from different parts of your life to mix by sitting people at tables with people that they don't know.
And for the love of God don't create a "singles" table, it's highly awkward and embarrassing to be seated with people purely on the basis of your relationship status.

What everyone else has said. Enough food (veggie stuff kept separate so the vegetarians actually get some), reasonably priced drinks, not too long on photos or speeches.

Somewhere to sit, especially if you have evening guests or they stand around like spare parts.

And please don't 'mix people up' so that they get to know each other. Forced small talk isn't fun.

That sounds like a timing thing rather than the food per se.

I think most guests will be happy if you allocate most of the budget to food and drink over aesthetics/ photo booths/ favours and keep the running order fairly tight.

Do the photos during the drinks reception so that people have canapés and drinks. Keep drinks reception to 1.5 hours (max 2). It's fine for people who know loads of people, but if people dont then it can feel very long. I always like a magician coming round during the drinks.

Set time limits for the speeches.

Fireworks tend to go down well.

Don't have a table 19- it's very obvious.

I'd suggest that bottles of soft drink are provided on the table during the wedding breakfast (for example an elderflower pressé). It's miserable for those who can't drink alcohol to just be given water whilst everyone else drinks wine.

This sounds very similar to the wedding I went to recently. The venue was in the middle of nowhere. Only the B&G lived in the nearest town. We stayed in the nearest town and our taxi fare to and from the venue was £20+ each way, plus the £100 Air B&B. We gave £50 as a gift. The drive from our home was 3 hours each way. And this was for one of the DC of friends of ours, a dc who I last saw about 8 years ago. I think ours friends thought we would be honoured to be invited and it WAS nice to be included, I guess, but equally I really could have done without it.

I hate weddings that are miles from home meaning you either need to stay over or endure over an hours journey on a bus home.

you don’t need a photoboth, fireworks, novelty things to make you appear unique… you aren’t!

really expensive places where drinks cost a fortune.

Let the singles have plus ones, especially if they don't know any of your other guests.

Having been sat on the singles table, the couple's table when the earmarked other single guest hasn't turned up and had to spend a meal awkwardly deflecting a married man getting a bit handsy in front of his wife, I'm not coming if I can't bring a friend.

This

Seconding the kids food one! If you've lots of kids going and don't want to fork out a load of money, do a separate "kids buffet" and a kids table with (nice) food more suited to them like spaghetti or sandwiches etc

Sparkler photos when everyone has been drinking for hours.

My god it was a safety nightmare.
The sober adults were desperately trying to keep the drunk morons far twirling handfuls of lit sparklers away from the kids.
All for an insta worthy picture!

Has anyone mentioned speeches? FFS kill me now.

I don’t mind a short and snappy ‘my wife looks amazing, thanks everyone for coming’ type affair but when the best man starts wittering on I want to stab myself with a fork. They are usually not that funny especially if it’s all ‘in’ jokes and some have been pretty offensive for a family day. If that speech comes after a father of the bride who really doesn’t want to speak but has been made to via some silly tradition, it just makes me feel sad and annoyed wondering why I probably spent £500 to get to sit in silence for over an hour.

a pay bar that only takes cash or only card without it being clear in advance.

And I’ve been to 2 weddings this year that had two best men and both gave speeches.

Some relatives have booked a venue next year which looks v nice but it's MILES away from any accomodation at all in a place with hardly any taxis and not covered by Uber. Soooo it's a total faff really as combined with the cost of a wedding and having to travel far for it and pay accommodation we will also have two way taxis to budget for as well. Even if one of us stays sober it's still going to be a half hour drive to the nearest place to stay, money is tight and it's really stressing me already

I also think it's important for there to be conversation points and "Ice breakers" so that people who don't have much to talk about can talk about SOMETHING. As PP mentioned, a magician or something like that (obviously not to everyone's tastes), or a comedian or a lookalike. It's obviously extremely cheesy and some would look down their nose at it! But it's a good way to get people to relax and talk with people they wouldn't normally have much to talk to people about with

Please god, the speeches. I feel stressed on behalf of whichever poor sap has to make them. Surely, no one enjoys making them and therefore can't possibly be enjoying the day running up to the speech time.

My mum did a cross stitch picture, and had them framed for every guest at my sisters wedding. Lovely thing to do, but very expensive I'm not sure how appreciated they actually were. The little bags of retro sweets went down very well though.

We got married this year and this was my number one thing. We went to a wedding last year, not the kind of wedding where you know lots of people and just get drunk at that in between bit, it was a kind of distant family one. We sat in the waiting area of a hotel from 1pm until 6pm with no music playing and nothing happening at all. I said to my partner, if someone had said to me today, do you fancy spending the day sitting about waiting for 5 hours in the waiting area of X hotel, the answer would have been no. So why am I here doing exactly that? 🙈

We only had close family to the wedding and left the meal early to get photos before the rest of our guests arrived. I just didn’t think people were all that interested in spending their whole day listening to how much we love each other etc, while internally wishing it would all hurry up so they could get their dinner so we just didn’t do it