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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Wedding at 1.30pm, meal at 6pm. Standing around for 4 hours!

77 replies

YokoOhNo · 19/07/2012 13:05

I went to a wedding last week. Lovely country house venue, everything under one roof. The ceremony was at 1.30pm. By 1.50pm, it was finished and we were in a room milling around. And then we had to wait around until 6pm when everyone was supposed to go into dinner, but it was nearer 6.30pm. It was pissing down outside and there was nowhere to go. We did chat with lots of nice people, but there was literally nothing at all to do but drink all afternoon. And at £14.50 for two G&Ts from the bar, that was limited too!

AIBU that maybe it would have been better to get married at 4pm in that case? Or provide entertainment or something?

OP posts:

YouOldSlag · 19/07/2012 13:40

NB that would my flower shaped handbag, not DH's

Original poster

YokoOhNo · 19/07/2012 13:42

Yes, you hang about at weddings for an hour or two, but this was over 4 and a half hours in the end. Yawn. If I'd had a book with me, I'd have read it in the car or the ladies, which is not a ringing endorsement of someone's wedding, is it?

OP posts:

bogeyface · 19/07/2012 13:50

Iawn but 4 hours? Even the most excrutiating wedding I have ever been to (my sisters, the bridezilla's bridezilla) was only 3 hours wait (on the hottest day of the year with my 2 year old refused entrance into the venue by my sister as she was having a photo taken )

YouOldSlag · 19/07/2012 13:51

You're right Yoko. If you wants guests to have HAPPY memories of your wedding, then you don't leave them hanging about starving for 4 hours.

It will be "do you remember that boring wedding where we stood around for four hours, and were really hungry and the drinks were a rip off and everybody looked bored?"

olivestree · 19/07/2012 13:51

Do you have a baby Bogey? Last wedding I went to I asked for an outline of the timing for the day so I could plan what I would do with (ebf 6 month old) DD.

If not could you pretend to have one?

bogeyface · 19/07/2012 13:52

She will be about 21 months, so I could ask so that I can make the appropriate arrangements I suppose, good plan!

olivestree · 19/07/2012 13:56

What is even worse is when you sit down after waiting for four and a half hours to find out that they have allocated half a glass of wine to one table of 8 guests. If you aren't already pissed from standing about an overpriced bar all afternoon, now is the time you want to down to it.

olivestree · 19/07/2012 13:56

get down to it

Catsdontcare · 19/07/2012 14:02

I was in morrisons the other week and there was loads of well dressed people swarming round the salad bar. Turns out they were all guests from a nearby wedding who hadn't been told there would be NO food at all, despite it being an all day affair! Half the wedding party were cramming as much salad as possible into containers!

bogeyface · 19/07/2012 14:02

My mothers favourite phrase when my sister got married was "one glass of wine per person is more than enough, if they want any more they can buy it!" and showing her disapproval that anyone would possibly want more than one thimblesized glass of wine a day!

bogeyface · 19/07/2012 14:04

Thats awful ~cats! What on earth were the B&G thinking of?!

ENormaSnob · 19/07/2012 14:04

Thought you mean down it olive

Bogey, could you feign a deep interest in the wedding plans. I have done similar so I know what I'm eating.

ENormaSnob · 19/07/2012 14:06

That's awful cats

I would've gone home, or to the nearest pub.

DontmindifIdo · 19/07/2012 14:14

That's really bad, why didn't they push the wedding back to 2:30pm? that would be more logical if they didn't want the meal to be until 6pm (which I can understand if they want food to be a normal meal time), and would have allowed people to eat a decent meal beforehand.

I guess they assumed the weather would be glorious and it would be 4 hours of drinks reception, exploring the lovely gardens and having a nice time at the reception. Rain is rarely planned for in the UK.

Mind you, the 'nothing to do' seems a bit odd, it wasn't strange in my parent's generation to have an afternoon civil wedding and then just a drinks reception. A drinks reception is a thing in itself - it's only recently it's seen as just 'a thing you do inbetween events'.

wannabedomesticgoddess · 19/07/2012 14:17

We are having this issue at the min with planning our wedding. We are both very keen to keep the time between as short as possible, but as we are getting married at the venue the latest we can get the registrar is 1.30 and the hotel are telling us meal times should be at 6.

We are trying to move the meal to four. But even that is a long wait. We are paying for tea and coffee etc but really feel bad for the guests while we are off getting photos taken.

I really dont know what the solution is.

YouOldSlag · 19/07/2012 14:22

wannabe- push the hotel around and tell them who's boss- it's your wedding, not theirs!

and congratulations BTW

JugsMcGee · 19/07/2012 14:26

Sounds really boring if you don't know many people there. And still a bit boring even if you do know lots of people!

Ours was 2.30pm, ceremony done by 3, sat down for meal at 4.30. After the meal we had a nice 30 minute lull in the lounge in front of the fire with tea and coffee, then the evening party started. I hate big gaps in the day!

wannabedomesticgoddess · 19/07/2012 14:28

I know I should be more forceful. A venue we looked at before werent going to let DP have a different meal to the rest of the guests. Hes the one paying fgs!!

Thanks :)

YouOldSlag · 19/07/2012 14:31

wannabe- you were quite right to take your custom elsewhere!

RubyGrace17 · 19/07/2012 14:32

Were we at the same wedding, Yoko? :) My wedding at the weekend was very similar in time frame. I'm pregnant and even though DDs were not invited, I still found it an awful long wait, particularly as we couldn't even go outside due to the weather. (I suspect it might have been more bearable if I could have had a bottle glass of wine though!)

Ruby

MsVestibule · 19/07/2012 14:39

wannabe if you wanna be more forceful, then just do it! I would imagine you're paying £1000s for the whole do, so you're the one calling the shots! At my wedding planning stage, the hoteliers were really arsey about everything until one day I went mental with them (disclaimer - not a bridezilla at all) and after that they couldn't do enough for us.

Seriously, you tell them when you want your wedding breakfast to be served and they fit in with what you want. Do you really want to see a thread on here a couple of weeks after your wedding...?

Mrsjay · 19/07/2012 14:42

I was at a wedding the pictures over ran I had eaten the little canapes tiny they were and milled about the meal was an hour late so 4 hrs nearly god i was so bored there is only so much mingleing a person can do

Mrsjay · 19/07/2012 14:44

Oh and we had to leave the room after the meal so they could set up for the evening do so more mingling i was a bit tiddley by the time the evening reception i couldve done with a nap OP yanbu it is really boring

emsyj · 19/07/2012 14:52

We went to a wedding with a 12 noon ceremony and a 6pm dinner once - it could have been worse, at least we knew lots of people there and the weather was lovely, but I was ready to faint and be carried off by the time dinner was served.

It's very hard to avoid something of a gap though - we had a 12 noon ceremony followed by drinks, then the reception venue was 45 mins away (yes, we did provide a bus for guests) so by the time everyone was there and seated it was 3pm when food was served - less than ideal. We did have a free bar though so everyone was pissed nice and merry, which lessened the blow (I hope).

Doyouthinktheysaurus · 19/07/2012 14:52

God, that's my idea of hell!

Our wedding was 3pm I think and a few photo's before trudging across town to a hotel for the meal. We really wanted to avoid a big gap and it worked well. I think it did anyway, maybe the guests thought the whole thing was hellish

My sisters wedding had a pretty big gap and they had a tremendous amount of B&G pictures while we all sat around but it was a stupidly hot day so sitting around was fairly pleasant.

There weren't many group photos though and the ones they did turned out a bit shit because the photographer didn't seem much interested in small details such as everyone looking the same way

It was a great day though dsis if you are on here somewhere

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