Wedding - Is this normal now?!

[westcoastnortherner]

We received an invite to a relative's wedding which came with a handy two pages of info, Poem asking for money etc (can't write on here as will be outed!)

BUT it had a couple of things written on the info sheet which perplexed me at bit.

One was that misbehaving children would be asked to leave the reception by hotel management and secondly there is to be strictly NO pictures to social media on the day. They aren't famous, who cares whether the odd picture is posted?

AIBU or is it normal to ask people not to post pictures?

I think the no pictures request is reasonable.

Ejecting misbehaving children is wholly unreasonable. The bride & groom should have made provisions to keep children entertained & and out of the way.

They both use a lot of social media, and have posted a lot about their upcoming wedding.

The key word being "they".
They are in control of what is on the media.
If you have pictures of them, I'd make them available to them to do as they please with them.
I would still put pictures of only me and my company, at least the next day, if I were so inclined.

I have never received a money poem, and hopefully never will.

People posted up pics of my wedding in real time. It meant that by the time I posted the professional photos that I paid 2k for a few weeks later - it was all old hat! Didn't really mind too much as I loved having guests photos, but can see why others would be pissed off. Money poem is a bit naff, but asking for money is fine in my book. Naughty kids being removed - bit heavy handed, but also fair enough. People pay so much money for a wedding and invest so much energy into it. The last wedding I went to kids were running around shouting while the father of the bride was doing his speech, which I thought was disgusting.

We had several guests at our wedding endlessly trying to take photos & videos with their phone. They ended up getting in the way of the actual photographer, and it meant they were often so focused on trying to get the perfect shot, that it distracted some of them from just being in the moment and enjoying the wedding. Since most couples will have a professional photographer and maybe even a couple of friends with good cameras taking shots, surely people can just take a rest from FB for the night?

I got married in 2011 and one of my good friends put pics of me on FB the same day - quite unflattering shot from below with double chin etc. she didn't mean anything by it so I never picked her up on it but were I to do it all over again (touch wood I won't) I would probably say "we can't invite everyone so please leave it to us to post our pics as we see fit so we do not cause offence to those we had to leave out" or similar." That way you stop yucky pics getting out there and avoid annoying too many people you did not have room for!

I had to say no kids at my wedding and another of my friends wouldn't come because of that. It was partly that I did not want disruption but mainly numbers - having everyone's kids there would have bumped up numbers loads and meant leaving out close friends. I think it's a bit rude to say the bit about "unruly kids". If you're gonna have kids there you kind of need to trust people to look after them and just accept that it may be a bit over-exciting and or/boring, so they may go a bit crazy at various points. If your venue isn't child friendly then I think it's best to say no kids tbh.

Yes to evicting unruly children. Parents need to step up and not just ignore it. And not just at weddings.

I can see how she doesn't want photos of the bride and groom but if people want to take photos of themselves, DCs and their friends all dressed up then I can't see the problem. Too precious to insist they aren't on social media.

They probably don't want people to post unflattering, tagged shots of them on social media, and want to police that a bit.

Having said that, I can totally appreciate wanting the professional shots to be devoid of every second person with mobile in hand, staring at their phone, instead of actually experiencing and enjoying the day.

I've never received a money poem, but we were invited to the evening do of a colleague (not even a friend) of DH's, where they just outright asked for cash (not even dressed up in a naff poem) with the invitation, along with the bank account provided.

Some people are just clueless.

"The bride & groom should have made provisions to keep children entertained & and out of the way."

Really? Surely the only people responsible for keeping children in line at a wedding are their parents?

Better to have a firm stance clear from the get go than risk someone's lazy parenting being all you can hear on a wedding video (I have children, I don't mean the occasional chit-chat or dancing/playing on the dancefloor - I meant them running around or screaming through the ceremony)

Absolutely. It's not the bride and groom's responsibility to deal with other people's unruly children.

Sadly this needs spelling out to some parents, so making it clear on an info sheet is not unreasonable imo.

I went to a wedding where the B&G requested no photos on social media, but provided a private page for people to upload their pics, and they were most disappointed that nobody bothered!

I liked seeing the photos people put on FB from our day - we got loads of lovely extra pics of everyone enjoying themselves.

Yabu- when I get married I am going to ask that people don't upload pics to social media. Apart from the fact I don't want pics of me on there that maybe aren't the nicest, there's family members I'm not in touch with who I would not want to get access to the pictures. It's actually very sad that couples now have to ask this because people just can't leave Facebook alone for five minutes!!

Not so keen on the money poem but I don't see anything wrong with having to spell out naughty kids won't be tolerated because parents don't give a damn! The last wedding I was at the children threw haribo around the entire wedding ceremony, we're talking/shouting and not once did the mother make any attempt to stop it. Who would want that at their wedding? It's not for the bride and groom to make sure children are entertained. That's the parents job!!

Whoops were - Silly typos!

"The bride & groom should have made provisions to keep children entertained & and out of the way."

Hardly!

Many brides and grooms don't even want to invite kids at all, if you factor in having to make provisions to keep them entertained and out of the way, they'll be even less inclined to invite them!

It's the parents' job.

Both should go without saying but unfortunately some people do lack restraint with regard to social media and children so no harm in making the point. I have no objection to poems asking for money either.

There was a thread a few months ago from someone who worked a wedding, asking what she should have done when parents refused to control children who were running riot, including getting under her feet as she was serving.

Maybe this b&g were at that wedding.

Weddings are a minefield aren't they. I have a friend who is getting married at the end of this year.She's lived with her partner for several years, they live in a rented house and have everything they need in terms of household equipment. The only thing they don't have is money for a mortgage deposit. They both work full-time but not in highly paid jobs and are contributing to the wedding (which will be lovely, but not vastly expensive, before anyone starts to say why waste money on a wedding) and what they would like more than anything is for guests to give money to add to their mortgage fund. I can see absolutely nothing wrong with this, yet she is agonising how to ask for this without seeming grabby. She hates the idea of a poem and wonders if she should just not mention anything at all, and keep her fingers crossed that those she invites have the common sense to realise that they don't need things like kettles and toasters.

As to the photos, I think it's disrepectful of others to put photos on facebook without asking first and am I the only one who loves it when we receive an invitation to a wedding which excludes our children. When they are invited I am on tenterhooks the whole time, especially now that they are older and find it difficult to sit still for longer than 10 minutes at a time.

The only thing that bothers me is management can ask misbehaving children to leave sounds a barrel of laughs im not saying children should be running riot or anything but thats just joyless,

• Poem asking for money - terrible manners IMO. But not uncommon these days.

• Warning about kids behavior - sounds like something the venue has stated and the B+G are passing it on.

• Pics not to be shared on social media - fair enough IMO. Wanting to choose which pictures of you on your wedding day get shown to the world is perfectly reasonable.

Poems asking money urgh just ask outright if you don't want gifts dont ponce it up with a poem

Getting married these days seems to have become a minefield, I look back to my wedding day (26 years ago ) - just me, DH and a couple of witnesses, a nice lunch out and then it was all over. No angst, no drama and no expense. Dreading the day my DS might decide to get married, I just hope he elopes. .

I'm not massively disagreeing with what they've asked, it was genuine curiosity about etiquette. It also occurred to me that when we have ever been to weddings we would just take pictures with our regular camera, but I guess everyone gets their cell phone out to take a picture rather than regular ones now.

I'm feeling very old

I think that fair enough - their wedding, their rules.

Money poems though - Urgh.