To ask about the worst wedding you’ve been too

[Whereisthecoffee]

I’m planning mine and I could just ask for tips but instead I’m going to procrastinate and read stories.
Please share your stories !

No reflect, I was hoping the meal would finish and straight onto the evening? It's all happening in the same place, our meal is served upstairs but reception happening downstairs.
The timings I was given was from the hotel so don't know how, if at all to tweak it

I was hoping the meal would finish and straight onto the evening?

So a three hour meal, from 3.30 to 6.30? One course an hour? WIth no wine, but you get one drink before it starts? That sounds nice.

Like I said it was the hotel who made the timings, I'm not sure how I can tweak it.
They suggested 3 hours for the meal without knowing about us not doing the line up or speeches.

Well as you’re paying I suggest you tell the hotel what timings you’re having and not the other way around.

They suggested 3 hours for the meal without knowing about us not doing the line up or speeches.

Three hours to eat a meal is a long time though. Imagine you went to a restaurant, sat down at 7.30 and the bill didn’t come until 10.30.

If people are attending a wedding, they want to be able to talk to other guests: in most cases, they are an opportunity for people who don’t see each other to meet up. So they won’t be able to talk at the ceremony, they won’t be able to talk to anyone other than the people on their table at the meal, then it’s a (presumably) noisy disco. Three hours for a meal with nothing to do other than talk to the person say next to you, without even a glass of wine, is going to be pretty grim.

Why don’t you make the meal its natural length, and have an opportunity for people to mingle? Doing away with the receiving line is fine, but when were you plannng to actually say hello to your guests?

I don't know reflect after the ceremony perhaps?
The bar will be open for other people to go buy drinks as they wish so it's not like there's nothing at all to drink.
I don't even think I can bring reception forward by an hour as the dj doesn't start until 7, all invitations have gone out as well. Fuck

So you aren’t providing anything other than water and one drink, from a 2pm ceremony until close of play? But there is an ice cream truck and a sweet trolley?

A three hour sit-down meal, with nothing to do but talk to the person you’re sat next to, with all drinks paid for at a cash bar, sounds grim. Sorry.

Can’t you at least put a couple of bottles of wine on each table?

Eating a course takes, what, ten minutes? So the remaining 2 and a half hours of small talk is going to get pretty stale.

Not allowed to bring in bottles of wine, my family don't drink and there is only about 8 guests that do, hence no other drinks provided. It's a bloody extra 20 quid to add on another drink and with just weeks to go we can't afford that, shit shit shit

It’s up to you, and you presumably know your guests. But if I had spent five hours consisting of a wedding ceremony and three hours sat at a table, and been expected to buy all my own drinks with not even a glass of fizz to toast the bride and groom, I’m not sure how bothered I would be about staying for the evening as well. It doesn’t sound terribly celebratory.

I wasn't planning on doing a toast either? I sound like I've royally fucked this up. Will speak to the venue and see if I can sort something, oh god.
I was reading this thread thinking this won't be me, my wedding won't be described on here but yes, yes it is me! Oh crap

I wasn't planning on doing a toast either?

Sorry, but what you are describing is not a wedding. If you don’t want to have a wedding reception, that’s fine: it’s perfectly OK to have a marriage ceremony and go home afterwards. But what you’re doing is having a wedding reception with none of the characteristics of a wedding reception: no opportunity to meet and greet with the happy couple, no opportunity to celebrate with the happy couple, for most people no opportunity to talk to many people. Most people go to weddings in order to congratulate the couple, and not even having a toast (“the bride and groom!”) is plain weird. It’s not going to make you look self-effacing and modest, it’s going to make you look odd.

My partner didn't want to do the line up as he said it would make him feel weird.
We have nobody to say "to the bride and groom" hence skipping that bit.
I've never planned anything in my life before so didn't really know what I was doing

Went to a wedding where there was no food - bride thought groom had organised catering, groom thought bride had.

If I went to a wedding where the couple avoided all the things you associate with a wedding, I’d assume that one or both of them were marrying under duress, or for a visa, or there was some amazingly complex back story. What are you expecting the guests to be doing and thinking? If your partner isn’t willing to greet them, why have you invited them?

And nobody to say “to the bride and groom”? No friends, no family? So who are the guests, then?

He would say hi and stuff but doesn't see the point of a line up, would be stupid us two just standing there, I myself would be uncomfortable with that.
Yeah but nobody would say that, nobody is a fan of speaking publicly

stressed your wedding sounds like what my cousins was like. the wedding was at 1pm then we had to make our way to a hotel 10 minutes away but they gave an hour for that and then nothing happened until 4pm we were literally just sat at the tables doing nothing. the bride and groom disappeared (consummating their vows probably) then they come back and we had a finger buffet then nothing again until 8pm when music started but there was no dance floor or anything we just sat at the tables,

• the one with the waiting around in the blazing sun during sodding photos for about 2 hours and all the alcohol was gone in 40 minutes and not even a pay bar to get more or even a water

• the ones with fecking Ceilidh's. Hate hate hate. Too long and take up the time that should be spent starting to meet other people who are friends of bride and groom (I've made some of my best friends at weddings!), catching up with friends and starting to think about dancing to floor fillers not dosie doeing. Seems to be a resurgence of these. Last two I went to this year had them.

• the one with the far too loud band. Everyone escaped to another room to chat. No one danced.

• the ones that welcome children with open arms. Screeching in the interesting bits, the whole table at the wedding breakfast needs to marvel at Maisie's eating abilities and then the place is empty by 8 as the Owners of the Maisie's have to put them to bed (not before a row as to which owner is going to do it while the other gets pissed)

• the one with the two best men guffawing to themselves through a PowerPoint presentation of in jokes they had with the groom at University that no one else got. For 40 minutes.

Yeah but nobody would say that, nobody is a fan of speaking publicly

Sorry, it all sounds unutterably tedious. Two people who don’t want to speak in public, don’t want to greet anyone, inviting a bunch of people who are also frightened of speaking in public, for five hours in a room. Why are you putting yourself, and your guests, through this? I get not wanting to make a fuss and wanting to do things quietly: so why can’t you just go to the register office with a couple of friends, get married, and go home?

I will make a change to something reflect. Can't exactly cancel when it's weeks away and people have hotels sorted

stressedmum0f3 Please don’t feel like you have to do a receiving line, i personally hate them and avoid them at weddings. If I want to speak to the b&g I will do. Standing in a line for ages waiting to congratulate the family some of who I don’t always know? No thanks. And it always take bloody ages when I just want to eat.

I think your wedding sounds ok. Although it’s normal to have wine on the table and a toast drink. I’m not sure what the pp’s problem is, your wedding doesn’t sound ‘grim’. What’s wrong with having a gap between reception and evening? Can people not talk anymore? That’s the bit I can catch up with my friends, wander round the venue, before the evening guests turn up.

Nothing wrong with dinner at 3, and before a wedding we always have a big breakfast. Why people can’t cope with that for one day I have no idea.

What’s wrong with having a gap between reception and evening? Can people not talk anymore?

So play it out. The meal is served, over the course of some hours. At the end, people eat cake. And then...what? People drift away, I suppose, when they finally realise that the meal is over and no-one’s going to say anything.

And to the question “Can people not talk anymore”, the answer is “apparently not”, given that no-one over the course of five hours is proposing to address the guests at all. “Thanks for coming! Great to see you all!”

Can you imagine attending a wedding where no-one, not the couple, not the couple’s families, addresses the guests?

A family one where DD was a bridesmaid.
Photographer was an utter tosser. Miserable and rude in fact. Failed to get any photos of the couple cutting the cake or their first dance.
Told me to fuck off from a group photo of all the women in the family as he had asked "for fucking wives not people they're shagging for 5 minutes" (said in front of children and despite DH and I having been a couple at that point for 12 years, and having two children). There is 1 picture of me at the wedding in the album he put together. He excluded DH and his brother too, in fact anyone not wearing buttonholes from the men, or dragged in by the bride are barely in any pictures he sent, bar one very blurry group shot. It's almost like there was 20 at the wedding, whole groups of friends and family just may as well not have attended.
He was then taking photos of the bridesmaids and DD and her cousins (all under 10 bar 2) were getting bored and wanting to play, he shouted and swore at them! DH heard and told him if he spoke to anyone like it again he was going in the lake.
He helped himself to the free bar and was too drunk to bother getting photos of the reception.
He came with the venue and to be frank they were over priced and staffed by teenagers. They never even told anyone the evening buffet was ready and turned the lights off, we only knew it was there as DD and her cousins started appearing, nibbling on bits of chicken.

I will try and bridge the gap between the ceremony and dinner, so even stretching dinner to 4, gives us more time to talk.
I do have a caracurist booked which I'd forgotten about, so maybe even he could arrive towards the end of the meal?
After the meal, I hope nobody leaves, but it'd be downstairs for the evening part

I did a speech at my wedding. I figured I would never have all the people I loved in one room like this again, so took the chance to say thank you and how much I loved and appreciated them. I wrote it out and backed it on nice paper and read it. I thought I would be nervous but honestly it was one of my favourite parts. Saying what I wanted to say to people I loved and appreciated. Do you think you could say a few words?
My husband is very good at public speaking and my father used to do it for a living and (they might have been kind) but people said they loved my speech as it was unexpected and full of love