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 !

Buffalo same here! Between mumsnet and going to a LOT of weddings over the past ten years I feel like I’ve been in training for this so:

• my catering budget is also 5x my dress budget
• we aren’t getting married until late afternoon and we’re meeting our immediate families beforehand so most of the boring posed photos can happen then
• we’re providing all the booze
• no evening guests, if you’re good enough to come to my wedding then you’re good enough to come for the whole day!
• still deciding what to do about gift list but if we do have one, we are NOT going to put some cheesy line about ‘we of course don’t expect presents (but here’s a list of all the stuff we want)’

I must admit I have never told the bride how shit her wedding was, but it must be obvious to her.
It’s been a year since her wedding and the family are still talking about what a nice wedding we had and how relaxed and lovely it was. No one mentions her wedding (or another cousins, which was almost as bad)
Another cousin has just announced their intentions to marry - on August bank holiday when us four, sister in law and nephew and my in-laws are all going to be on our annual family holiday that happens every year. They still expect us to go. Knobs

@salem because it's just the done thing here in the UK. Our packages includes having extra at night so it's not really any cheaper.
Only on mn could you be offended to recieve an evening invitation 🙄

Massive village hall with industrial lighting that was left on all night - despite some vaguely tasteful wall sconces. It totally killed the atmosphere and meant that the disco after dinner was avoided by everyone but a small tribe of little boys doing knee slides. I have yet to find a single person that looks truly good under strip lighting. A handful of tea lights on each table and the side lights on rather than the overhead strip lights would have completely changed the atmosphere.
The guests were all sat in couples and cliques, which was just a death-knell for any interaction between guests (is this a southern phenomenon? I'd never experienced this before moving south). I don't want or need to sit next to my husband at every event, like some peculiar comfort blanket. If guests aren't encouraged to mingle, even just a little bit, it completely kills a party.
Those two elements alone had such an impact that a number of people agreed it was the worst wedding reception we had ever been to. DH and I felt terrible for the couple as they are so lovely - I even tried to find the light switches half way through the evening!

Thanks @SalemtheBIackCat hopefully it will be!

Also yes to slightly later ceremony, I think we’re going for 2.30pm at the moment.

Possibly mine where my 2 year old son vomited at the table during our wedding breakfast and during the speeches my mil handed him to me saying I needed to change his nappy.

We had our ceremony at 3 - everyone got to have a good lunch beforehand. At the reception everyone had drinks and canapés (starter) whilst we did the speeches and then we just cracked on with the rest of the evening.

Omg @speakout and I thought the wedding where the groom hit on me in the evening was bad!

I love weddings but my pet peeve is the long wait, particularly for the photographs, it was the main stipulation of my wedding that we did NOT go away from all the fun we’ve paid for to pose for hours on end by ourselves.

I am a seasoned pro now ie big gaps between ceremony and reception, and always have emergency snacks in my bag. Some of my friends have cottoned on and sometimes sidle up to me now for an emergency Go ahead bar.

I also attended a wedding where the lack of love between the couple and their families was palpable. It was awful, and made me kind of depressed.

I think the more weddings you attend before you get married, the better. It teaches you everything you should not do.

More personally, I don’t enjoy being an evening guest and always feel less worthy as a friend of the couple. We didn’t have any at ours for that reason and just had who we wanted there for the whole day and night.

@stressedmum0f3 I think you'll find most people would be upset at receiving an invite for a two-tier evening wedding, everywhere else in the world. Considering it means you have one group considered above others and those people are told that via an evening invite.

I honestly don't know how people still go to weddings without taking snacks these days. Been to so many bad weddings with long gaps in between that I've learnt my lesson. Always bring supplies and keep in car/bag etc

I went to a wedding once where the bride changed into Jeans for the evening reception but lets not go there

@loobyloo1234 what’s the problem with changing into jeans if she’s comfortable?

@BuffaloCauliflower - the evening guests never got to see her dress Do you not think that's a bit strange? At least wait a few hours into the evening surely?

@loobyloo1234 I honestly don’t think I’d give it much thought, if she’s not bothered I don’t see why anyone else should be. It’s a party not an exhibition viewing.

@BuffaloCauliflower each to their own as always. But if you're inviting people to a WEDDING reception, it would be nice of you to let them feel part of the WEDDING by keeping your dress on for them to see. I for one love to see the dress.

Unless you are wearing jeans for the whole ceremony in which case, crack on

The worst one I went to was when the bride and groom had left such big gaps between everything!

We had a taxi arranged for us to pick a group of us up from a hotel to take us to the church. They arranged it so we arrived at the church for 10:30, ceremony was at 12 and bride was still 30 mins late!

We then had another hours journey to the reception and were greeted with a drink, but the bride and groom arrived an hour later and then food was still another two hours with nothing going on in between. We ended up sneaking to a Mcdonalds down the road. Felt bad until we saw other guests doing the same!

When we finally got to eat, the service took forever and by then, children were grumpy, hungry and tired, our food was starting to get cold and we just wern't happy.

Reception in a marquee in the bride's parents' massive garden... at a cold time of year.

It was fucking freezing.

We were only invited for the evening, and booked into a hotel in the nearest town for the night. Taxi driver couldn't find the reception for ages (this was in the days before satnav and the reception was in the middle of nowhere).

We arrived in the dark and the cold and the mud to find that the meal had overrun and - late as we were - the speeches were still going on. So we stood in a back corner of the massive cold tent while loads of people gave speeches we couldn't see or hear properly.

After that we stood around and drank for a while... at least there was plenty of wine. I only knew one person there and DH only knew a few (it was DH's work colleague who was the groom). And the best man had dropped a bombshell in his speech to the effect that the groom was leaving his job... this was the first the colleagues had heard of it and they were all horrified. So not in a party mood.

The buffet came out very late because the wedding breakfast had finished so late and nobody would be hungry yet... Oh, except for the poor sods who had only been invited for the evening buffet, who were standing around starving and shivering because there was only enough seating for the all-day guests.

Eventually the food arrived: a massive whole Stilton cheese, plonked in the middle of a table. That was ALL for about an hour until somebody remembered to put out French bread as well. I do like a bit of cheese but it's quite hard to fill up on all on its own, however hungry you are.

There was a band and we danced like crazy in order to stave off the hypothermia.

On the way back the taxi couldn't find us again and we stood shivering out on the main road waving hopefully at passing cars.

I came down with a really bad chest infection.

My worst evening reception was the one where it slowly dawned on dh and I that we were the only evening guests. When we arrived (after three-hour journey) everyone was sitting at their tables and we hovered at the back. No other evening guests turned up, and there was no additional food. There wasn't even anywhere to sit. It was very embarrassing.

Dh was furious. It was an old school friend and dh never spoke to him again and even ceremoniously crossed him off the Christmas card list.

Sorry, am I being dense? I always decline evening invitations because I assumed everyone did, and you weren’t meant to accept them like you aren’t meant to actually take seriously the invitation to meet up with the couple you met on holiday. I thought they meant “we are getting married, you aren’t invited, see you soon”. I didn’t realise they were serious.

So yes, I assume an evening invitation is a direct way to ghost someone, and if they are on the Christmas card list I cross them off.

We’ve had lots of evening invites but it tends to be work colleagues of DH and it’s just a local night out really.
I think evening invites are for local people who can just come for a drink and not a lot of hassle.
I certainly wouldn’t travel for one/get a hotel.

One wedding I went to was mostly alright but the Bride's Dad's speech went on and on for about an hour - about himself, how successful he is and anecdotes about him and his his celeb friends, who were invited guests. It threw the whole schedule - staff were panicking and evening guests were turning up while we were still eating the meal. The best man had to cut his speech to a couple of sentences. No one said anything because he'd paid for it all and was therefore indulged. The lesson I took away is that family show offs need to be well managed. As an aside, it's the only wedding I've been to where I've gone home with another guest's autograph!

reflected you have cracked me up on this thread! You’re like an extreme MN cliche! I don’t know whether you’re pulling our legs or not?

I can see the situation where an evening reception would be fun. Bit of a knees up with colleagues/old friends/acquaintances. I certainly wouldn't feel "second division" if I were just someone the bride knew from work.

It's not fun when the bride and groom have invited a tiny number to the "evening reception" and do not provide any food.

I did go to one lovely wedding with a gap. Workmate’s wedding where a whole gang of us came up, went to the big ceremony, then went off to the pub while immediate family went to wedding breakfast and we rejoined them for evening party. The key was that wedding was in town hall right in the centre of lovely historic town with lots of great pubs (or shops or sightseeing if that’s what you preferred).

All this 'evening guests are second class and it's rude' is something I have never ever encountered in real life.

It is rude to ask people to come from hundreds of miles away for 3 hours, yes. It is rude to ask people to come to a ceremony in a hotel and then fuck off and come back to the SAME VENUE later. It is not rude to invite people to the evening party to celebrate the marriage of the couple, for local (and local-ish people- if you'd travel an hour for a birthday why wouldn't you travel an hour for a party for a couple's marriage?) and say 'if you are available we'd love to see you at the service' because a church service is public anyway so they're entitled to come whether they are 'invited' or not!

As for 'second class' yes alright dear. You are snubbed and second class friends because Emily your friend from work has invited you to the evening only, and you're not on the 'same level' as her best mate from school and her nieces, nephews and new husband's extended family even though they can only have 60 people for dinner. She's been nice inviting you for the evening. She's not telling you that you aren't as good as her actual family . Are people really saying that any acquaintance who asks you to part of their wedding day is 'out of order' if they don't consider you as important as a family member?

Maybe if people stopped thinking of the evening part as 'second class' and realised it's essentially the 'big celebration party' they wouldn't get so upset about it. (notwithstanding not being invited to a close family wedding etc).

With families and bridal/groom's party and very very close friends ONLY we have 67 people.

We are going against the grain somewhat but it suits us and our guests. We've no family so 40 of our closest friends. Ceremony at 1 for absolute maximum of an hour. Reception venue a 5 minute walk away. Champagne reception on arrival. Buffet around 2.30. Afternoon tea at 5 then finished by 8 although we may carry on in the downstairs bar if others want to. We are covering all food and drink including an open bar. We want 'natural' photography so no hanging around. Does that sound ok?