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 !

senua

Yep

Evening invites are fine for local people at local weddings - like you’re getting married in your home town and you invite your work buddies as evening guests.

If there is any traveling it is pretty insulting.

Bad weddings:

• Not enough food
• Bad food
• Long wait for food
• Splitting up groups at the wedding breakfast. This is not an opportunity to make new friends, I want to sit with ‘the girls from uni’ if that is who I belong with and have a catch up. I don’t want to sit next to Great Aunt Maud, your mate Tezza and your hair dresser.
• Remote venues
• Venues that are far apart (single location weddings are so much better)
• Venues where the rooms are subbing the wedding costs

-weddings that start to early (3pm is a good start time)

• long gaps between ceremony and reception
• long ceremonies

The best weddings I have been to have all had a clear focus about the guests comfort and it’s been clear that the B&G want to celebrate with their friends and family, rather than have the guests as extras to the B&G show.

Oh. Also fucking abroad fucking weddings. Yes it might have been £5k cheaper for you but 60 people have had to take 3 days of fucking work and fly and get hotels and it’s a fucking pain in the fucking ass.

Yes I had three abroad weddings last year and it’s a sore spot.

I would rather pay the B&G £300 to attend a London, Saturday wedding.

But you don’t have to attend weddings abroad.

If you get married abroad you have to expect that some people won’t go, if the b&g don’t understand that then they’re a bit twatty.

The worst wedding I went to was a mid afternoon wedding that didn't serve food until 8.30 pm. They did bring lovely canapés round before the service, but there weren't many (and at that point people thought they were getting a sit down meal as there was a seating plan). People were really hungry before the food came, and even then it was a mini burger and a tiny cone of chips, so not filling. By ten o clock people had paid for taxis to bring them fish and chips from the chippy in the next village, or even given up and left.

Another bad wedding was a rich bride and groom that booked a fairy tale castle for their wedding that people had to book rooms for the whole weekend at £140/night. They then added a cheesy poem with their bank details so people could wire money instead of presents and also expected us to go to expensive foreign stag/hen dos. It would have cost us about £1500 to go to their wedding so ee declined everything.

OP gaps are OK as long as people know and if they are already there you can provide your own small buffet type food. We had a very small number of people at the daytime ceremony and went back to our house for photos (where we live is open countryside and very pretty, whereas where the registry office is wasn't nice outside) and a meal for the 25 guests then a huge evening reception later on. I decided on that partially because of cost, and partially because I'd been jilted before a wedding with an ex and really didn't want a big wedding the next time. A lot of friends really wanted to come to the ceremony, despite knowing there wasn't a daytime reception, just a meal with close family and witnesses. I put up a large gazebo in out garden, bought lots of champagne and made a buffet from M&S bought finger/picnic food. It was enough for people to graze on for a couple of hours while we did photos. I paid my friends two teenagers to pour drinks and lay out all the food and plates. It was very informal, but worked well.

By the way, I'm perfectly happy with just an evening invitation (I find the ceremony and speeches quite boring, I like seeing the brides dress and the party bit. I don't feel second class - these are often friends that aren't close friends, I feel pleased to be there at all.

I'm also perfectly happy to pay for drinks, I don't think I've ever been to a free bar wedding.

I've just found out that the one we're going to tomorrow night is not serving any food. This is the after party to a very small informal ridiculously formal wedding before Xmas , which we were also in attendance for. 150 guests in a pub function room, not our local town, £55 return taxi to both events, plus dresses/suit, drinks at both events, £100 given as a gift which has not yet been acknowledged - I think that's pretty miserly actually.

Ps, after all that wittering I forgot to say that I could cope with a gap between ceremony and food if I knew about it in advance. It's when you've not eaten because you're expecting a meal and then you have to wait that it's really annoying. So if you're going to do that at least let your guests know.

@thenewaveragebear1983 a party without food isn’t a proper party. Unless you’re between the age of 13-21 and you’re in someone’s house. Yes that’s very miserly, are they paying for drinks or is it just a night in a pub being called a wedding reception?

Buffalo nope. In fact, the pub room is free provided they take £1k over the bar. So we're paying for the reception.

I really shouldn't moan, I know this. BUT if you host a party and don't put on food, the only thing your guests will remember is your mean hosting! It's close family so we have to go, (and obviously we want to go and celebrate with them) and haven't had an actual invite as such, but if they haven't said in the invite that there's no food it could be interesting!

Plus for many it could be the first drink since new year due to dry January being 'a thing', me included.

It's close family so we have to go

No, you don't. You can make up a stomach bug and save yourself 50 quid.

I wish I could but I can't. It's dh's brother. We have to go. Plus we had norovirus two weeks ago so the chances of us both being sick again would be minimal!

Overseas weddings 😩

The bride and groom get it all free if more than 10 book rooms at these places. Last one we were invited to wanted to know months and months in advance, which we couldn’t do due to work and medical reasons, and got angry when we couldn’t commit because they needed to find someone to take our place so they’d get it free. 🙄

We committed. To not going. They still sent their registry to us.

Don’t send lists of stuff you want, it’s just grabby and tacky!

Really surprised that people would expect a pay bar.

I've been to maybe three out of 20-30 weddings that had a pay bar. Only one of them particularly grated as it was all pomp and ceremony, and I just thought 'lose the top hats, opera singers, and bragging about your honeymoon in the Maldives, and buy us a drink'. The others were modest affairs and I didn't mind although it wasn't as fun for sure.

We committed. To not going. They still sent their registry to us.

Wow, that is cheeky!

Weddings are a minefield. Yes, sometimes it's about a selfish bride and groom simply prioritising their photos/gifts/budget over their guests, but there are a lot more factors:

• well-meaning couples who've never organised a big event before, but understandably want their friends and family around them. They suddenly need to plan a bash for 100 people of all ages, personalities and dietary requirements and they just don't have the skills and practice to do it well.

• venues which want to provide minimal food and service for maximum price. The bride and groom may specify all sorts of things when they make the booking, but on the day the venue knows they can offer small quantities of crap food and drink, late, to almost everyone except the top table, and there will be no comeback at all. Nobody will want to tell the bride or groom that their wedding reception was crap. They'll just grin and bear it and the bride and groom will happily pay the bill thinking it was all fine.

• the cultural expectation that it ought to be your One and Only Magical Day where everything is special and all your dreams come true. This isn't even conducive to people enjoying their own wedding, let alone guests enjoying it.

@SalemtheBIackCat Not everyone has 2 receptions. When I got married we had a lunchtime ceremony with afternoon sit down meal just for close friends /family. No evening do. My friend OTOH had a late afternoon ceremony with evening buffet / disco only.

The 2 receptions come in when people want their wedding to be a larger affair but can't afford to pay for 100+ people for a sit down meal so they will do a sit down meal in the afternoon for close friends and family, then extend the evening do to people they like but aren't so close to such as work colleagues so they get to celebrate with them as well but without the cost of a 3 course meal.

That's when you get all the waiting around .

These social class caste system weddings are outrageous, I know British are very polite but why do people take this? Why? I don't understand.

I think it started when parents were picking up the tab so the day reception/meal/breakfast was populated by the parent's choice of relatives the b and g had not seen for years and don't really care if they were invited.

The evening do is the party where the b and g invite all their friends, work colleagues, hairdresser etc. The parents invite the people who lived next door 10 years ago, someone the mum met walking the dog last week and dad's mates from the pub.

I was at one of those terrible ones at a hotel with a massive gap between ceremony and dinner (lots of photo fannying about) 4 hours of mingling with Buck’s Fizz & tiny canapés.
My partner hadn’t been invited & I was a random.

Suddenly I had a genius idea. Luckily I had my car & had not drunk anything yet & reasonably local.

I went home, stopping a the chippy and sat in bed for 2 hours before returning.

I am still so proud of that one.

But you don’t have to attend weddings abroad

You do when you’re bridesmaid at two of them and you agreed to the other one first!

“Will you be a bridesmaid at this wedding abroad?”

“No”

HTH. HAND.

I have been to some absolutely cracking weddings as well. In fact most have been lovely. Even most of the abroad ones... it’s just it gets a bit old when you have multiple abroad ones a year.

Have been to quite a lot of weddings over the past 5 years. Early thirsties is super peak-wedding.

Oooh other bad wedding things - wanting your three bridesmaids who are totally dofferemt heights, shapes and colourings in the same dress and then not even paying for all of it. And then have a free bar. Could have taken £200 off the bar budget and paid for our matchy matchy never to be work again dresses in full.

@ReflectentMonatomism you don’t get told it’s goinf to be abroad when you get asked to be BM!

Also, then I wouldn’t be able to bitch about it afterwards.

Honestly on their own, each one would have been fine. Three abroad ones plus hen do’s plus U.K. weddings was just a bit much. Coming off a 5 year stretch of multiples.

At least as BM I was able to mandate a U.K. hen do for the abroad weddings. I did everyone a right favour there. The grooms for those weddings had abroad stag do’s as well so the guys got totally fucked over.

B and G should pay for all food and drink..

V inhospitable to expect guests to,pay for their own drinks.

So cut your cloth according