Page 31 | Weddings you went to where things went wrong?

Bupo · 2025-03-09T12:01:41+00:00

Please can you share any times you attended a wedding where things went awry. I’m just keen to avoid any possible issue. The only one I can think of is where the bride was two hours late. Apparently her family were just really exacting with the make up artist and had a lot of the make up redone/touched up. We were sat in the Church for aaaaages. It meant that the drinks reception/evening meal was really rushed as the bride and groom really prioritised the dancing.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 26/03/2025 17:14

Why on earth does it matter? Nobody should be in any doubt about who the bride is. The only reason it would be odd for someone to turn up in white or cream or ivory would be if she (or he, I suppose) were wearing a wedding dress. That would be odd, I admit, but an ordinary dress that happens to be light in colour? Nah. The photos are a trivial part of the day. Weddings can be good fun (or not) but are really not important in the long run. I have been married for over 40 years now. I can remember what I wore. I couldn't tell you what anybody else wore. I can remember who was there and how happy we all were, and that's what counts.

ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas · 26/03/2025 17:19

I don’t know anyone who’d give a monkeys about such frivolous matters in my circles.

Oh I get the unspoken message here. Your 'circles' are far too rich and sophisticated to concern themselves with the same superstitious nonsense as the grubby little proles. After all, the weddings you attend are so grand that there's no way anyone could ever be mistaken for the bride. She's the one in the real diamond tiara and dress with the 30 foot hand embroidered train. How amusing that someone in their New Look polyester tea dress might be worried about being seen to 'compete' with that.

Katemax82 · 26/03/2025 18:01

PiastriThePastry · 09/03/2025 12:45

One where the bride’s gran collapsed at the reception then sadly later that evening died in hospital and one where the groom got absolutely shitfaced and tried fighting several of his groomsmen / friends… the latter was absolutely bizarre as it was so completely out of character for him, even when he was drunk. He’s normally the nicest guy in the world.
Anywho! I don’t think general little bumps in the road matter. People don’t notice half so much as you think you do!

Every single person who went to our wedding only remembers the photographer who kind of took forever and ruined it because our meal was delayed he took so bloody long..I wish I'd just told him to go long before it got to that

TwistedWonder · 26/03/2025 18:17

ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas · 26/03/2025 17:10

Depends. If it was more of a yellowy ivory, or a champagne beige, maybe not. But a pale cream that's almost white? Especially if there is no pattern or other colour? Of course that's weird. Presumably as it was your mother you knew in advance and were not fussed about it, but it's not a normal choice and one that most people would know to avoid.

I can't believe there is anyone who doesn't know it's bad form to turn up to a wedding in a plain white dress unless you are the bride.

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Agree. I’m late 50’s and the no white rule has been a thing since I was a kid.

Tbh I can’t understand the mindset of someone who would think it was ok to wear all white to a wedding

itstooorangeyforcrows · 26/03/2025 18:21

ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas · 26/03/2025 17:10

Depends. If it was more of a yellowy ivory, or a champagne beige, maybe not. But a pale cream that's almost white? Especially if there is no pattern or other colour? Of course that's weird. Presumably as it was your mother you knew in advance and were not fussed about it, but it's not a normal choice and one that most people would know to avoid.

I can't believe there is anyone who doesn't know it's bad form to turn up to a wedding in a plain white dress unless you are the bride.

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Tbh, personally I don't think I would even have cared if someone had turned up in a long white dress, because everyone knew I was the bride. Provided it hadn't been DH's ex and provided their dress wasn't nicer than mine. 😅

My mum's outfit was a pale cream (not yellowy ivory or champagne beige), plain two-piece skirt suit and the only opinion I had about it was that a little part of me had hoped she'd go for something brighter to add a bit of colour to the wedding pics, but she'd chosen something she'd liked and that was all that mattered. But it was a cream two-piece with a below-the-knee skirt, not a long cream dress, and it was on the mother of the bride, so as far as I'm concerned... well, of course that's not weird.

To me 'bad form' suggests a kind of 'whatever will people say?' sort of conformism, which I just couldn't give a hoot about in this sort of context. I definitely seem to be in the minority, though. Mind you, we also dispensed with the conventions of having a receiving line, having a seating plan and having a first dance, because we weren't fussed about those things either. 😄(And no, I'm not trying to sound edgy, these are just not things DH and I care about, so why bother with them?)

itstooorangeyforcrows · 26/03/2025 18:31

TwistedWonder · 26/03/2025 18:17

Agree. I’m late 50’s and the no white rule has been a thing since I was a kid.

Tbh I can’t understand the mindset of someone who would think it was ok to wear all white to a wedding

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'A thing' can only become a thing if enough people decide it is 'a thing'. Outside of 'it's conventional', why on earth does it matter? You're saying 'understand the mindset' as though someone's proposed getting married in a public toilet or something.

BTW I'm late 50s too and the only 'rule' I was ever aware of pre-Mumsnet was that no one's dress should look like a wedding dress. Vetoing an entire colour (plus neighbouring colours), though, regardless of the outfit style and who the wearer is, when everyone is well aware who the bride is, purely so no one will think one doesn't know the 'rules', just seems batshit to me.

RafaFan · 26/03/2025 19:04

@fuckityfux I know they're not the same as us common folk, but Pippa Middleton wore a spectacular white/cream dress at William and Kate's wedding. If it's good enough for them...

I've never understood the "upstaging the bride" or "being mistaken for the bride" thing. Surely all the guests know who the bride is??

RafaFan · 26/03/2025 19:24

There was quite a bit of discussion about the awfulness of ceilidhs at weddings upthread (not my opinion, I love a good ceilidh). Just be prepared to take the microphone away from any one who gets maudlin from the drink and thinks everyone wants to hear them sing. This happened at a wedding I was at, where an older relative of the bride got hold of the microphone and sang a Gaelic lament that went on for ages. It really took the party mood right down.

RedFatball · 26/03/2025 19:28

My 18mo son wasn't very well. He was sat with my MIL, but wouldn't settle so I ended up carrying him down the aisle with me and had him on my shoulder as they were doing the ceremony. He vomited all down my back just as we finished. Poor wee sod. He's 15 now, taller than me and we still remind him!

ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas · 27/03/2025 07:12

RafaFan · 26/03/2025 19:04

@fuckityfux I know they're not the same as us common folk, but Pippa Middleton wore a spectacular white/cream dress at William and Kate's wedding. If it's good enough for them...

I've never understood the "upstaging the bride" or "being mistaken for the bride" thing. Surely all the guests know who the bride is??

She was a bridesmaid though, that's different. Royal weddings rarely feature much colour for bridesmaids in fact, they are pretty much exclusively white or off white. Zara Tindall's bridesmaids wore colour but she's not technically a princess so there must be some protocol over it.

Anguauberwaldironfoundersson · 27/03/2025 07:30

The one where the groom abandoned his new wife during the evening do to go and do coke with his groomsmen. Bride went to bed alone after being helped out of her dress by a random guest and the groom didn’t get back to the honeymoon suite until 6am.

it didn’t last a year.

FuckityFux · 27/03/2025 08:58

ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas · 26/03/2025 17:19

I don’t know anyone who’d give a monkeys about such frivolous matters in my circles.

Oh I get the unspoken message here. Your 'circles' are far too rich and sophisticated to concern themselves with the same superstitious nonsense as the grubby little proles. After all, the weddings you attend are so grand that there's no way anyone could ever be mistaken for the bride. She's the one in the real diamond tiara and dress with the 30 foot hand embroidered train. How amusing that someone in their New Look polyester tea dress might be worried about being seen to 'compete' with that.

You’re so far off the mark, it’s hilarious. Rich indeed! 🤔🤣🤣🤣

I grew up piss poor in a mining village with salt of the earth types who care about their community and friends but not faux snobbery.

itstooorangeyforcrows · 27/03/2025 12:26

FuckityFux · 27/03/2025 08:58

You’re so far off the mark, it’s hilarious. Rich indeed! 🤔🤣🤣🤣

I grew up piss poor in a mining village with salt of the earth types who care about their community and friends but not faux snobbery.

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Similar background here, solidly working class - it's hard not to feel there's a class-based element to the 'don't wear white to a wedding' so-called rule.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 27/03/2025 13:00

@RafaFan - I think that the comments about ceilidhs were because there was a reference to a 'mandatory' ceilidh. Nothing wrong with a ceilidh, but the implication was that everyone MUST take part that was the problem.