So, we're getting married, best ways to irritate all our guests here please

[Madascheese]

Well DP pitched up with a very pretty bit of jewellery yesterday and proposed! How excited am I?

adhere to*

damn it, wrong bolding. to

As much as I love children at weddings, I think "no children" is a clever way of making sure your devil nieces Chloe and Radcliffe don't get to ruin the service /photos / speeches/ wedding dress. :)

"If anyone does know of any adult-themed weddings on the horizon involving orgies and vats of cocaine please, please say so here.

I would like to help the bride in any way I can in preparation for the 'big day' and devote my every waking hour to her wedding preparations. I am willing to be interrupted at work, at 3am- whenever. I don't mind at all.

Not that I'd want an invite or anything like that. Oh no, certainly not, I am totally selfless. "

I didn't see that before I posted just now. I'll be sure to let you know.

Oo yes!

If your mother has qualms about your DP, encourage her to dress in funeral black, with a lace veil, to express her inner concerns. This is a kindness to her.

Also, if your MIL-to-be has any concerns about you, appreciate her gesture of wearing a wedding dress complimentary white/cream outfit to yours on the happy day.

Also, in the run up to the wedding, try to alternate the wedding plans discussions with as many allusions as possible to what a bastard your husband-to-be is: how uncaring, unsupportive, downright rude, domineering etc. When your friends/colleagues can no longer contain themselves and gently ask why you are marrying him in that case, be mortally offended and shun aforesaid friends/colleagues henceforth.

INsist on inviting all your H2B's XPs to the wedding, including tracking down women who he hasn't seen for 10 years, and instruct your dad to make a big deal in his speech about how your now-H was a man everyone thought would never settle down but you have 'tamed' him....

I'm nominating this for classics, can't bear for it to disappear without a trace! Has been brilliant reading through all these!

I am feeling rather that I am genuinely planning some of these suggestions for my own wedding, oblivious to the irritation I am going to cause!

(seriously though, how can a free bar and a ceildah be that bad )

Make sure you seat your weird old neighbours, who hate children and can talk at length about their hatred for them, on one of the only two tables with children. If possible the table with slightly older children who will understand what is being said.

This is particularly effective if the only other guests on the table have just found out she's pregnant.

Yay we are in Classics! (Thanks Helen for the email!)

Spend the year leading up to the wedding patronizing eveyonr you know by telling that you wedding is going to be "a little bit different" as if everyone who has a conventional wedding is just far too inferior.

Ooh, great, we're in Classics!

Get the mother of the groom to send out invitations to the wedding on behalf of her son (pissing of traditionalists and non-trads alike).

Ensure that when anyone replies with a polite 'no, can't make it', she throws a massive strop and threatens dire pain and shame if all plans that conflict with the wedding are not canceled immediately. If anyone is foolish enough to turn up after this, tell the whole room (especially, the bride) that her guests didn't really want to be there and are missing a holiday for it. She'll love you for it.

This works especially well if you didn't send out invitations/any mention of the date until a few months beforehand.

Little pickle head: free bar is fine; no bar is bad. Ceildah is fine, making everyone dance, and nowhere to talk is bad.

Oh don't bother with any thank you letters, or any future communication with those who attended the wedding afterwards. (Why spend a fortune on a meal for me and family and then drop us forever afterwards?)

Don't invite your parents because they'll look 'scruffy' compared to millionaire fiancee's family. Grudgingly invite them after siblings give you an earful, but uninvite sibling1. Sibling2 is still OK.

Spend forever on speeches before the food gets brought out. Food finally arrives. MIL is moved to praise the Lord, so top table and most guests all do so for about 15 minutes, until the food is stone cold. During this, remaining guests realise the wine is in fact not only non-alcoholic but tastes absolutely foul.

Invite groom's old friend from uni that he hasn't seen since. Somehow it hadn't got to the happy couple that the reason no-one was in contact with him was that the guy had beaten up/raped not one, not two, but three women. Two of whom were in the wedding party and turned around to see his grinning face...

Make big deal about how much you are spending your your dress and the crystal carriage pulled by white swans that you are going to arrive in. Then have the reception in a damp, odd-smelling community centre and a buffet of value sausage rolls, own brand crisps and a pay bar.

Really? Classics?

preens

See, Madas. What a happen time for you; new jewellery AND in Classics. You are a true MNer...

Oh, and another one I've remembered...

Insist in holding your wedding in an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean, so all you family just HAVE to take unpaid leave to get there, and spend all their holiday savings for the next three years on your wedding.

Then brag about how much CHEAPER it is doing it this way.

Then, on the big day itself, insist that the wedding meal takes places in the "upgraded" restaurant on the complex where guests have to pay extra dollars to join you to celebrate your meal, and do not offer to pay the upgrade for anyone.

Kind. And generous.

happy time for you, happen

Ah yes, speeches. If you are going to conform to the creepy delightful tradition of having your new DH, father and DH's friend talk about you during the speeches, while you sit silently between them, DO make sure that they include plenty of stories that depict you as a spoilt, selfish, controlling PITA under the guise of "praising" you for your wonderful organisational skills etc. This will really reassure the weeping mother of the groom, and all DH's friends/family who have never met you before. The aghast looks on their faces are an indication of their awe at the holy state of matrimony.

Oooh yes, elephants. Ideally, the bride's father should drop in plenty of references to the groom's financial responsibility for his new bride. The line 'now you'll be paying for all her shopping with your hard work' goes down especially well.

My kindly uncle, fearing my dad had accidentally left out this essential part of his speech, generously provided it in loud and repeated tones as everyone else applauded my dad's speech.

I was touched, deeply.

You really really mustn't forget to get so absolutely plastered that you end up on floor with your beautiful wedding frock around your waist legs wide apart showing all you've got because your mum and her friends have asked to see your garter. This will result in much hilarity for them.
You must make sure that an old friend is nearby to try to stop you doing this and that your new husband has a go at old friend for failing to 'stop you making a fool of yourself' (make sure old friend has handkerchief to hand to mop up blood from biting their tongue)
It is imperative that your old friend is available to use as verbal punchbag because groom will not risk a scene by having a go at new mum-in-law for preventing your behaviour.

Also, make sure that you are so pissed that some female relatives and mates feel that you may suffocate in sleep thus are torn between:
1, Helping you out of aforementioned gorgeous dress with all accompaniments (such as sharp hairdress pins) and putting you in recovery position or...
2, Putting you to bed fully-frocked and letting you be because of some old-fashioned notion that this is 'groom's job' on his wedding night.

Ask for money for a new kitchen rather than presents.

Then never ask your guests round to view the very thing they have paid for.

They won't mind. Honest

[I want a new kitchen - contemplates marrying DP............]

Hold your reception in the middle of nowhere, ensuring that only you and your new husband are able to stay there overnight. Direct your guests to accommodation in a nearby village with the promise of a bus service from the reception at the end of the night.

When the bus doesn't turn up, go to bed unconcerned - it is, after all, your wedding - however be sure that you have picked a location which has no mobile coverage, that none of your guests are from the area and that you have not left details of the bus company with anyone. This ensures guests have no option but to walk 20 miles in high heels/drunk/lost/cold through country roads. That should do it.

Choose to get married in the evening on Christmas eve, in an unheated church, in a town that neither of you live in and which requires all of your guests to drive for several hours to get to.

Or, select a small hotel where you and some select guests can stay, but everyone else will have at least a 30 minute drive to a hotel