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?

LRD we are looking at a church wedding as we're both regular (ie weekly) church goers

Last time I had a civil service so I think I get away with it, not aying anything for how DP is risking his soul :)

You should arrange to have karaoke in lieu of any evening entertainment / band / DJ , and then ensure that one of your close relatives gets trolleyed and harangues any guests not signed up to sing.

Sounds nice mad! Hope it all goes well - you realize after this thread making classics, a post-wedding thread with pictures will be mandatory?

Important to have some lively guests.

Try inviting a high maintenance friend who will come up to you at the reception and complain that they've been put on a rubbish table, and that you've invited one of their unfortunate exes. At the next wedding you attend, they'll probably avoid this faux pas by not speaking to the happy couple at all, simply sitting outside smoking dope in full view of all the uncles and aunts.

Speaking of aunts, do you have any that can be relied upon to get really drunk? One could lose her handbag and accuse the restaurant staff of stealing it (until it is found under her coat), while another could very loudly encourage her son be persistent with a young lady who he has already tried to chat up before realising that she is, in fact, gay.

Matsikula - My lovely Aunt can utterly be relied upon to get roaring drunk and be the life and soul she's a total darling!

LRD - you think I have any intention of shutting up until next Summer?????? Nope you're going to be getting blow by blow accounts of my joy!

DP has now gone home til Friday so I'll be very boring and posting lots til then....

If it's a church wedding, you can have the feature where the groom's brother stands up in the middle of the service and shouts abuse at the priest for representing a homophobic institution and some other stuff that got muffled as he was manhandled out by the best man and large mates recruited just in case.

Catholic priest took it in his stride, but brother and groom then came into the back room at the reception to have a ding-dong, fortunately deciding to not actually have a punch-up after taking one swing and tripping over me breastfeeding ds...

Alternatively, if you've gone for the church wedding solely to keep MIL happy and get some nice presents and told all your family and friends (but not MIL!), ensure the vicar mentions that Weddings are NOT just for keeping MILs happy and to get nice presents and predicts DOOM for anyone who does that, as it makes entertainment as 3/4 of the church try not to snort or giggle.

Have an evangelical preacher friend who shouts at the guests during his bit of the service that those who are not believers will not be saved and will burn in the fires of hell for eternity.

Sit evangelical preacher next to innocent old school friend (ie me) at the meal.

Be in denial that your wedding is in fact in December and make all guests,who have already surrendered their coats, stand outside for interminable photo sessions.

Have a very small wedding and invite only one single person (ie me) and have a slow dance at which every other person at the wedding clutches their partner except for said single person who slowly slides under the nearest table.

When deciding upon a date, you need a close relative- ideally a sibling- to have already announced their wedding date. You can then set yours for a few weeks before. For maximum thunder-stealing, you need to ensure that you find out what the other bride will be wearing, what colour the bridesmaids will wear, what hymns they have planned- and then do exactly the same for your own wedding.

notcitrus ... rofl absolutely brilliant !

If you have a quite long run-up to your wedding, and your friends do not know DH-to-be very well, try to drop in frequent vaguely disturbing details about your life together over the intervening months. "He refuses to hug me", for example, or "he tries to sneak things I'm allergic to into my food as a joke".

This will ensure that by the time your friends rock up at your wedding, half of them will be whispering about him behind their hands, and the others will be planning on kidnapping you before the ceremony can begin. :(

a themed wedding! fantastic way to embarras your guests ten years later when you post the pics on fb and teg them all

Also scowl when shaking hands with DH's family at the line up and say,

"Oh you made it then?"

Makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

And another thought (memory) has just crossed my mind...

Get your mother to give up work FOR A WHOLE YEAR in order to focus solely on... PLANNING YOUR WEDDING!!

Yippee!

Funny thread, just remember that guests end up paying a fortune to attend in the first place, enough to p-- people off.

Had to lol at ask one set of neices to be bridesmaid but not the other. DD's uncle is getting married, she isn't bridesmaid but her half sister is.

I'm not even invited but it's cost a ton for her outfit before she even starts on the gift.

Tell some friends you are not having a hen party. Then invite them to your wedding and show them a film of you having a ball on your hen night. With all your other friends...

Watch their faces when the penny drops that you just didn't invite them.

How they laughed.

Congratulations!

Do invite everyone for 2pm but leave them waiting until nearly 4pm in freezing church. Then conduct entire ceremony in another language without translations for majority of time. After over an hour of ceremony have minister announce that he can only give a blessing as immigration has not given clearance for marriage to take place
To complete, arrive 4 hours later for alcohol free reception and then have bridesmaids perform lengthy dance rather than feeding starving guests with food that has been waiting in smelling distance on view. Watch guests depart to stop at kebab shop on the way home.

or

Have wedding far enough away so that your family all fork out tons on flights/hotels then admit it's all over the next day.

Haven't we been lucky

dont tell the guests where the wedding is going to be held until the morning of the wedding then insist on a theme , have the food come out really really late and in tiny amounts (this works best when the venue is no where near a takeaway) if its inedible all the better! congratulations hope you have a great day

Invite your friends to the ceremony and light meal afterwards. They will be touched and delighted, all the more so when they get a phone call 72 hours before the wedding asking them to bring quiche for 40 along with them. You just forgot to mention the light meal was being catered by all of your guests....

Have a wedding reception with NO MUSIC because you want everyone to "sit and chat". Then proceed to sit in the corner with your mate from work and ignore everyone for hours, including your new wife.

Be sure to leave reception for an hour to go and count up the value of cheques given and then be sure to have a loud conversation about this on your return to the bar, where your guests are eating crisps and nuts from said bar because all the food ran out before all tables served.

Then, at 9am the NEXT MORNING, drive around to bestmans house to ask for the receipt for beatiful expensive gift that his wife chose for you, so that they can return it for cash as "we did ask for cash gifts on the invitation".

If you don't already have ridiculous names you never use (middle/full-length first names) get them changed by deed-poll so whenever the celebrant uses your name your soon-to-be-spouse and all the guests laugh mightily.

You know who your are St John (pronounced Sin-jun) or Si as you introduced yourself as all those years ago

Have a special table staffed by 'uncles' with adding machines totting up the value of the cash gifts.

If you can, train them not to look horrified when a guest my dh, forgets to get cash out and can't find his cheque book but thankfully has book tokens of an appropriate value so encloses those instead

Allow your mother to choose your dress.
Then pretend not to notice when she turns up in a very similar dress.

Just as the guests sit down to relax after a church service and waiting around for the photos etc, ask them to sit silently again whilst some family member belts out a rounding tune.

Great idea but don't be surprised if one or two of your guests are in fits of uncontrollable hysterics about the irony of it all, and want the ground to swallow them up [shudder at the memory emotion].

When your DF's brother gets engaged a few months after you, smile nicely and say of course you don't mind when he asks if you mind him getting married first - as long as you don't pick the weekend on which DF will be best man at his oldest friend's wedding.
Then deal with the resulting dilemma when he chooses that weekend with dignity and grace.