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?

Give the DJ a list of bands/songs which he absolutely must not play because you hate them. Reiterate this several times to be sure he has understood. Stand by in disbelief when he plays every single track you have listed.

Hold your wedding in a venue which dictates that guests must remove any high heels and put on hideous slippers (provided).

Hold your reception in a venue which does not allow photographs to be taken inside because of the priceless artwork.

Encourage one of your guests to wank her partner off at the meal table; just before the money shot, remind him to stand up and leave the table, pushing past the other guests with his stiffie now almost at their face height (but thankfully inside his trousers).

suncottage aww that's lovely :)

Fenouille - that's what exh did! Sort of got the feeling it might have been a mistake at that exact point!

Littlefish eeeeuuuuuuwwwwww no!

I know! I was sitting next to them. It was vile. They obviously thought no one had noticed. The fact that he was leaning back, with his eyes rolling back in his head, while her arm was furiously pumping gave the game away slightly.

Littlefish ew that's revolting

Madas I felt so sorry for him. He doesn't speak English as his first language and he was so concentrated on the vows that he didn't listen to the name assuming that it would just be 'Fen Surname'. I saw the look of spreading panic on his face as he realised the registrar had just said 'Fen Name OldWeirdFamilyName Surname' of which he'd only heard half of it.

Well, although you've already integrated my suggestion in your first wedding you've got lots of others to chose from

Littlefish....... words fail me. Poor you.

My old uni friend is getting married in Spain next year. She knows I'm a single mum with no family here who struggles enough with babysitters in Britain. But she still hasn't realized that I really mean it when I say I can't come to her wedding next year. It's kind of her to give me lots of time to arrange childcare, as children aren't allowed at the wedding or reception. But even if my mum flies halfway round the world to look after him, I wouldn't want to bog off and leave her. I'd want to see spend time with my mum. There is no one I'd want to leave my would be 3 year old with for a long weekend. She suggests I take him but find a complete stranger to look after him all day through the hotel. Or if I didn't like that he'd be allowed to come to the ceremony with me and stay at the back, but I'd have to skip the reception. She understands it's a bit of a pain to her many friends and family with kids, including her twin sister who has just had a baby.

She won't take no for an answer and has sent me an email asking if I'd sing at her wedding . It's still a no.

Ask loads of DP's mates to be ushers. Then when they say yes insist on full morning dress with such strict requirements that they have to hire everything including their (plain white) SHIRTS to make sure they're all the same. Organise for lots of the day to take place outside with no contingency plan if it rains and then have a massive hissy fit when it pours. All day.

Congratulations by the way!

Good grief Seaturtle! Lovely friend!

How about holding the wedding in some fab castle type place in the middle of pigging nowhere - on a Sunday (as it is cheaper for the special couple). So that if you can't afford to take a day off work the next day and stay the night in the ruinously expensive nearby mansion hotel then at least you have a 4 hour drive home in the small hours of Sunday/Monday morning.

Also try asking your parents who they'd like to invite to the evening reception. Then calmly suggest that maybe 50+ people is on the cheeky side as you'd like some of your and DH's friends to come too.

Endure a week of sulking on behalf of DPs at the cheek of asking them to reduce their list.

Oh and also since you've been living away from the family home for 15+ years you address the wedding invites from you and DH. Thus causing massive offence to previously 'liberal minded' parents as they thought they should be inviting everyone.

Ensure that the groom's family are astonishingly rude to the bride's family at every given opportunity, thus ruining the bride's relationship with her DM for the next 18 months.

Ensure that your future MIL asks someone to do a reading. Without asking either your or your DF first. In fact, ensure that the groom's family try and take over the entire thing, including offering to print the order of service and using this as an excuse to re-write it, without telling the bride and groom, and demanding to know why the bride's mum and dad haven't phoned them to 'discuss things'.

Ensure that the bride's father goes to the hotel to check in, taking his BIL with him. Said BIL disappears for the next 40 minutes and is uncontactable. Bride refuses to start without her father, despite threats from MIL and FIL and food is delayed.

Yes, these were all my wedding. I've made it up with my mother, and my ILs were banned from any 'assistance' in the organisation of our DS' baptism.

wow Seaturtle - that's amazing, you and everyone else who has been on the receiving end of children related bridzilla stuff will have the last laugh though, childrend will come to them and they will bring HAVOC!

Make sure your uncle gets so drunk that he heckles the ceremony. Also make sure that childless friend complains loudly about how child friendly your wedding is. Have bridesmaids, with no warning, do a song and dance routine that makes your DH sit there shaking his head, and make sure this is captured on any videos people take so that said bridesmaids can't be shown.

Reluctantly decide to have a gift list, even though you hate asking for presents, and spend hours choosing nice cheap presents that will, however be really useful (tea strainer, oven glove, etc). All but three of the guests will ignore this and buy you towels or hideous lamps. Even after ringing you to ask what exactly off the list you would like, just to put you on the spot and make you feel awkward.

Spend ages ringing round bus companies to get a cheap bus from your old hometown and back again for the 30+ guests who say they would like this. NOT ONE will actually want it in the end.

Make sure your FIL disapears for hours on end, with no mobile, with your perfectly happy baby, so she isn't on any family photos. That will make for great conversations when she is older.

Only agree to have a first dance reluctantly, and believe your DH when he says he has specifically hired a band that will play the song you have both chosen and the bridesmaids when they say they will join in after 1 minute. None of this will happen, you will end up shuffling round awkwardly to the theme from cheers while the bridesmaids shout at your ex boyfriend to get up and dance with your mother.

Agonise over your choice of reading, as your DH loves poetry and is pouring over his books to find the right one. He will announce that he isn't doing a reading AS YOU WAIT IN THE WINGS and so you will have to just rant on a bit in response to his short and sweet statement of love.

...and breathe...

It actually was a lovely, relaxed day, that was a bit of a shambles (I welcomed the first few guests in my jeans) but the only bits that didn't really work were the formal bits that I didn't really want anyway, so it's ok :)

Don't forget to put your single friends on a table between the kitchen doors and the loos, where they can't see the top table or hear any of the speeches.

Then, when the wine (understandably) runs out on that table, get the staff to refuse to bring them anymore (very rich father of the bride has insisted on only 2 glasses of wine per person), and also, refuse to let them buy anymore as it would be "inappropriate". Therefore, force your guests to sit for 2 hours through the meal and ridiculously long speeches without a drink in their hand.

Don't give the children meals in lunchboxes, as suggested by some - there really is no need to feed them at all! Make sure you only tell the parents of these children this the day of the wedding, so they can make a dash to Tesco for sustinence for these inconvenient rugrats.

For extra effect, throw dirty looks in the direction of said parents when they have the audacity to ask the venue if they could heat up the kids ready meal they have managed to get, or if the parents share anything from their plate or offer a bread roll.

This happened.

Also, as someone has flagged up, don't forget the potential for Idiotic Ushers to go with Idiotic Bridesmaids. A lavender or plum coloured suit does well if they're pale, a dove-grey one if they're dark-skinned.

And do remember that any ushers - in their vile suits - who have breastfeeding partners of small babies can't be allowed to break the No Children rule, o no.

Forgot to add a lovely detail from the alcohol-free one I mentioned earlier: after everyone finally eats, first have I think the honorary father of the groom give a half-hour speech - which might have been lovely but was in a language I don't think anyone at the event understood, including the happy couple.

Then give out lovely gifts to all the guests. A local pound shop is good for these - all women dressed for a formal wedding will appreciate a plastic dish-drainer and a wipe-clean lurid placemat, while the men will love their mugs with a picture of the couple and a non-scanning poem!

Admittedly marginally more useful than bloody sugared almonds...

I still think that one glass of semi-sweet semi-sparkling is worse than no booze at all. There is a killjoy meanness about it that really takes the biscuit.

Get immersed in bridal magazines, wedding tv and wedding forums so that you become convinced that a wishing tree/themed postbox for vouchers/latest must-have of your choice is essential. Don't whatever you do explain to the guests what it's all about or what they are expected to do. Then get upset when the guests fail to do what you wanted them to do.

Invite guests to the evening reception an hour's drive from the church but don't tell them that they were expected to be at the church to fill it up. While they are waiting to be allowed into the reception due to the wedding breakfast over-running by an hour get the groom to come out and give them a b*llocking for not attending the church and ruining the bride's day. Bride upset by finding church half empty and specially hired choir (news to the evening guests) almost outnumbering the congregation.

Make sure the day runs over enough to ensure that the evening guests have to wait outside or even better let them come into the room and then get ushered out by jobsworth hotel staff loudly telling them that they're not wanted yet.

madascheese

It seems to be broken down quite succinctly

1. Do not get married in a remote location
2. Do not expect your guests to lay out a fortune to attend your wedding
3. Allow children
4. Feed and water your guests all day!

Enjoy girl - you sound lovely and please keep in touch with the MN's

Congratulations

Do what my sil did and arrange for a ludicrously expensive hairdresser to do your BM's hair in the morning then surprise bill them for the pleasure after the wedding... after all they've already spent £300 on the hen weekend and £400 to stay in the hotel... what's another £50?

Believe it or not Sil are still talking

Aww thanks Suncottage I am Lovely .... for you for that.

Why oh why would you do the not feeding /providing some drink thing?

I'd be leaving a place if littlemad weren't being fed and watered, actualy I wouldn't he's a NIGHTMARE when he's hungry - fail to feed him at your own peril!

I'm starting to thnk creatively about a set dance - we're of an age where I think my friends and I could recreate something by the Dance 'troupe' Legs and Co for the collective delight of all our respective husbands.
(Are you listening Porto?)
Bits of chiffon, some hoops and 'Bright Eyes' am getting misty eyed just thinking about how beautiful it can be......

Noo got to be "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

ooooo thank you, you're so right.

I'm thinking shades of green and orange which are always flattering colours on everyone.

I do think our husbands will be delighted and proud of their ladies and DP will in NO way think he's made a mistake in marrying me

Sorry, your DH will not be taking part? :o

I feel you're missing a trick there.

And another one by not wearing puce.

You could be right, all my 35yr old plus friends wearing leotards, footless tights and stilletoes, weaving like willows and waving chiffon scarves around the Groom that wouldn't be even slightly toe curling.

I have no idea what colour puce is, but it sounds perfect.

Dp would love me sooo much for arranging that and putting all the work into the routine, perhaps we could wear some kind of head dresses as well?

I like this but you'd need some feather boas etc to go with it. Lime green?

the usual these days for first dance is "don't wanna miss a thing".

isn't it about the couple being apart??

so you've got to have that.

but have your ceilidh band play it in an odd celtic style, with uneven rhythms.
this'll be made all the better by the fact that you and DH have spent weeks practising it to the recorded version (with even rhythm).