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?

Oh, yes, the 'I'm not changing my name' line. An absolute classic, that one. Completely acceptable if the bride and groom are just nipping off down their local register office in their jeans with a couple of witnesses dragged off the street (for whom it is JUST a legal chore), NOT so acceptable in a full-on bride wearing white who has to announce her 'devotion' in front of 200 guests.
If a person IS going to accept the stuff that a 'traditional' wedding has, it's a bit rich for them to play the 'I'm still a person in my own right, feminist card'.

I always find that doing the table plan was the best time to fall out with everyone....

Definitely have your wedding at 12, lasting till about 2, then serve the breakfast at about 7, ensuring that your guests have had no opportunity for lunch and are either comatose or violent with hunger. This works particularly well if there are small children amongst the guests, preferably part of the wedding party so there are zero chances of running off to the nearest Greggs while the photos are being taken.

Tell everyone it's a child free wedding, then let all of your closest friends bring their children leaving the others to wonder why the hell they had to leave their DCs at home for the whole day.

Ensure that your groups for photographs include female friends of bride, male friends of groom, thereby excluding male friends of bride and ensuring that there is no photographic evidence of certain people at all.

Have everyone stand in a narrow garden on a hill for the group shot so that a majority of shorter people are completely obscured.

Have the best man's speech contain references so obscure that noone gets it, not even the bride and groom.

Have the father of the bride's speech not mention the bride at all, and mention the groom only in grudging acceptance.

marantha, I married a Russian. If I changed my name, it wouldn't be to his, now, would it?

(Sorry, I feel bitchy because of the white wedding dress thread, but I had the religious ceremony and didn't change my name ... don't really see why I shouldn't?!)

A good one is to make sure to make sure the venue is somewhere that would be lovely in, say, June, but hold the wedding in December (or vice versa), so guests are freezing/sweltering and you're paying a bomb for it.

Also, tell everyone you're having a very low-key wedding, repeatedly, while you order them around with military precision.

marantha, what are you on about?

So if you have a white wedding then you're automatically giving up your right to an identity?

Ooh, yes, Anyfule! Especially love the assumption men only have men friends and women only women.

I also like getting everyone to pose for the group photo (in their wedding clothes, which are obviously expensive), then without warning get out a snow machine and blow it over them for five minutes. Bride and groom then step into the picture at the last minute so they look fetchingly snow-dappled and everyone else looks soggy and wonders if this suit is dry-clean only?

tell people they can't bring partners unless they're married.

at warthog.

Even better, send invitations for adult, unmarried children of relatives, to their parents. With one copy of the guest list and the directions.

I was dead tempted at my wedding not to invite partners of my cousins, who'd not invited my fiance to either of their weddings. But I chickened out in the end. Still, I think not inviting husbands/wives of some of your guests would really raise the bar on annoying.

AnyFuleKno, The way I see it is that the whole white-wedding thing is WHOLLY about 'two becoming one'. It is EXACTLY what it's all about. So, yes, if a person IS going through a traditional wedding they are merging their identity with someone else.
So unless a person's livelihood is connected to their name, I see it as being a bit ridiculous to get all 'I'm an individual' about a simple name change.

Now, don't get me wrong, if a person who wishes to marry for legal reasons (for example, the presenter Jenni Murray), who it is well-documented married for less than romantic reasons, wishes to pop down the register office and do it as low-key as possible, wishes to keep their name that is fine. Because there is none of the 'two becoming one' business in a register office.

Definitely demand cash from all your guests. Enclose a tacky poem directing them to your website where they can buy you a honeymore or just Paypal you the filthy lucre or enclose your bank details in the invite so guests can stump up.

"7) If any of your recently-married, traditional in-laws address you as 'Mrs X', snigger and say loudly that you're not changing your name. "

actually, i prefer the direct approach - i warned everyone in advance that anyone caught calling me MrsDHname would get a punch in the nose.

I did punch the priest in the nose the next day
(disclaimer - it wasn't really a punch, only pretending, and she did it on purpose because she knew i didn't want it - she was joking too, and it was in front of her brand new congregation at her induction service, during communion. )

ooh, another good one that I employed - start randomly shouting at people that you are hungry and need food NOW and then refuse to allow one of your nice guests to get you food because your sister should have got you food when you demanded it.

From personal experience I would say that the best way to annoy everyone all at once is not to invite any of them and elope. We did this with the assumption that it's impossible to have a wedding without somehow upsetting someone - and why upset just one person if you can upset the whole lot all at once?

marantha, you're talking bollocks, here you know.
please don't make a light-hearted thread one about changing names.
:(

nickelbabe, I just gasped loudly enough for DH to come running before I read beyond 'I did punch the priest in the nose'!

Brilliant!

(Now, why didn't I punch our priest?!)

I would just point out, too, that changing your name is a cultural thing. Plenty of places in the world where the dominant religion still states that marriage is about two becoming one, but where women traditionally don't change their names. For example, I couldn't change my name to DH's if I wanted to.

Also, you're forgetting about all the (many) faiths where marriage is not about two becoming one. In DH's faith (where we got married), it is most explicitly not the case that bride and groom merge identities - mainly, ironically, because that faith is highly sexist and thinks men and women are very different. Odd, that, since it also insists on the sort of traditional white wedding you're thinking of.

No, I won't say anymore about it, however, if the traditional white-wedding ISN'T about merging identities, I don't know what else it is for. I also accept that for certain professionals name-changing is not an option.
I often find the 'you're talking bollocks' line said by people who know deep down you are right but don't like it.

Loving this thread! Marantha - boring and far too serious...go away now dear.

Well, marantha, you've already established that there's a fair bit you don't know, so let's not be too surprised, eh?

I don't want to unlighten this thread, but also don't agree with marantha.

Anyway, my top tip would be to invite many of your friends to the wedding ceremony, but not the main reception. They would then be allowed in for the evening reception. So they get to spend the money on the gift, the travel, an outfit then have to buy themselves lunch at a local pub while they hang around for 5 hours.

Oh yes, and congratulations Madascheese!

1 - Have a long church service with communion and enforced hand-shaking/hugging/peace-sharing.

2 - Write all the married women's place cards as "Mrs X Surname" where X is their husband's initial.

Invite your guests to the wedding, then don't let them come to the meal, even close family and those who have travelled many miles. When FIl offers to p[ay for wedding so that guests can come to lunch, shove it back in their face and say they are trying to 'control' the wedding. Make everyone come back 6 hours later for an evening do. Wonder why everyone feels a bit arsey at evening do as they have had to go away and amuse themselves for 6 hours in a place they don't know and now feel that they have only been invited so the B & G can have more presents. That should do the trick ;-)

Congratulations!
Make sure you have bridesmaids who are polar opposites e.g size 16 with massive bond/ size 6 with no boobs. Then make them both wear a dress that is only suitable for the size 6 one.