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?

Motherinferior that uni library wedding sounds great to me!

Yes, it was lovely. I enjoyed it hugely. V important to work out what made it so special and then do the opposite

ooh, i've been too busy moaning about my church, and now there are so many ideas

I just wanted to add, for the record, that although my dress wasn't white, I did have what I would class as a traditional, religious wedding.
and you know why? because i wanted God to be the third strand of my rope.
because I wanted God to overlook and bless my marriage and to help in times of trouble.
not because i wanted to give up my identity to be swalloed up by my equal partner but because i wanted God to be part of it, and to show everyone else in my life that I love my husband and want to be with him forever.

so nur

Portofino Oh no, I'm the last person anyone would want to invite to a wedding- funny thing is, though, I've been invited to at least 3 in past year- so perhaps I am not all that bad. Or perhaps it is more a case of actually being well-mannered and have an ability to be tactful and diplomatic when actually at the damn things.

Which makes me a hypocrite, but I'll own up to that.

Serious advice though: If you are going to invite lots of family and friends, if possible, hold the event where the majority of them live.
You can't help it if some people have to travel miles, but if the vast majority have to travel 4 hours each way, perhaps with small children in to and shell out for hotel rooms etc etc, their smiles are going to be a bit forced.

Good advice that!

Also, if you're having the wedding somewhere in the middle of nowhere, plan assuming that people will want to leave earlier than you expect to get back home, and won't want to drink too much.

Have the invites from Mr & Mrs

Congratulations

Feel free to put a shitty poem in with the invitation about how presence not presents are important but you want cold hard cash and nothing else.

Don't say thank you for the cold hard cash.

Tell people no children, only the ones you say.

Dress codes. Any of them.

Expensive hen/stag do.

Ask your new MIL to wear her wedding dress to the ceremony.

Ask you female family members if they are likely to be pregnant on your big day a year hence and then withdraw any invitations to be a bridesmaid accordingly.

Oh, yes, make sure your DH-to-be has a stage WEEKEND in Amsterdam, which starts on Thursday so everyone has to take two days off work, and for which they'll be staying in a really expensive hotel. And there must be activities like quad-biking and abseiling and so on, and nights out in really expensive bars. The whole weekend should set everyone back a couple of grand.

STAG not stage! Sorry!

Insist MIL wear black, a veil and weeps copiously if for some reason her wedding dress is unsuitable.

More bridesmaid dresses advice. It is very important that the dresses of your adult bridesmaids are exactly the same as those for the under 5 bridemaids. It is key that every detail is the same, including the length of the dresses. This is no matter how ludicrous this will look on the adults. (this was when I realised my SIL hated me )

Is this a SIL requirement do you think Mollie? My SIL also harped on about length of bridesmaid dresses.
She would also have preferred it if we had insisted on all men wearing identical suits, rather than letting them wear or hire their own.

Don't forget your guests; yes, it is YOUR big day but never forget it is not their's.

The guests may only be a sideshow to the 'main event' but, believe me, having just been to a no-expense-spared wedding evening party which was a miserable affair because the couple had married in a venue a 9-hour round trip to where they actually came from (as in the evening venue could have comfortably fed and contained 4 times the number it actually did), I know what I'm taking about.

Hardly anyone turned up. And the couple are glamourous, popular, friendly people -not unpleasant people at all.

Insist that everyone must be seated in the venue at least 15 minutes before the start of the ceremony because of some very strict rules about use of the venue and then turn up 1 hour late.

Have a 12.30 service, which doesn't actually start till at least 1pm and then don't have any food till 6pm (particularly popular among those with children).

Involve all children attending the wedding in the ceremony except the only child from the groom's side. Ensure the brides father mentions all these children (again, except the only child from the groom's side) in his speech.

Get married abroad. Somewhere very far away and expensive to get to.

Congratulations!

Announce to three of your very old friends that your bridesmaid is going to be.....someone they have never heard of but who is apparently your oldest friend although you haven't been in touch for the last 20 years.
Have your wedding abroad on the 1st day of the UK term when at least two of your neices will be starting school for the first time.
Write 'Start saving now!' on the invitations to said wedding which is in New Zealand.
Moan about how everyone got you towels when that's what the person you are talking to gave you as a present.

How could I forget the best thing though...

Ask someone to be your bridesmaid and then never mention it again!

it is also vitally important when you keep your guests waiting for 6 hours for their dinner, that you serve bucks fizz/pimm's and lemonade/ bar open , because then you can gurantee that at least one fight will ensue.
make sure the MIL/SIL combo have more drink than anyone else, because catfights amongst grownwomen are always more fun to watch

Marantha, I'm already invited to this one!

I am planning to wear white lace, letch over flirt with the groom, get pissed and copiously throw up in the corner of the marquee

I'm slightly concerned that you haven't considered the preparation time needed for your big day.

You really should plan your day for three years' time, so that guests are supremely fed up with your bridezilla behaviour before they even get to the wedding. This sets the right tone, I think, for such a wonderful event.

If you can arrange to have your long-divorced, really-should-have-got-over-it-by-now parents sitting on the same table, they will love you for it and will not hesitate to let all and sundry know the full details about the divorce. Guests who have never met them before will delight in listening to your mother witter on endlessly about your father.

Do ensure that you place expense of venue above atmosphere. Your guests will admire the fact that you can blow many, many thousands of pounds on a posh golf club 'do' when they are sitting in a cavernous, echoing room with nothing to do except gaze longingly at the escape route exit.

Or, choose a venue that's so small that you have to squeeze people onto long tables in a space fit for a table of four. Put the pregnant woman in a seat right at the end of the table, furthest away from the loos, so that she can't get out until everyone gets up to go. She'll love you for that.

Oh and finally - grab each guest after the meal and force them to admit that yes, it was the best meal they'd ever eaten, yes it was the best venue they'd ever been to, yes her bridal outfit was the prettiest/chicest/most stunning you'd ever seen.

Oooh, restrict everyone to one glass of wine. Have the DJ play songs no-one knows. But before all that, set the mood by having very expensive stag/hen weekends in crap hotel in obscure Eastern European country.

One glass of wine

Most Important - get DH-to-be to wear a kilt, not wipe properly & then sit on your lap, to get authentic skid mark down cream silk dress.

(Apologies for that, but it did turn up about four times on the 'weddings from hell' thread a while back)