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?

invite someone in a wheelchair, then refuse to tell them whether they can get in the church.
takes hours over the photos and then try and sell them to the guests.
cut the cake so late, most people have gone home.

and congratulations

Why assume the worst, that it's just to grab more presents?

We had evening guests because we couldn't afford to buy lunch for everyone we'd have liked to, but wanted to celebrate with a party with whoever would be so good as to join us. Presents never even crossed our minds. Many of our evening guests told us they were delighted to be invited, and before the wedding some of them asked us whether we had a gift registry etc., we only gave the details fo it to those who specifically asked. We were happy, they were happy, they didn't have to come if they weren't happy with it.

Why only save it for the day. Spend the entire 3 months prior changing the dress code/ specifications and discuss daily with your workmates the colour of the chair coverings etc in minute detail, e.g. a selection of 40-odd shades of cream.

1. Make a large block booking at the nearest hotel to your venue. Tell only your friends and the groom's family about it. Your own family will like the freedom of having to sort themselves out. Also, on the day itself, make sure that your own family feature in none of the official photos. They'll appreciate the extra drinking time.

1. Send an invitation to all guests specifying no children. Two weeks later, have the groom phone all his friends with children to say that they can come after all. Make sure that the bride does not do the same. The awkward people with children there and the outraged people without will all get along just fine. Will be particularly fun if you can arrange for one of your friends to flee the reception weeping having left her 5 month exclusively breast fed PFB for the first time, only to spend the evening chatting to someone with a 5 month old EBF PFB in tow.

Send invites with very little detail of the big day - 1.00p.m wedding then 7p.m reception.

When they arrive at 12.45p.m for the 1.00p.m wedding, stuff them all into a tiny, heated room while they peruse the wedding schedule that you have left on their chairs telling guests that it is, in fact a 1.30p.m wedding. Then be an hour late for the rearranged 1.30p.m start.

Have a photographer take all of guests to freezing outdoor location in city centre and make them do crazy poses in front of all and sundry. Then bugger off for 5 and a half hours to a random location for more photo's while guests are left in your house with no drink and cold coleslaw platters. Make sure these guests don't know each other and have very little in common. Also, make sure your heating is on and they can't open the windows in case seagulls come in to eat the coleslaw platters.

Have guests arrive at random very expensive hotel after 5 and a half hours (knackered) and go for a nap/shower while they all sit downstairs like fannies phoning the evening guests and telling them to hurry up because that evening 'do that you all thought was supposed to be just a buffet and some dancing is actually a huge sit-down meal that is 5 courses long for just the starter and two for the main. It's ok though - your napping tie and showering has meant that you need hair and make-up redone anyway, so plenty of time for them to arrive!

Start main meal of the day at 9.00p.m and end it at 10.30p.m then make guests sit through long and arduous cutting of cake/first dance/ speeches.
Have a swing band play while you all eat so you cant talk to the random you've been placed next to. Then have a mad random scary looking bellydancer come and dance with everyone at about 11p.m. After they have just eaten huge meal. [sick emoticon] Also, make sure that starters are all vegetarian, but main is meat only.

Put all the single folk with the random people you didn't really want to invite, but had to because otherwise they threatened suicide. Your good single mates will love you for it.

Make sure everyone knows how much you spent on your dress and scream at anyone who comes near you all day, just in case it gets spilled on/ripped/stood on by accident.

Have your birthday on same day as your wedding. So after they have watched you cut wedding cake/have first dance/eaten lavish huge eal, they can watch you cut your own birthday cake and sing happy birthday to you 3 times.

This all happened to us this week. At the one wedding!!! Grr!

Congrats by the way!!

Sorry for the rant - it really was the wedding from HELL!!!

Oh and annoy your work mates for months, by coming into the office in tears. When asked what is the matter, describe in minute detail for an hour, the tiff that you have had with soon to be dh after mentioning over breakfast that you would like to book a harpist to play whilst you sign the register....

Oh yeah... also.... at the end of long arduous day make guests go to a quiet room with the bloody film making guy (who has been recording you since 9.a.m) and make them individually talk really awkwardly to the camera about what a great day they have had at your wedding.

Would love to see what ours looks like on playback.

I'd have left, threelittle.

As for evening do's, why not have your wedding at around 5PM so you just have one big party/reception?

I guess it's an English thing, but it always strikes me as rude to invite people who've not even seen you get married to some 'evening do'. Sort of like your second string/B-list of guests.

Porto, will you be joining my sister in wedding planning? we're going to be needing your input...and we're ONLY 28 hours into this.

Ask a friend to arrange your hen do in the summer holidays on another friend's wedding anniversary for several hundred pounds and 3 days long necessatating 2 days off work (Preferably the friend who's tiny wedding you invited yourself to and then complained about the travel involved...)

Insist the hen do is kept secret as a surprise but call all friends who can't make it and leave abusive voice mails/emails threatening to uninvite them to your wedding.

This is particularly fun because your friends will struggle to justify their reasons/talk to you at all because they can't spoil the surprise. It will also mean saving money at your wedding when friends tell you that they will survive not going to your wedding.

They may also not speak to you for 3 years, thus saving even more cash on going out, phone calls etc

Hold a softball tournament for the afternoon "festivities". State on the invitations that this is compulsory and everyone must wear trainers and it will all be terrifically FUN.
Ban children from the wedding but have your dog in a big basket under the top table.
Ban children and offer a random nanny to look after your children and indeed all the children so achieving a ratio of approx 20 children to one harrassed stressed young girl with patchy English in a small 2 bed terrace with no garden.
Ask your friend to sing at your wedding - no fee, natch - on the other side of the country and then insist that friend can't bring her breastfed child.

CONGRATS :-)

Gah, we've been to some shite weddings :o.

Oh yes MAC! I am strong and good at sorting those "problem" relatives! My exMIL insisted on having sherry to offer to people at the reception. I was doubtful, so made HER pay for 2 cases of sweet and 2 cases of dry. I was then "forced" to drink the remaining 23 bottles - as I didn't want to waste it - after work for several months, and developed a bit of an addiction for it!

Tell your guests to colour coordinate, ask for cash as a present, serve no alcohol and have organic vegan caterers. DH is still muttering "200 quid and no bloody drinks".

Octopus, you really can't make some of this stuff up!

Insist dh chooses your ex as his best man. Get drunk & heckle him to get his kit off throughout his speech.

madascheese, I like your thinking. I think, in fact, you should ask all members of the same family (eg., bride's side, groom's side) to choose one photogenic child. That way, not only will most of the children, but also most of the parents, will feel slighted. And fight.

Win!

I think you should also audition them for cute aisle-walking skills.

Btw, mad, have you read Lucy Mangan's book The Reluctant Bride? It's like this thread, but longer and very funny - it's her diary of her wedding.

I must share the best one though (though perhaps it only works for me).

Email your SIL-to-be, asking if you can borrow her wedding dress as she got married a month ago. Tell her, you'll need to get it taken in as you are much thinner, and you don't especially want the shoes (this is still in your email asking, remember, not after SIL has said yes), because you prefer some others you have.

Finish off by saying it's a small wedding and you're trying to save money - when you've invited the guests to travel to a foreign country, 80 miles from the airport. Twice in ten days.

Yes, ok, I rant!

Just before the ceremony, creep up to your mother and say 'look I know you are probably really upset about what MiL said about your dress but I think you look amazing'. Then say the same thing to your MiL. Ensure they are kept separate for four hours by the groomsmen so they have time for angry feelings to fester.

Insist your bridesmaids slim down to a size eight before your wedding in six weeks - offer Alli pills as part of the bridesmaid's briefing notes.

If inviting lots of elderly relatives be sure to include a compulsory roller disco at the reception.

Make sure the vicar does a lengthy sermon about being blessed with children if you are unable to have any.

The ensuing tears will make for really memorable photos