Wedding Etiquette Dilemna

[21]

You can always tell when the wedding is about the trimmings and not the people.  Everyone looks bored, the bride has too much lipstick and melting makeup, and the groom hasn't blinked in four hours.

My sister had one of those weddings...she is crazy in love with her husband, but on the one day that mattered, she treated him like the cabana boy.  I listened to speech after speech, saying how this was 'the most important day of your life!"  So when it was finally my turn, I got up and said 'I really hope this is not the most important day of your life....save that for when you hold your first baby, or walk through the door of your first home, or fall asleep in each others arms when you're 70 and still in love...'  Then I got all teary and had to sit down. My mother thought it was worst speech she ever heard, so I know it was really good.

Wow. I never would have had the guts to say that. Maybe I'm misreading the tone of your post -- but I would have been pretty pissed if I was the bride.

Then again, I was so nervous on my wedding day I really don't know what I'd do.

I said it sweetly...not like 'oh god, this wedding sucks, i sure hope you have better days than this!' It was more like 'You have your whole life ahead of you, this is just one special day, the first of many...'

Of course, they all think I'm a total ***** anyway, so they probably took it the wrong way. 8)

But am I wrong? Your wedding is a day....now you have to live the life you promise to live. That's where the glory is, in making it work--not in picking good table candy.

 

[zeke12]

21 --

I don't think I've ever agreed with you more.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

I guess the issue I have with Seabasket and Zeke is even though I'm the rare exception, I did care about my wedding, very much. And to say it's the bride's day is an insult to me, because what day is mine, then? Certainly not the bachelor party because the one I had involved very few actual bachelors and very little in the way of drinking, strippers, etc.

Nasty little secret: You don't get one. Before she even knew you, she was probably thinking about her wedding day. Before you knew her, I seriously doubt you were thinking about yours. It's the one day when she's somebody, guaranteed, no matter who she is the rest of her life. And she knows it.

Before Mrs. Novelist and I got married, two of her siblings and her parents each offered us money to go the JP route. One of them said, "You'll be just as married as you will with the church wedding." Ours was not an elaborate event compared to what has been discussed here, but it cost enough that we struggled financially for a while afterward. It sure would have been nice to have that coupla grand starting out.

Oh, and, isn't it spelled "dilemma"?

 

[Dyno]

One of my sorority sisters had a big wedding about 15 years ago on the Saturday night after Thanksgiving in her hometown in Florida, which required a lot of the guests to have to fly down for the wedding. Expecting to have a fun time and hoping to enjoy the warm weather (I was coming from NY), I happily agreed to attend. To cut down on expenses, I agreed to share a hotel room with 3 other sorority sisters. I got there on Friday night, at least a day after the other girls I was sharing the room with. They were all in really lousy moods when I got there and didn’t want to go out (so much for fun). The next day, the day of the wedding, the bad moods continued. They were all snapping at each other and bitching about the bride. Sometime during the afternoon, one of them broke down crying and expressed what all of them had been feeling and what had put them in bad moods: “Amy (the bride) isn’t paying attention to me!” I couldn’t believe it. They were actually pissed and upset to the point of tears that the bride wasn’t exclusively hanging out with them and hadn’t planned to spend the afternoon of her wedding with them. As I said, this was a big wedding with at least 100 out of town guests, not to mention all of the bride’s family in town, who she didn’t get to see that often. The bride, groom and their families were sensitive that many guests had traveled and had set up all kinds of activities, including a Thanksgiving dinner for people who came in super early. Anyway, I was in shock at how selfish the 3 of them were. They spent the entire wedding and reception sitting together with sour looks on their faces. I refused to get sucked into their bitchy vortex and ended up switching myself to another table at the reception and had a pretty good time.

 

[farmerjerome]

You can always tell when the wedding is about the trimmings and not the people.  Everyone looks bored, the bride has too much lipstick and melting makeup, and the groom hasn't blinked in four hours.

My sister had one of those weddings...she is crazy in love with her husband, but on the one day that mattered, she treated him like the cabana boy.  I listened to speech after speech, saying how this was 'the most important day of your life!"  So when it was finally my turn, I got up and said 'I really hope this is not the most important day of your life....save that for when you hold your first baby, or walk through the door of your first home, or fall asleep in each others arms when you're 70 and still in love...'  Then I got all teary and had to sit down. My mother thought it was worst speech she ever heard, so I know it was really good.

Wow. I never would have had the guts to say that. Maybe I'm misreading the tone of your post -- but I would have been pretty pissed if I was the bride.

Then again, I was so nervous on my wedding day I really don't know what I'd do.

I said it sweetly...not like 'oh god, this wedding sucks, i sure hope you have better days than this!'  It was more like 'You have your whole life ahead of you, this is just one special day, the first of many...'

Of course, they all think I'm a total ***** anyway, so they probably took it the wrong way.  8)

But am I wrong? Your wedding is a day....now you have to live the life you promise to live.  That's where the glory is, in making it work--not in picking good table candy.

You're right. Honestly, I just wouldn't have want to have heard in on the big day. Even in small weddings, there's too much **** going on.

Actually, if you said it at the bridal shower it might have calmed your sister's nerves.