Aw. I guess I’m in the minority in just loving kids at the wedding and reception. Truth be told, the misbehaving and inebriated adults were more of a concern to me. Now, looking back, we have such sweet pics of the kids dressed beautifully, and if they had to announce loudly that they had to go pee pee in the middle of the ceremony, it just adds to the family folklore. The most magical weddings I’ve been to had lots of entertainment (such magicians on the roof deck) for the kids.
I’ve been reading this thread with interest. Tomorrow, my D is one of several students hired by a former teacher to help with children on the guest list (big family, lots of kids who are welcome), set-up decorations, etc. There will be a money dance (cultural tradition) and a fairly informal flair to much of the day. The groom not only has seen the bride in her dress, he helped her pick it out. It’s at a community center. Dinner is a buffet.
It truly does depend on where you’re from, what you’re used to, and what “rules” of decorum one thinks are carved in stone or the world will spin on its axis. This wedding sounds like a great time for everyone, much like another teacher’s wedding was last year. If you can’t have fun and celebrate in a way where guests are happy to help you do it, for a wedding-one of life’s most happy occasions, when CAN you?
My grand-nephew was ring bearer at his aunt’s wedding and announced in a happy, surprised loud voice, “My cousins are here!” He proceeded to perform his role perfectly and then rushed back to be with his beloved cousins. It was adorable!
I’m a fervent believer in seating charts, though maybe they aren’t necessary at informal weddings or when everyone is on good terms. Sometimes warring family factions need to be seated on opposite sides of the room.
With open seating, you can wind up with couples looking for seats together but finding only 1 seat left at several tables; or maybe there are 3 people (couple with an elderly parent or younger kid) that would like to sit as a group but they can’t find 3 seats together and don’t want to inconvenience anyone by asking them to move. At a catered dinner where they’ve set up 129 seats and you’ve got 129 guests, it’s just easier to make up a seating chart. (Before this thread I thought that people only messed with seating charts on sitcoms.)
I’ve never gotten an invite to anything that was just a pretext for getting a gift, I don’t think. It doesn’t make sense to me to invite people you hope won’t come just to get a $40 hand mixer. For my kids’ weddings, dh and I invited some distant family members in order to accommodate the wishes of our own mothers. The grandmas really wanted these folks invited, and so we did. Maybe they assumed it was a gift grab, but I hope they assumed good intent instead.
We were at my cousin’s wedding many years ago, when my two year old D announced, in a pause in the ceremony, “We’re at a wedding!”
Well, she wasn’t wrong.
(Cousin’s new wife had a four year old, and it was a very kid-friendly wedding, so I think it was okay.)
Just recalling a tacky thing that happened at my wedding reception --which had only about 65 guests and was held at a restaurant. The Cleveland Browns were playing NY Jets that afternoon for the division championship. The game went into overtime and lasted over 4 hours. Unfortunately many of the guests (my relatives) were Browns fans, and their wives had to keep pulling them away from the small TV in the corner by the bar. Kinda rude!
I never knew until I googled it today who was playing (besides Cleveland) and why that game was more interesting than the bouquet toss, cake cutting, dancing, etc. (btw–Cleveland won!)
^ we were married in September and a lot of the guys spent quite a bit of time in the bar watching college football. I didn’t care.
It doesn’t matter what month you marry…there will be some sport on TV!
I love the dollar dance. In our family, it’s like novicemom described. It’s a time for everyone to ensure that you get one-on-one time with the bride and groom. In our family, sometimes we dance with both! It’s literally a dollar pinned on, not more. I loved my dollar dance, and if my kids have a big family wedding I would be OK with them having one. It’s a sweet tradition for us, but I can see where others wouldn’t appreciate it.
We went to one wedding–7 course sit down Chinese dinner at top hotel banquet room. Sadly about 1/2 the tables were only 1/2 full, wasting a TON of food and money! I felt very bad for the couple and families paying so much money with such inconsiderate guests. I believe the meals were likely $150-200 apiece and there were tons of empty seats.
^^^ We held up our wedding a bit because we were both watching a basketball playoff game in our respective dressing rooms. 
My brother (Georgia Tech) and SIL (UGA) got married the day of the UGA-GT game. FOB insisted on having the game on. They got school aprons as wedding gifts and my brother had to wear a UGA apron if GT lost (or vice versa).
We’ve had this discussion before, so probably don’t have to rehash as I know there are ardent seating chart supporters here. We flew to a family wedding in NY with a several hundred guests. There were two events with place cards. At one, my borderline Aspie kid (about 8 years old) was placed at a table with complete strangers (no parent or sibling). She was distraught – NY city was already overwhelming to her that day, and now this. We asked someone to swap, and they kindly did.
Then at the reception, we were placed at a table with no one we knew. We had paid to fly our family of four there, had a lot of old friends in attendance that we never see because we are scattered across the country, and I knew I was going to have to leave right after dinner to take the youngest and my elderly in-laws back to the hotel. So… I swapped place cards. The table next to ours had a couple we well knew at it, and I traded the cards before anyone else came into the room (I had come to scout it out in case my kid was placed separately again). No one ever knew the difference, both tables seemed to get on well as a whole. I am sure the seating was done by the bride’s mom, and we were miles from the head table (literally in a different room). No one knew, no one was hurt, and we had a much more fun experience than if we’d stuck with the program that someone who had never met anyone from the groom’s side made up.
I know there are those who think that is terrible. But it isn’t just the bride and groom who fork out a lot of money. For us it was a “destination wedding” – flights, NY city hotel, new clothes for the kids for the whole weekend, wedding gift, etc. I’ll be darned if I’d waste the reception sitting with complete strangers when we could have been with friends. My kids won’t have place cards at their weddings (but we will have enough seating!).
This is a really fun thread! I’ve seen a few tacky wedding moments:
The bride arranged for a gorilla to abduct her at the reception.
We got a call in the evening “We got married! Come to our house, and bring a mug!” (actually, this one was great)
Mother of the groom got drunk and took her top off at the end of the night.
The centerpieces were goldfish bowls, with live goldfish and floating candles. The heat of the candles killed the goldfish, so they wound up floating along with the candles. The DJ dedicated “I Will Survive” to the goldfish.
An evening wedding, in which the bridal party got high in the limo BEFORE the wedding, so it started an hour late. We waited in the church and listened to the poor string quartet repeat “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” over and over and over…
Law school buddies of the 38 year old groom got loaded and had a cake fight at the end of the night, trashing their tuxedos (rented).
Famous Rock Star was one of the guests. We were all instructed not to talk to or even look at him. Rock Star wound up stoned out of his mind, smashing his head on a sink in the men’s room. Ambulance.
As far as I’m concerned, you can Dollar Dance the night away!
Hot Canary, I love the goldfish story!!!
The goldfish remind me of people who release doves at their wedding or butterflies. Please don’t! It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature…
As long as no one drops turkeys from a helicopter. “God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”
@sseamom that’s exactly what it was like!
@HotCanary, the mother of he groom stripping down must have been memorable. X_X
Well, it was certainly unexpected. And I for one remember it >:D< Phones were ringing off the hook the next day!