My dd attended a wedding that had a potluck reception. It was on the beach and was mainly kids her own age there. She said it was so much fun. The bridal couple had no help from parents and were truly starting out with nothing. Music came from an Ipod and dancing was on the beach under the stars.
Now same dd thought about doing that for her wedding (the potluck, not the beach) and she wanted me to do her flowers and her sister to make the cake. That was when I realized that she thought that she and her fiancé would be paying for everything. I gave her the news that her father and I would like to give her a wedding and we would prefer it to be catered. Her sister is very relieved as am I. And now she doesn’t want flowers and only a small cake or some other kind of dessert.
We did an assortment of cupcakes. They must have been good because I only got one- and we had something like 300 for ~100 guests!
^ That was me complaining. I wanted some darned cupcakes!
@alh wrote
I think I might have mischaracterized your parents when I was talking about social insecurity. I completely agree with you that a brown paper bag wedding would not have been appropriate or in good taste for your mom’s social circle. Your sister was using that as leverage to get what she wanted, which I personally think is very uncool of her to do.
I have a laundry list of social insecurities (I think most people do), but my list would not have included the brown paper bag thing being an issue-but it’s totally ok that it is an issue for your mom-it just meant that it allowed your sister to exploit her. I’m sure my kids exploit my social insecurities in a bunch of other ways.
@nottelling I’m not sure I was thinking specifically of you wrt drama-the posts that had people with vastly different expectations coming together for a wedding is bound to produce sparks, I think.
I think it is tacky to invite someone to an event, and have to bring my own food. I was quite offended when a friend’s wife invited us to his birthday dinner at a restaurant, when the bill came she expected us to pay for our own dinner PLUS her husband’s dinner (the bill was to be split between all of us minus her husband). In my circle, if you are hosting a party then it is on you to provide food and drinks. I never went to another one of this friend’s events. Good thing we weren’t very good friends.
I don’t think it should be a surprise that you are paying! @oldfort it sounds like this was the case with your “friend”.
I guess the weddings I went to weren’t exactly potluck…they were “catered by friends”. The whole guest list wasn’t asked to bring food. My guess is some folks had no idea where the food came from…they didn’t bring it!
For some young couples back in my day…these kinds of get togethers were not uncommon.
I would NEVER ask all of the guests to bring food to a wedding…and I never would have someone else pay part of a dinner bill at the restaurant if I did the inviting!
Receiving lines: I did not do one at my wedding of 50 people, and I actually regret it because I did NOT do a good job of going to each person and thanking them for coming to our wedding. I was still very rough around the edges when we got married, and I hadn’t learned to be very considerate of other people. My parents are not considerate people, and they basically sat at the head table the entire time and waited for people to come talk to them. I was, frankly, not much better, and I regret it to this day. So, if you want to ditch the receiving line, please make sure you make contact with all of your guests and make them glad they took the time and money to come see you get married.
Costume ball: I love dressing up. Love it! I also love costume parties. However, I do not like the idea of mixing the two, especially with masks, because it pulls focus from the bride. Also, masked costume parties tend to have the regrettable side effect of people behaving in ways they wouldn’t if their faces weren’t obscured. I’m fine with the idea of themed weddings-some are done well, some are a big miss. It’s all entertaining.
Destination weddings-hate them, won’t go to them. So selfish, in my opinion. And I still have guilt about my wedding in Georgia when the vast majority of my family is from MA, and most of them had to drive/fly down and stay on their own dime. We were lower middle class and I should have planned the wedding up in MA (I live in Georgia). H’s side of the family is about 8 people, all upper middle class, and shouldn’t have figured into the equation like they did. Again, I was young and had a stunning lack of consideration for others, because that’s how I was raised.
Other traditions-dance with the dad/mom, etc. My dance with my dad was exquisitely uncomfortable. My dad and I were not close and he was not ever physically demonstrative, so that dance was THE most awkward six minutes you’ve ever seen. My mother had picked the song for the dance, and it was Harry Belafonte’s “Turn Around”, and it was a ghastly six minutes of sheer schmaltz. I should have fact checked that song before I approved it, but I figured I should give her one thing. I was super controlling about my wedding (shocker, right?) and mixed all the music, picked all the flowers, sewed dresses, created layouts for the seating, etc etc etc. A short song that reflected the state of our relationship would have been much more appropriate. Like Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s In The Cradle”.
Our cake was pound cake with crazy fillings-it was so good. It looked like a wedding cake on the outside, full of fatty goodness on the inside.
We went to one fancy wedding once where there were not enough seats for people to sit during the reception. It was so weird. I remember nothing else but the fact that I had to stand to eat my filet mignon.
I think tacky has nothing to do with how much you spend on a wedding. Tacky is a lack of aesthetics and consideration, in my opinion.
MotherofDragons: At the risk of beating a dead horse, I’m going to try one more time.
Social insecurity seems to me a state of mind concerned with how we appear to others.
Good manners are more internally motivated.
If my parents cared that much about how they appeared to others, they would have allowed neither my very small wedding, with no pre-wedding parties, (which was the occasion for a bit of gossip, because no I wasn’t pregnant 
) or my sister’s over the top kind of tacky extravaganza. Both weddings were way outside the norm for their social group. They thought my sister’s wedding tacky and mine tasteful. I am interested in how we define these ideas. Based on the posts here, it doesn’t surprise me weddings are sometimes so full of miscommunication.
I come from a background with unwritten laws of hospitality, which are that when you invite someone to something you give them refreshments. When a drop in guests shows up, you offer them a drink. Breaking bread is important and you don’t ask guests to bring the bread. I understand there are many different ideas on this subject. I don’t think mine are right and others are wrong. I am interested in other ways of thinking about this.
My parents were resigned fairly early on with having child who seemed to them to frequently display poor social judgement and they just worked around it the best they could. Having a child who displayed bad manners was just unacceptable. My own goal is to always try to separate good manners from outdated social norms and it is an on-going challenge.
ETA: cross-posted
I think in those days you just didn’t pay as much attention to the lyrics. My dad and I danced to “Saving All My Love For You.” Which, if you read the lyrics, doesn’t really describe a father-daughter relationship!
I think we need a “tacky things we have seen at weddings” thread. And let’s stipulate that we’re going to leave the perennial cash-bar out of it since we won’t get to the fun stories 
Here’s mine: Mid-80’s, I was a bridesmaid, wearing pretty much the traditional mid 80’s poufy-sleeve tulle tea-length dress. OK, fine, that was the look of the day - not tacky in and of itself, just amusing in retro. It was sort of the unspoken norm that you wore nude hose (this was before not wearing hose became a thing) and neutral shoes. One of the bridesmaids wore patterned black lace hose that looked kind of like this. Really? Like you weren’t aware? The photos look horrendous.
I know this is a tradition in some places…but I think the dance where the bride has a bag on her arm to receive cash gifts is beyond tacky.
I agree with PG-- the tacky wedding stuff deserves its own thread rather than hijacking this one. JMO
^Yes.
My D had a wedding at the place where we have a vacation home–for all of those invited with the exception of my brother and H’s two sisters who came from the midwest (one group drove and the other group came by air) all the guests lived within a 3-hour drive. To make it easier financially, H and I rented a place for the wedding party, including D’s future inlaws, and rented another place for our si lings from the midwest). We also paid for the bridesmaid’s dresses. D also reserved a group of rooms at the lowest cost place in the area. No one stayed there and we ended up having to pay a fee. We figured it was the cost of having a wedding in a place other than our hometown
I know it’s probably not traditional or whatever, but I don’t see it appropriate or even relevant for the PARENTS to be paying for their grown daughter/sons honeymoon - they as a married couple (or the husband preferably, in my opinion) should be capable of providing themselves their own romantic getaway (or the husband should be capable of providing him and his wife a honeymoon. It’s kind of disturbing for a parent to be paying for that type of thing, in my opinion.) At the end of the day though, It’s 2016, it’s okay for people to do what works for their beliefs, budget, and lifestyle. There is no right or wrong way to handle a wedding - whatever makes them happy and comfortable, goes.
I think it’s disturbing to still think that a husband “should provide” a honeymoon (or much of anything as dictated solely by “tradition”) in this day and age. Each couple “should” do whatever is best for them.
Like I said a long time ago, the idea of a husband paying for something (the idea that it’s not the couple paying) is just absolutely bizarre to me and not something I can at all wrap my head around. “I” paid for our honeymoon in the sense that it went on my credit card and I did the planning but it was our honeymoon paid out of our money (ok, “my” money since I was the one working). But I’ve never, ever thought of it in terms of “providing” a honeymoon for my partner… and again, I just cannot understand it. [I’m the wife, by the way.]
But as I say to everyone planning their wedding/honeymoon/whatever- to each his/her own
Not all couples co-mingle their money.
We co-mingle most of our money, but not all. It makes debit cards etc. much easier with his, hers and ours accounts. We started this when we moved in together to pay joint rent and utilities.
24 years ago the wedding was planned to come out of “ours” but my father helped out with a surprise
wedding gift. The honeymoon came out of “ours.”
Apparently our wedding was tacky with only hors d’oevres. 
I’m ok with that. We had so much food there was some left over, no one went away hungry.
Whether money is commingled or not, the honeymoon is a shared vacation for the married couple. No particular reason it should fall on one partner vs. the other to pay for the trip.
Chew on this, PrincessJas - my sister and her new husband went to Paris and Rome for their honeymoon. My parents gave them the plane tickets (I am guessing with miles, though I don’t know for sure). My husband and I called ahead to their hotels and paid for the rooms so they were pleasantly surprised by not having the bills. People give things to people because they love them.
Some people have more means than the happy couple and it’s nice to treat people. I’ve given miles to my adult kids for plane trips. Because I can. I have no idea if I will or not, but I could certainly see giving miles for a honeymoon plane trip, esp overseas.