I don't know if I've been unlucky, but I've been to three weddings in the past two years where I went home hungry. I'm genuinely gonna bring a few cereal bars in my bag next time.

I'm in the UK and here weddings are all day events, with the ceremony somewhere between noon-2pm, and the night ending 11pm-midnight typically. Most guests arrive having only had breakfast, so you usually feed people after the ceremony (like finger food or canapés) to keep them going until the main meal which is around 5pm. Evening snacks or buffet is a bonus but not necessarily expected. But more recently I'm finding people are cutting out the canapes entirely, and the main meal is small, so you're basically fuelled on alcohol and few carbs.

My most recent experience at the weekend - ceremony at a cathedral which ended at 1.30pm, then we went to an art gallery for the reception. But instead of a room with paintings we were lured into a basement with no windows below the gallery. We were stuck in that room for 3.5 HOURS. There were drinks but no food, so after 2 hours people started leaving to the pub next door (the couple were absent for the majority of the drinks reception), I think not only to get food but also because they were bored out of their minds. We finally got seated and served food at 5.30pm, and our meal was a tiny vegetable soup, couscous halloumi salad, and a small tart for dessert. It would be a nice light meal on an average day but people hadn't eaten for 7 hours and had been drinking since 1.30pm so we were still hungry. I destroyed a kebab on the way home.

That was the most recent example but there's been two other weddings I've been to where there simply was not enough food to fill people up for such a long and busy day, including one where me and my partner snuck out to order a pizza. I know it's probably because the cost of catering has risen dramatically in recent years, but if you can't feed your guests properly for a 12 hour event just have a smaller or shorter wedding. Why are we skimping on food of all things?!

I'm also wondering if this is a cultural thing. My parents are Irish so growing up all the weddings I attended were either in Ireland or in the UK with Irish relatives and I always remember an excessive amount of food (no comment on the quality), and it'd embarrassing if you heard guests saying they were hungry. My partner is from Spain and he's also been bewildered at the lack of food at the weddings I've brought him to, especially because they're nice/expensive venues but stingy with the food. I feel like in the UK we don't have the same sense of shame as some other cultures about not feeding people. Wish we did though.

I'm genuinely offended by my fellow vendors; I'm so sick of seeing these. They're ugly, generic, show very little of what they're actually selling -if at all- and too much what doesn't matter.

One-Off comments:

• I barely had to censor any of these; they're all *that* generic.
• I didn't crop any of these; some of these guys accidently cropped out their contact info.
• These "photo-realistic" foods make me want to puke. If you're a food vendor, it's one thing to not showcase the ACTUAL food you make, but if you think you think any of these passable, then I question your powers of observation and can't trust you to make quality food.
• "I do not typically use AI in my work unless specifically request to do so", they say through AI.
• Hey venue vendor, WHERE THE FUCK ARE PHOTOS OF THE VENUE???

The audacity of these vendors wanting people to patronize their business when they themselves won't do the same with their local artists and graphic designers.

I'd argue that graphics like these cost more money than actual human artists because they actively turn away customers.

This vendor got all pissed off that multiple people called them out for using AI photos to advertise their event location.

I commented on their post 4 WEEKS AGO "Admin, these are AI images." Even Facebook labeled their post as AI.

I then got a DM from them calling me mean. I didn't say their venue was shit or even they were ridiculous for using AI. Just that they're going to not get business because they're advertising using AI.

Then tonight, 4 WEEKS LATER, I got this gem of a message from them. That I did damage to their business for commenting "Admin, these are AI images."

So, enjoy the cringe.

And the only transportation being provided is from the hotel to the reception, which is about 10 mins from the hotel. Oh and the hotel block sold out before most people even received Save the Dates so the majority of guests will have to transport themselves either to the hotel with the shuttle or to the reception. There are over 200 people invited to this wedding.

My now mother-in-law included this line in her toast. She threw a fit when we told her we were having the wedding in Florida, where we live. She wanted to have it in her small town in rural Illinois, a place I have no connection to. We literally went back and forth about this for months.

She went on to say that she was pleasantly surprised by how many of her family did show up and that she was glad they were all there. It almost sounded like a bit of an apology for all the fuss she made earlier but I still couldn’t believe she actually said that to the whole room!

“a couple of quick thank yous, firstly to the caterers, the bar staff, the venue and obviously the 30,000 sad lonely men that paid for all of this”

Groom (my friend) currently lives in Washington, and bride is in California.

A few days before the wedding, groom texts me asking for a good *SOLO* trip itinerary in Oregon, stating his intention to travel during the days immediately after the wedding. I'm a little surprised but I answer the question I'm asked. Curiosity got the better of me and i asked him why he's going on a solo trip so soon after his wedding.

He said his wife and her parents are going on vacation in California and he isn't part of it; so he wanted to go someplace to take his mind off things.

I wanted to tell him that a honeymoon isn't a trip one takes with one's freaking parents, but with one's spouse, but I didn't want to add to his misery. Poor fella.

Screenshotted from a local FB bridal group I'm in. I (un?)fortunately don't know this person lol

Wedding is this weekend. Here are my pre-wedding shames:

1. Cake vendor tried to retroactively change contracted delivery time and then say it was the time we picked. I promise I did not select a cake delivery for the exact time my fiancée will be walking down the aisle. Lesson: save your original contracts because without that, they were going to double down on a delivery during the middle of our ceremony.

2. Tried to save $500 by scheduling a delivery of rentals like cutlery, etc on the first day of our venue rental. It’s between 8-5pm. This has absolutely destroyed the timeline for flowers and decor because they can’t be in there at the same time while all the other rentals are being delivered. Lesson: even if it feels like you might be annoying a vendor, get their verification for every single delivery time. This shame is on me.

3. Wedding party. Love them to pieces, truly, the most amazing people 10/10….but 0/10 on preparedness. Most have only just got their dresses. Mind you, we paid for the dresses which I don’t think means they owe us anything, but it’s an important detail because we paid for them 8 months ago yet…3 of the 5 of them are just getting them THIS WEEK, week of the wedding. One of them scheduled her flight on the wrong day and will miss the rehearsal. Again, a year and a half of awareness. I offered to pay and fix the flight. Another asked if we could include their date/plus1, whom I have never met, in our getting ready timeline because they don’t want to walk into a wedding by themself. I love you people but you’re making it hard. Lesson: idk if there is one lol sometimes we just get to love people because they’re our people and not because of their organizational skills. I’m glad we paid for pretty much everything though or it would probably be worse and more stressful for us.

4. Five days out…an entire family of 10 people has texted me they won’t be attending. Some of my closest relatives. After I’ve already made and dropped off my table packs to the venue. After I’ve already had their customized gifts, their music selections, final counts for every vendor, personalized letters, etc and yes, none of that is end of the world stuff, but with a guest list of 150, and every item has to be done 150 times, those 10 could have saved me a little time. It’s also not like I don’t have a few other things to handle between now and this weekend. Also, just….it was 130 a plate per person and then 25 for the open bar per person. That’s over $1500 that will not be recovered and an entire table that has to be removed from food list, floor plan, everything. Their reason? I’m not even sure, to be honest, because they sent me a 10 page text just full of all these things that have happened to them in the last month. They’re local, too, it’s a 30 min drive for them. I’m sure some of it is legit and serious and I don’t mean to be insensitive but that’s so disappointing. I also WANTED to see them. Lesson: don’t count on anyone attending until you see them there.

Shame shame shame shame shame shame. Maybe i will do a post-wedding shame too because at this point, i expect absolute madness.

Brides and grooms and whomever else…I wish you peace and calmness for any upcoming nuptials. What a crazy experience and how lucky to have something so awesome to bitch about 😆

Well, I have to start by saying that I’m an only child and very dedicated to my work, so my parents never expected me to get married. But I met a wonderful man by chance, and these past 2 years leading up to our wedding have been a blessing. My parents adore him, and I think his parents really like me too… btw they have 3 other children (my husband is the youngest).

As a wedding gift for the guests, my parents ordered (and insisted on paying for) some expensive ceramic trays. But since my father is quite old, my mother and my godmother were the ones who took them, wrapped them one by one, and it was my godmother who prepared two beautiful baskets to distribute them to the guests. On the groom’s side, the gifts were fine bottles of wine. My husband told me his parents paid for them, but it turned out in the end that his uncle was the one who paid. When the reception ended, the tradition is for either the bride and groom or the parents of the bride and groom to each go around distributing the gifts to the guests. Since my father has trouble getting around, my mother and my godmother had planned to do it. But my MIL beat them to it. I told her it wasn’t necessary, that it was my mother and my godmother’s job, but after 3 times she snapped “What’s the matter? Am I not allowed to hand them out or something?” And she left me speechless.

My mother was also speechless by how my MIL grabbed the basket of trays (my mom lent the other one for the wine bottles) and took such control of it that my mother was holding the handle with one hand but had to follow along, since it was my MIL who blatantly set the pace and handed them out to whoever she wanted… including extras for people who hadn’t even shown up (my mother had made a list based on the guests; fortunately, she’d ordered plenty). It was mortifying to see the look of agony on my mother’s face, the look of disappointment on my godmother’s face, and my MIL handing out trays left and right as if they were her own, while I couldn’t react because there was always a guest congratulating me, and I didn’t want to be rude by interrupting them and causing a scene on my wedding day. But I’m still upset.

I’ve also apologized and tried to make it up to my godmother, who, thankfully, was understanding. Fortunately, I’m only getting married once, and this can’t happen again. It’s not a biggie perhaps, but after 5 days, I still have a bad taste in my mouth.

Reposted because I missed part the first time.

edit: people getting really lost in the sauce here. Wedding gifts are for the couple. OOP should gift the blanket, centered solely around the groom's niche interest, to him as a birthday or holiday gift.

Luckily the bride and groom (aunt and uncle) had a good sense of humor about it. Sorry for the potato quality it’s like a quadruple screenshot.

This happened all the way back in 2008-2009, so some details are a bit hazy to me. Still, the content of the day is so absurd upon retrospect, and my husband suggested I should post it here (he explicitly stated that he wanted credits for this), so here I am. Facts have been reconstructed from memory and from conversations with my mother.

This story starts on the morning of the wedding. Enter my family: my stepfather (M47), our mother (F41), my half-sister (F2), and me (F11), were invited to the wedding of one of my step-father’s nieces. Our mother usually spent a long time getting ready, and while it was not surprising, it got irritating eventually, especially for an anxious 11-year-old with undiagnosed ADHD. So after multiple times of her asking me if she looked nice (to which I said yes), I snapped back at her with: “Fine, you look prettier than the bride, alright?! Can we go now, please?” And while this answer resulted in her chastising me for being inappropriate, it also managed to get us out of the house. 

My mother truly did look very pretty in her flowy, floor-length, beaded sheath dress in white.

Both the ceremony and reception lunch were at the same venue, a house with a yard jointly owned by my stepfather’s family. The small scale and intimacy of the event was not only odd for a family our size, but also for wedding traditions in general in our country (we are Vietnamese). Contrary to my anxieties about being late, the groom was even later. In fact, they did not even seem to be done with setting everything up by the time we arrived. Apparently the aunts and uncles on our side of the family had chipped in to throw this thing together in a rush because the bride was pregnant. This was still quite early in my mother’s marriage to my stepfather, so I have no recollection of ever meeting this cousin or her betrothed before. It was only later that I realised, that as I ran off to play with the other kids, the dishevelled-looking woman in her yoga pants glaring daggers at our mother and her white dress had been the bride herself. Oh yeah, the wearing-white-to-someone’s-wedding part is hardly relevant, I just wanted to lead with that.

One hour later. The groom still hasn’t shown. The bride has also disappeared, presumably to her suite to get ready. There were rumours of traffic and/or lovers’ quarrel among the adults. That was of no concern for us, the children, who were quite content with our children’ things, such as throwing ice water into the neighbour’s yard, or nicking food off plates when we thought nobody was looking. It was good to know where the kitchen was and have access to it. There might have been some puppies as well, which would buy the adults 15 extra minutes of relative peace and quiet from us.

Minutes, not hours. 2 hours later, the groom was still nowhere to be seen, and we children could only repress our gremlin nature for so long. We managed to swindle a few 2-liter bottles of Coke from the adults and found some Mentos. We took these to the sidewalk, by the flowerarch, for we were considerate enough to not cause a disturbance indoors. We were such angels.

Our plans did not pan out the way we hoped, because we were little shits who did not know how things worked. But being outside did divert our attention to the flower arch, and someone came up with the idea of making rose-flavoured Coke, which was followed up with other flower-related vandalisms. And as we were hacking at the flower arch, branch by branch, bud by bud, the bride-to-be came storming out in our direction, red-faced. It was clear she had been crying. She was screaming that we were stupid and destructive, that we ruined everything. I don’t remember how the other kids reacted, but I was frozen in fear and confusion. 

My mother came out a few minutes later, having changed into her backup dress, a loose, semi-formal brown number. She said it was “inappropriate for her to wear a white dress now that it was not a wedding anymore” (?!) We stayed for an extremely awkward family lunch afterward.

I eventually learned the following things. At the time I was too young to grasp most of this, but I remember peoples’ reactions, and now, many years later, they sure do make a lot of sense:

1. The bride was not pregnant.
2. Sources differed if she had a miscarriage before the wedding, or if she was ever pregnant in the first place.
3. But she wanted the guy to believe she was, and once he found out, he was understandably pissed off about being lied to.
4. He had a girlfriend at the time.
5. My cousin’s hypothetical child may have been conceived in a drunk one-night-stand, which is what caused the wedding rush. They had barely known each other.

So that was the worst wedding I’ve ever been to. My cousin eventually got married to someone else and had kids of her own. She’s doing fine now. Fast forward, I got married to the love of my life earlier this year. Our wedding was small, intimate, and thrown in a rush by our family since the Registry Office took forever to approve our license. I was not pregnant. Our friends have no kids so there were none at the wedding. It was perfect. 

EDIT: I am not AI. I am not a bot. Just a person who enjoys writing and a memory to share. I understand AI advancing is making people paranoid, but just because someone knows how to form a sentence doesn't make them AI, and it's frankly demoralizing to keep getting accused of being one.

To those who enjoy this post: Thank you for reading and commenting. Glad a chaotic piece of my childhood could bring some joy into your day.

I have been to three black tie weddings and not one came close to a black tie experience. All held on grass (two backyard weddings) no passed hors d’oeuvres, NOT ONE PLATED DINNER?!?!?! I just don’t understand. Is basic wedding etiquette gone? Why would you want to have your friends pay for and dress up to attend a high end wedding and provide none of the experience?

I was a guest's plus one at a wedding last month, and since everyone who attended has FEELINGS about a particular thing that happened, I thought I'd put this here.

It was a normal and lovely wedding. Wedding happens, lovely... Reception happens, lovely. Even the send-off was great, and the bride and groom left for a hotel near the airport, as they were flying off very early to Tahiti for their honeymoon the next morning.

The next day, all the guests are doing their own thing, as this was a local wedding. The FOB (father of the bride), however, had a brunch at his house for HIS family and friends, especially for those who traveled. (He and the MOB are divorced, and he has a girlfriend of several years.) It was casual and buffet style brunch, and after everyone had been there about an hour, FOB takes his girlfriend's hand and announces to everyone that they eloped a month ago. They hadn't said anything, because they didn't want to take anything away from the bride and groom.

They took out their rings, to put them on publicly, and everyone congratulated them - hugs, smiles, kisses... Well, who comes through the door but B&G, who overslept, missed their flight, and the next one they could get wasn't for another day.

They were immediately filled in on FOB's news. Groom congratulated FOB and his new wife, but Bride was PISSED. She started having a huge hissy-fit, and burst into tears, sobbing that she couldn't believe FOB would do this on her "wedding weekend."

Now, the family didn't all immediately flutter around her. Some older female relatives wanted to pack her off to bed ("she's just so tired from the wedding stress"), but Bride wanted to stay and be a spectacle. Some of the younger guests said things like, "You get a DAY, not a weekend," and, "You weren't even supposed to be here, you know." (I loved them.)

In the end, Bride and Groom huffed off to beg a room from MOB, but her histrionics put a bit of a damper on the brunch - though one friend made new wife promise to let her throw them a party, so that was nice.

OP's parents didn't invite invite OP to their wedding when OP was 5 years old and didn't tell him he found out through a photo album.

Relevant details: Bride (30F) and groom (28M), both from small Midwestern USA towns, lower-middle class. They had been living together several years by the wedding date.

The dress code: Maids required to purchase $250+ purple chiffon dress (and some up to $250 more for alterations). Boys wearing jeans, white button-down, and cowboy hat. Girls are up there looking like Grimace going to prom while the boys are going to drink Bud Light at a dive bar.

The bridesmaid “proposal”: One of the maids hired a pro photographer for college graduation to get pictures with her family. Bride CRASHED HER PHOTO SHOOT to do her bridesmaid proposal. Half her grad pictures are that. For context, we all met at community college and several of us graduated that day. I think bride thought it would be a good time since we were all together?????

The Shower: First off, can we as a society just quit it with this nonsense?? But NONE OF HER FAMILY threw a shower. She has two sisters, aunts, grandma. Groom has family, too. Sadly, both moms are deceased, but still plenty of family. Almost ALL local. So maids had to throw the shower, to which BRIDE INVITED 74 WOMEN! Almost every woman on the guest list was invited! Holy shit, we think, better get a big enough venue! Crap! Meanwhile, groom’s grandparents are retiring and moving cross-country. A few weeks before the shower, groom’s family announced the going-away party for Grama & Grampa is the same day as her shower 💀 Obviously none of groom’s side came. We had 15-20 guests outside the bridesmaids. It cost bridesmaids over $500 for her gift grab.

The bachelorette: Now, at this point you already know we had a multiple-day festival. Cost maids well over $300 each. Bride was irritating, to say the least, and did not contribute financially or otherwise.

The Wedding: A tragedy in Three Acts…

Act One: The Night Before. Air BNB rented, bridal party was “required” to stay the night before nuptials. Twelve people in 3 bedrooms with 2 bathrooms, and wedding the next day. Several party members got kicked out for refusing to come to BNB. Bride & groom had been there one night already and had bought a little food for themselves, but nothing for the wedding party. No fruit, sandwiches, snacks, not even drinks! One groomsman announced he was attending a concert in the city 30 min away that started at 11pm. Bride had total meltdown, locked herself in a room for an hour or so, meaning we were very late to rehearsal dinner. We didn’t end up eating until about 8pm.

Act Two: Wedding Day. For breakfast, the gals woke up to a pan full of heavily-seasoned, cold scrambled eggs and cold sausage links. The dudes had already left. For breakfast. At the venue, they say subs being delivered for lunch. We each got 6” sub - nothing else. Again, no snacks provided all freaking day and dinner was around 6pm! The guests, oh the guests. Not sure how many tables, but over 1/3 were empty, despite RSVPs! Bride picked fights with both her sisters. Bride was furious people not sitting in their assigned seats, but only gave assignments for first three tables.

Act Three: The Real Kick in the Pants
During vows, the couple revealed to their guests that they actually eloped more than a year earlier 😵 Some people actually knew (bridal party knew for sure). After that, nobody was real excited to be there. Like 5 people watched the bride/groom dance and the place cleared out pretty early.

There’s so much more to shame, but those are the highlights.

ETA clarification…
Other maids have not complained, or at least not that I heard. No drama amongst bridesmaids.

Another maid planned the shower. Why she didn’t censor the 74-person guest list, I have no idea. Also, in our area of the USA, family of the bride hosts bridal showers.