Comments on: Weddings, the second time around

By: Donna

Donna — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 02:42:14 +0000

I think you need to revisit our website, IDoTakeTwo.com, since we never said any of the above. We don’t say second time brides can’t have a wedding or wear a wedding dress or have attendants. The line regarding bridal showers/guests/gifts was misquoted. We said the guests who came to the first shower shouldn’t be expected to attend another bridal shower and bring another gift. They can be invited, yes, but the guest should know that they aren’t expected to bribg anoither gift (many will though). I think the author of the original post was reading from our pages on vow renewal etiquette and not form the second wedding information. And, no, the two of these are not the same. Thank you for allowing me to clear up some of the misinterpretation.

By: Never teh Bride

Never teh Bride — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 20:40:15 +0000

Note: The comment I was responding to seems to have gone AWOL

Thanks for weighing in, Rebecca. Etiquette is a wonderful thing – it keeps society running smoothly. And while I believe that everyone should have an understanding of proper etiquette, I also believe that we all have the right to buck the rules as long as we abide by the consequences of our choices.

There is plenty on the site I do agree with…just not everything. I am of the opinion that people should have the type of wedding that pleases them most. If I am offended by their choices, I can respond by not attending.

Most brides and grooms (encore and otherwise) understand that their wedding style choices have the potential to alienate certain people and these couples must then make decisions based on conscience. Some choose to follow etiquette rules to a ‘T,’ some choose to bend the rules, and some choose to toss them right out the window.

I support all three groups in equal measure.

By: Soliloquy

Soliloquy — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:15:09 +0000

My first husband turned out to be gay (surprise!) and actually wanted to be a bridesman in my second wedding. I turned him down, as I thought I already had enough wedding party pictures featuring him, but he did drive 10 hours to come to the ceremony.

My (2nd) husband hadn’t been married before, and we did the whole church wedding thing. And invited whoever we wanted. The only item my mother put her foot down about was my being married in a red dress, which I though would be fun. So I stuck with ivory, it was pretty.

Since I had a lot of home stuff from my first wedding, instead of a bridal shower I had a spa party. Everyone brought nail polish, facial ingredients, etc. from home, and my maitron of honor (who’s a massage therapist) did massages in her dining room. It rocked–I highly recommend it!

By: Never teh Bride

Never teh Bride — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 21:57:38 +0000

A widower at 29? That is so sad!

By: Chaeriste

Chaeriste — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:15:21 +0000

Rules suck. I wish I could be more eloquent than that, but really. My best friend and his fianc� are getting married 6/17 and BOTH have been married before. He became a widower at 29 and she was divorced by 25. It happens, people. They are having a knock-down, drag-out wedding, in a hotel banquet hall, with attendants, custom made dress and tux. We, on the other hand, are both first-timers and we’re having a small, 70-person wedding with the ceremony in the banquet hall and one attendant each. It’s what we wanted, and we are comfortable with our choices. To each their own. ‘Encore bride’, feh.

By: Kai Jones

Kai Jones — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 23:56:50 +0000

The old rules, which applied when being a second bride/groom meant you were either bad (divorced) or sad (widow/er), and in either case didn’t want to draw the community’s attention, made sense when that was the assumption. (Although an older first-time bride–say, over 30–was also expected to forego the white dress and multiple attendants kind of wedding.)

Society doesn’t disapprove of subsequent marriages any longer, or remarriage after a death, or late marriage, so I think those rules have become stale.

By: jj

jj — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 20:06:13 +0000

No attendents? Now that’s just silly. How are you supposed to get ready? Who are you supposed to hand the bouquet too? In general, who is there to shepard you through and help you out as you get caught up in the excitement of the day?

By: Twistie

Twistie — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 23:22:08 +0000

So…if you’ve got one person who hasn’t been married before marrying someone who has been married before…does that mean one can have fifteen attendants while the other doesn’t have any? While I’m not one of those people who gets obsessed about having perfect symmetry, that would be downright ridiculous. Or does the person who hasn’t been married before get completely cheated of the trimmings of a formal wedding? If so, my wedding would have been a lot sadder, since my beloved was divorced.

I don’t think much of hard and fast rules for what you can and can’t do for a wedding. I’ve even seen times when it was good to make an exception on the ‘no ex-spouses’ rule. As long as what the couple wants to do isn’t vicious, painfully greedy, horrifically out of their budget, or deliberately intended to make the guests uncomfortable, I think they should do exactly what they want. I don’t care if it’s the first time to the altar or the fifth.

By: la petite chou chou

la petite chou chou — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 02:23:45 +0000

Hmm….

Anyone I know who was married more than once actually went to Reno to get hitched, and they really didn’t dress up—at all.

Though, my best friend eloped in front of a judge and she wore a real wedding dress.

That has nothing to do with this thread, though.

By: JaneC

JaneC — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 23:25:14 +0000

I attended a wedding in January which was a second for the bride and a first for the groom. The bride’s (very cute) 5-year-old daughter was a flower girl, and was also very much included in the ceremony. After the bestowal of the rings, a pendant for the little girl was blessed by the minister and fastened onto her by her new father. The bride wore a traditional wedding dress, of the variety that looks a lot like the wedding cake. They really went all-out on the reception, too. The favors consisted of two gourmet chocolates and a mint-flavored chapstick that had a parchment with statistics on kissing wrapped around it.

I had no problem with the bride wearing a traditional wedding dress, although my mother thought she should have picked something else (though, I have to say, the style of the dress looked a little out-dated to me, and I wondered if it might be the same dress from her first wedding). The problem I had with her dress was that the bride was both very petite in stature (about 4’11″), and very, er, well-endowed (I’m guessing DD), and the dress showed off an awful lot of it, especially for a church wedding. I wasn’t meaning to look down her dress, but being 7 inches taller, I had to look down to talk to her, and, well, they were just there!