Comments on: No, Really, That’s Not Etiquette

By: Never teh Bride

Never teh Bride — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:35:17 +0000

Sydney: That sounds absolutely lovely, though I can see how it would have tuckered you out!

By: Sydney

Sydney — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:31:27 +0000

When I married I made my own cake (a gorgeous three tiered affair with a fountain btw), and garnished it with beatiful ribbon and fresh flowers to make up for the fact that it wouldn’t have super embellished icing work. We found a florist who was low cost and high output and we didn’t have a sit down dinner, opting for hot and cold tables of h’orderves. We had a fabulous photographer who, 18 yrs ago, only cost $500 and gave us gorgeous photos. I invited 300 people figuring only half would come (because I got married in a sweet little very old episcopal chapel that only seated 160 folks - but more than half of my people were from out of state so I never thought they’d come). They all came. Every single last one of them. lol I felt so bad that half of my guests had to stand outside.

Inside the reception hall, aside from floral arrangements I didn’t have much money and it was a church hall, in any event, so we bought silver and clear balloons, large beautiful ones, rented a helium tank, and filled several hundred of them up ourselves, attaching pretty ribbon to the bottoms so they filled the hall and with the lights turned down it really looked quite magical and not as tacky as you’d think. And since we let everyone bring their children, they had a blast running through all the hanging ribbons, grabbing them by the handsful and pulling the balloons down and watching them float up again, and people danced in a sea of floating ribbon, almost like New Years Eve. Oh and… we didn’t have the money for dj so we made tapes of all of OUR favorite music, our songs together, in advance and played those. We had champagne punch instead of champagne.

It was nice, believe it or not. We were young and in love…

It didn’t last, mind you. Our love I mean. But the wedding was sweet for two undergraduates on a budget.

The only difficult thing was that I ended up doing a lot of work myself on and before my wedding day and I was exhausted. If I ever have it to do again, I am throwing a bunch of money at the Driskill Hotel in Austin and using it as my venue and letting them handle the entire thing. lol

By: La BellaDonna

La BellaDonna — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:26:01 +0000

I’m gobsmacked, Dianasaur, at the people who seemed to think you should forego dancing at your own wedding. Way to utterly invalidate the way someone’s chosen to spend her professional life, folks!

Let me repeat here: Etiquette is NOT a club for beating other people. The idea is NOT to sneak up on other people, surprising them with, “Ah-HA! UR DOIN IT RONG!” and belting them one. Etiquette really is just a way of trying to make it possible for the most people to get along as painlessly as possible.

That said? I really do think for the female guests, a colour other than white or ivory should be chosen. Really. I’m sure there’s something else in the wardrobe that would be just as flattering as that ivory or white whatever. Something, say, in black. Or red. Or anything else.

And if you are a mother of the bride, or mother of the groom, and you have not been explicitly instructed by the bride to wear white or ivory? For shame. You do know better, and we will all make fun of you remorselessly.

By: Melissa B.

Melissa B. — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:19:01 +0000

Dianasaur, you’re a professional dancer and some people wanted you to forgo dancing at the reception?! That kinda blows my mind. I’m so glad you didn’t cave in. Personally speaking I’d be really bummed out if I went to the wedding of a friend who I knew was a great dancer, only to find out there’d be no first dance!

By: Twistie

Twistie — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:15:31 +0000

Dianasaur, it sounds like you did things perfectly politely. You gave allergic grandma faux flowers so they wouldn’t make her sneeze, had multiple areas so those uncomfortable with dancing had somewhere they could do…and I assume there were beverages available even if they were not alcoholic in nature. Had grandma’s allergies played up, I’m also sure you would have been gracious had she needed to leave early. But if there’s one thing you probably learned while planning your wedding, it’s that everyone has an opinion!

Luckily for most bridal couples, the majority of the decisions tend to rest with them.

By: Dianasaur

Dianasaur — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:51:59 +0000

Amen Twistie! I got so sick of hearing all the things I needed to do to make my guests more comfortable. A few examples:

No real flowers because of people (grandma) allergic to the scent. I was not giving in that one, it was an outdoor wedding so they weren’t trapped inside with the smell. Plus our flowers had a special meaning. No one had any problems (though I made the grandmother corsages from fake flowers for them).

Need some alcohol or people won’t stay for the reception. Let them leave! The people who really cared about us would stay. Besides, it cost several hundred dollars more for the location if we served alcohol, and we didn’t want any repercussions of someone overdoing it.

No dancing because it would make some relatives who think it’s a sin uncomfortable. Hah! There’s lots of dancing in the Bible, and I’ve been a professional company dancer for years. I even choreographed an awesome first dance for us. We had several areas for the reception and they could go to another one if they were uncomfortable.

By: Twistie

Twistie — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:28:34 +0000

Actually, Mary, while I’ve seen that written about red, I’ve never seen a proper citation for where the idea comes from. OTOH, Queen Victoria attended the weddings of most of her children in full widow’s weeds and her own wedding lace (Prince Albert had not yet died when Princess Victoria was married, and Princess Beatrice borrowed her mother’s wedding lace for her own gown), so the wearing of mourning to a happy event - provided one was in deep mourning - was perfectly acceptable. And most people did eventually go into what was called half-mourning, where they added in colors like grey, white, and certain shades of purple. Then after a while, they would leave off mourning entirely. Eternal mourning was pretty much a widow’s thing when it was done at all. Red never had anything to do with mourning for any purpose in any culture I’ve been made aware of. And the only problem with wearing mourning to a wedding was if one put it on specifically for that event.

But red has never been rude for a wedding in any authoritative guide I’ve read, either. The only case I could think of would be a culture where red is the expected color for the bride to wear (such as a traditional Chinese or Hindu wedding)…but I don’t know for certain if it’s considered a bad thing even then.

Oh dear. Your MIL must have been terrribly uncomfortable! It was gracious of you to try to see to her comfort when she had so thoroughly hosed herself. You definitely took the correct tack. Miss Manners would be proud of you.

By: Mary

Mary — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:44:21 +0000

I seem to recall reading somewhere that red was what people in mourning were supposed to wear to a wedding, so they wouldn’t look like they were expressing disapproval of the marriage by wearing black. That seems to imply that red is a perfectly correct color to wear for a wedding under traditional etiquette.

I certainly didn’t presume to tell my MIL what to wear to my wedding, and she didn’t ask. She made a spectacularly bad decision, though, in terms of her own comfort. She wore a winter white wool pantsuit to our late morning April garden wedding. Most of the other women were in floral or pastel dresses or skirts and tops. By the end of lunch, it was over 80 degrees, and she had pinned her jacket and wasn’t wearing a shell under it, so she couldn’t remove it. She was miserable. I wasn’t pleased that she wore the same color I did, but I kept my mouth shut, other than to ask the caterer to turn on the air conditioning.

By: Never teh Bride

Never teh Bride — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:44:46 +0000

Kudos to you, Nony Mouse, for focusing on all the people there enjoying your event instead of the one person who tried (in her own very mild way) to subvert it. I know plenty of people who would not have reacted so calmly to a jab like that! I’m picturing a denim jumper in my mind…and I think your MIL must have looked pretty silly next to all the people in their little black dresses.

By: Nony Mouse

Nony Mouse — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 04:03:09 +0000

I admit to an eye-roll over what my MIL wore to the wedding. For any reason you care to take: it was blue-jean denim, it wasn’t fitted well, it wasn’t in line with the formality of the event, and it wasn’t in the colors of my party, so it kinda clashed with her corsage. And, though I’d made sure she knew about the last two a couple of months in advance, she’d gone out and bought the outfit especially for the wedding right before hand. But an eye-roll was about the level of emotional expenditure I was willing to give it; there were more important things to be thinking about like, say, the people who were actually happy we were getting married.
Many of my guests were in the ‘little black dress’ styles. Several people had asked before the wedding if I minded. I’d said, “The fun little black dress you’re looking for the perfect party to wear it to? Great! The long, somber thing with an old hat and black lace veil that make it look like you’re thinking of a funeral, not so much.” I don’t think anyone looking at our reception pics would be the least bit confused what the mood of the party was. But I guess I should be thankful my MIL’s rebellion was as mild as it was.