Just Plain Tacky

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Definitely, my most memorable wedding-reception moment came several years ago.  I was at my cousin's very high-class, about 150 guest, church wedding.  Being that cousin "G" and his now-wife "L" are conservative people -- L being from a strict Dutch-Reformed family and G from a Reformed family -- this really was a family-oriented evening wedding with the reception immediately following, in the church's banquet hall (and you'd never guess it was a church banquet hall, either; so absolutely gorgeous).  

Well, because G and L had virtually all their family members and quite a few close friends present, that meant "Granny F" was there.  (Granny F is the groom's grandma.)  This was not a buffet, mind you, the caterer had waiters and waitresses serving and tending to the guests.  And after dinner, as one young lady in a black and white uniform was carrying away stacks of plates in a small plastic bin, Granny F caught sight of something beige and leavened on one of those plates.  Being that she is quite the cheapskate, Granny F just couldn't put aside her cheapness for ONE night, at her grandson's long-awaited wedding reception, a classy affair, at that, to let one of those rolls that she didn't even have to pay for go to waste.  So what does she do?  Granny F stops the girl carrying the dirty dishes back to the kitchen -- and asks her if she could take those leftover, uneaten and partially eaten rolls off of other people's plates!!!!  

Let's just say, Granny F made a killing in rolls off dirty plates.  She was seen, after the incident, proudly hoarding her rolls as best she could.  To this day, G's family has never let it die -- it quickly becomes the topic whenever we reminisce about G & L's wedding.  Always good for a few laughs!!   

PlainTacky0110-07

A girl my husband works with found her "dream engagement ring" and told her boyfriend to buy it and propose to her.  He wasn't impressed and refused - partly because they hadn't agreed to get married, and partly because he'd have to go into debt to buy the ring.  He's a City trader, but this thing cost tens of thousands of pounds.   So the girl buys it for herself, going hugely into debt for it!  She wears it on her ring finger, but it's not her engagement ring any more.  Since she bought it, she's found another "dream ring" for the boyfriend to buy, which she'll wear over the top of the first one to "bling her finger up".  He's still refusing though.   This was just funny, but my husband only knows it because she told him in all seriousness that he didn't spend enough money on my ring and obviously didn't really love me!  The whole office is laughing at her by this point, but she's standing firm.  She said if her boyfriend doesn't go into debt for her ring, it's not expensive enough and she wouldn't accept it!  

PlainTacky0220-07

My cousin refused to have her bridal shower in the air-conditioned, spacious, furnished (it has a kitchen area too), inexpensive-to-rent-for-the-day "Club House" at her maid of honor's condo. Instead, in the dead of Summer in Mississippi, she opted for a sweltering, cramped, miserable "par-tay" in someone's car port where people waited and sweated for over an hour just until she GOT THERE. Her aunt, who is quite elderly and in a wheelchair, had to sit in the hot car port for the whole time, and her maid of honor almost passed out from heat stroke. Bridezilla complained that there wasn't any music, it was too hot (no kidding?), and barked at people to get her water. I wanted to slap her!

PlainTacky0301-07

My boyfriend's brother is a sweet boy, and he started dating "LuLu" about 9 months ago, after they ran into each other in a shopping parking lot. They apparently had 'dated' back when they were teens, and now decided to try again. (I later found out this was one date that bro couldn't even really remember). Cut to two weeks later and "Lulu" is a constant fixture in the house, mostly because she gets my boyfriend's mother to baby-sit her child for her (this isn't necessarily tacky, since BF's mom is willing...but not to the point LuLu takes her generosity).

At this point in the 'relationship' she is telling Bro they are in love, will be together forever and training her daughter to call him daddy! The whole family give bro weary looks, but we decide if he wants to be in the relationship, that his choice right? Apparently it's hers.

Cut to 3 months later. She decides they are moving in together, which they do. Now, I'm not saying Bro didn't agree to move out, but he...really never said anything verbally. She just said "WE ARE MOVING IN TOGETHER." and they did. Flash forward another to current time and I get word from my boyfriend's mom (she and I are super close) that Bro and LuLu are ENGAGED! Engaged?! I ask. BF's Mom gets really quiet and explains that Bro just kind of blurted, "By the way, Lulu got her engagement ring this morning" before hanging up with BF's mom. I gasp: "When did he ask?" And she says "He didn't. She bought herself a ring off of ebay." After I pick my jaw off the floor, I confirm. No, Bro NEVER ASKED. SHE went out, BOUGHT a (fake) ring (she thought was real) and is now parading around, saying they are engaged! BF's Mom even sat Bro down and said "Are you happy? Is this what you want?" and he couldn't even say he was! So now, there is awkward silence every time LuLu mentions "The wedding" to Bro's family.

I am seriously dreading this 'wedding' and wondering if it'll even happen! The sad thing is, I think it will.

PlainTacky0217-07

A few years ago I worked at a local bar/restaurant.  The owner and the bartender fell "head over heels" and decided to get married.  Out of the kindness of my heart I volunteered to make the invitations for the wedding.  I purchased all of the stationary and embossing items to make the invites look nice.  It was requested that I list a "cocktail hour" on the invitation.  The reception was to be held at the bar/restaurant that the groom owned.  

At the reception I went to the bar and ordered a soda (I was pregnant), I was absolutely horrified when the bartender said "That'll be $1.50," you could have knocked me over with a feather.  I had no idea that it was a total cash bar!  The drinks for "cocktail hour" were also charged for.  How could you put "cocktail hour" on an invitation and then charge your guests.  Most weddings that have a cash bar, it is the establishment that is profiting from the sale of drinks, but when the reception is held in your own establishment and you are charging regular menu prices for drinks, you are the one gaining the profits!  I could have understood them limiting what could be ordered (i.e. beer and wine) to keep costs down, but charging me for my soda was an absolute outrage.  

Most people from the reception were just as angry as I was.  Not only did you give the couple a card with $100 (in my case) but they were making approximately $1.50 off of every drink that you had that night.  To make matters worse, it was not a first wedding for either one of them.  My theory on having a reception for a second or third wedding -- do it right or don't do it at all!  Also, no Thank You cards!!!  Would I have expected anything less? 

PlainTacky0330-07

Okay...first of all, my husband's best friend Mike announced in December of 2006 that he and his girlfriend, Denise were going to get married in May of 2007.  Little did they know my husband and I were planning on getting married in March of 2007 and his OTHER friends were getting married in April of 2007.  Since they were the ones to actually announce it first, but to get married last out of all of us, they said we're all copying them and that they "set a trend". But they don't realize that people have been falling in love and getting married for thousands of years...they didn't start anything.      

 Denise has been going out with Mike for 4 years and have lived together for 3.  Denise was supposedly the popular one in high school while Mike was the geek.  Knowing he works hard and was smart with computers, she decided to 'stay' with him because he could  and now is, making a lot of money (Yeah, sounds like a movie).  So while Mike is at work, she hangs out with his friends, Travis and Ben, and goes to movies and lunch every day, while she is supposed to be at school.      

So now that she's got Mike paying for everything and making money, she all of a sudden became really mentally twisted.  They turned Buddhist and got into Yoga and she's taking French and is trying to be 'sophisticated'. But if anyone knows where XXXX,XXXX is... know there is not one drop of sophistication to be seen and she's a fake.    My husband and I just had a beautiful wedding paid for by my parents.  Denise knows that my husband, Jason was never interested or really cared about wealth or fancy stuff...but when he married into my family, she got jealous.  Two weeks after we got married she came to me and said, "Since you're invited to our ceremony, the least you can do is take me to get my hair and make-up done in the morning of my wedding."  That wasn't all, she knows my parents are well off and like to share it, so not even knowing them or my parents even caring who Mike and Denise are, she asked me if it would be weird to invite them to their ceremony and reception.  I flat out told her "Yes, it would be."  

AND I also forgot, they weren't even going to invite Jason's mom.  Jason and Mike have been friends since they were 2, so you'd think that his mom would be invited over mine.  So the point of this paragraph is, Denise only wants to invite my parents because she thinks she can get a couple hundred dollars out of them.    

Now for the gift registry.  Mike and Denise have been living together now for 3 years, like I said before.  They...HAVE...EVERYTHING! Seriously!  Without Mike knowing, she went and registered at the three most expensive places, scanning over $27,000 of stuff she 'needs'...like 3 different wine racks and coolers, electric tea kettles, lawn mowers, weed whackers, 6 oval platters at $150 each...it's ridiculous.  We called Mike the other day and apologized for not being able to buy anything for their wedding,  because we can't afford anything and he was confused.  HE HAD NO IDEA WHAT SHE HAD DONE! ...because she knew it would make him mad.  Now the word going around the neighborhood, and everyone who has seen the lists, is that seeing what's on her list is pointless and is keeping everyone from buying her anything because it's all over $100 each.    

This Friday is her bridal shower.   Randi and Kelly (just got married) are good friends of Mike and Denise too, but they aren't invited to the ceremony, only to the reception. Neither are the two other friends Ben and Travis, whom she hangs out with all day, everyday, only me and Jason are invited...RUDE. She expects Randi and Jason's mom to come to the shower to bring her useless, expensive gifts, but not to the ceremony.  She's getting married on a freakin' farm...how expensive and sophisticated is that?!  It doesn't cost money to have people stand around to watch you get married...especially at XXXX  Farm.  

We can tell Mike is a little embarrassed of getting married to Denise because it was only supposed to be in a courthouse and very under the table.  Their relationship just sucks and Mike knows it.  I feel bad for him sometimes because Denise turned this into a big embarrassing event.  But he's almost as dumb as she is for staying with her.   Now she's spending all of his money driving around, taking Ben and Travis out to lunch everyday, buying stupid stuff for the wedding and not even giving Mike the respect or the time of day.  In the meantime of her planning this wedding she has said several times that 'when she meets a handsome, rich guy, I'm leaving you.'  What an interesting couple. 

Greed makes the world go 'round.   

PlainTacky0502-07

I am getting married in June of this year, and we are inviting many of the dealers from my fiancé's store (he rents booths to them and has known many of them for years). Well, my story regards one of those dealers who I will refer to as Amber. My FH and Amber did not really get along well in the past, and now I know why.

I was looking for a part time job just for the weekends (I am a full time college student), and Amber told my FH that her husband, who I will call Ike, runs the maintenance staff of a sorority house. They got me a job working there (just doing light clean up so the weekday people didn't have such a mess to come back to). Anyway, we decided that, although Amber isn't our favorite person, this was so nice of them that we should invite her and Ike to our wedding. That's where the trouble starts.

I called Amber to get her mailing address so that I could send her an invitation (this was before invitations had been sent out...A and B lists are just plain wrong). When I asked her, she gave it to me, then said, "Do you have my mother's address?" WHAAA??? Her mother's address? Why would I want that? I don't know her mother. I'm not having a family reunion for her. Whatever. I took her mother's address because my FH said he knew her and she was nice. There's room for one more, and I haven't finalized anything with the caterers or anyone as it is still far enough off that I have left myself a little wiggle room.

But that wasn't the only incident of her incredible rudeness. I didn't really like to talk about the wedding at work as I knew it was too late to add the 15+ workers at the house and their spouses/dates, etc. If people asked me about the plans, I would certainly tell them, and if I looked particularly tired from being up half the night making favors, and they asked me why, I would tell them. In general, though, I tried to stick with the safer subject of how school was going or what their kids were up to rather than hurt anyone's feelings. This is necessary background to let the reader know that the other employees definitely did not feel that they were or should be invited (as I have only known them for approximately two months and have neither the room nor the money to add them onto the guest list now); they were nice to me, but we hadn't know each other long enough for socializing outside of work.

So one particularly busy Saturday (it was a party weekend on this campus), Ike called in Amber's niece to help me with the cleaning. We walked by the office door, and saw Amber in there, then stopped to chat. Somehow the topic of my bridal shower came up, and she said - in front of her niece - (and I quote), "You know, you really should invite all the girls who work here." To which I replied as tactfully as I could, "Well, I don't think it's polite to invite people to the shower if they aren't invited to the wedding, and we really can't afford to invite anyone else to the wedding." And then she had the nerve to act way too maternal - her replies from that point forward were basically geared to make me feel stupid, like she knew etiquette and I didn't (even though she said she agreed with what I had said, she said it as though she had come up with it and I was in the wrong for even thinking she meant I should invite them to one and not the other).

To sum up: she claims to be etiquette conscious, but tries to invite an extra 30 or so people to my wedding and shower (which is, by the way, being hosted by someone else, so that's not even my call - um, and the guest list is about 15 people, so she is trying to double it???). She tried to make me feel bad for inviting the people I wanted to invite to my wedding. And she did it in front of one of the people I hadn't invited (because I don't know her). I'm beginning to hate this woman, and will enjoy watching her flesh separate from the bone and char in the deepest parts of etiquette hell.

PlainTacky0504-07

This person had been comforting a distraught friend who was watching another friend's daughter while Mommie went to a wedding.

Well soon after Mommie left the daughter got sick, and revealed that she'd already been vomiting the night before and Mommie had told her not to say anything because she was afraid the friend might refuse to take her. Which would be perfectly understandable since the friend had a little girl of her own at home who could easily become sick as well.

The friend tried to call Mommie, but, surprise, surprise, she wasn't answering her cell phone, so she had her husband take their own daughter out to keep her away from the house and did her best to take care of the sick girl.

That evening there was still no word from Mommie who had also been gone two hours past the time she originally said she'd be home. The friend noticed that the little girl, who was still feeling quite sick, was showing signs of dehydration so she took her to the emergency room.

At the hospital the doctors agreed that the girl was dehydrated and that she had done the right thing by bringing her in. At this point Mommie finally got the messages that had been left on her voice mail. She then showed up at the hospital and proceeded to make a scene in which she told the friend that she had overreacted and was being "selfish". That's right she called the person who she had tricked into watching her sick kid selfish.

Luckily, the doctor then took over and managed to distract Mommie long enough for the friend to sneak away.

I couldn't believe how someone could not only have so little regard for the well being of their own child, but also show such complete disrespect for a friend by knowingly exposing her and her entire family to illness!

PlainTacky0508-07

We were attending a wedding reception.  The groom dramatically dipped the bride and they French-kissed for a very long moment…I do think he swallowed her tonsils….After which the bride turned to the best-man (whose wife was very pg) and said, “Bet you’d like some of that!!!”

PlainTacky0509-07

A couple years ago, my husband & I attended a friend’s wedding.  The reception started about 4 hours after the ceremony ended, and it was about 45 minutes away from the ceremony and the area which we live.  The bride had blocked off hotel rooms at a local hotel for the bridal party and guests, so we decided that we would rent a room for the night.  After checking in, we went down to the lobby bar and had a drink with the bridal party and some friends.  We took the shuttle provided to the reception, had a great time celebrating with our friends, and the reception ended around midnight, so we took the shuttle back to the hotel.  We decided to change into some more comfortable clothes, and then head back down to the lobby bar where most of the wedding party was headed.  

While walking down the hallway to our room, we saw that there was a wedding reception going on at the hotel where we were staying.  In fact, when we came back to the lobby bar, we could hear the reception music because the room was adjacent.  We peaked inside, just out of curiosity, and it was obvious the night was winding down for them.  There weren’t many people left at the reception, maybe 15-20 including the bride & groom.  We stayed in the lobby bar for about an hour or so, and then decided to head up to our room for the night.  What we saw next, I will never forget.  

We turned the corner to the elevator bank, and that bride was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall.  She was completely wasted.  There were puke stains on her gown, and she wasn’t quite passed out, yet she definitely wasn’t awake either.  Her groom was trying to get her on the elevator so he could get her to their room.  We offered to help.  The groom lifted one of her arms around his shoulder, while my husband did the same.  As they lifted her up to drag her onto the elevator, her strapless dress came down to her waist.  Basically, I got quite an eyeful of what only the groom should have been seeing that night!  We got them to their room, and offered to call an ambulance, in case she had alcohol poisoning, but the groom declined.  I was worried about her, and went back to the hotel room about 20 minutes later, but I could hear the two of them arguing inside.  At that point, I just decided to leave them alone.  What a way to begin your lives as husband & wife!!

PlainTacky0514-07

Our Wedding went very well and everyone had a great time.  Not long before we were going to leave, our friend (the photographer) and her husband (one of the Groomsmen) pull us aside and tell us they have a surprise.  They proceed to tell us they have a hotel room for us.  This may sound nice, but my husband has a bad back and we have a special mattress at home so he can actually move when he gets up in the morning.  We had told everyone before the wedding that we wanted to spend our wedding night at home.
I was extremely upset, but didn't want to be bitchy so I said ok.  I should have put my foot down, but they had already told my husband's uncle and cousin that they could stay in our apartment.  My husband wasn't feeling very good at the time, so we figured we would just go along with it.  

Our friends drove us to a hotel.  We got our key and proceeded down the hall.  There was mold on several of the walls and a few exposed pipes.  The room itself was ok, until we sat down on the bed.  The mattress was covered with plastic.  We joked that they probably rented the rooms out by the hour.
So I went to the bathroom, the light on the ceiling was leaking.  We just gave up and went to sleep.  So much for our wedding night.  The next morning we checked out as soon as we were dressed.

 PlainTacky0630-07

This is short and not so sweet. My Brother in law had a friend "Dave" who was getting married. Him and my sister were invited to attend a very nice wedding with a reception to follow at a very nice hotel. The moment arrived and the bride appeared to walk down the aisle, and what was she wearing? The dress she had worn in her first TWO marriages. Yup, and she had not even had it cleaned in between. I mean the hem was filthy and frayed, the bodice had spots and water marks where she had apparently tried to wash something off. Not to mention the sweat stains under her arms. Now what on earth could she have been thinking. She apparently mentioned at the reception how she felt she had really gotten her moneys worth out of her dress. Tacky, tacky, tacky!!!!!!

PlainTacky0513-07