Ooops!
(Foot-In-Mouth Disease
and Silly Mistakes)
2000
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My sister Beth and her boyfriend Dan had been shacking up for a couple
years when they decided to take the plunge. My sister, a decidedly
non-practicing Catholic, had always wanted a big church wedding, but alas,
Dan is not Catholic and he refused to get baptized or to raise the kids
Catholic. At the time, that meant no church wedding. In fact, it meant
that Beth could not, for love or money, find a Catholic priest willing to
marry them at all! So they decided to get married in a small, private
ceremony at the park, and had to hire a Unitarian minister who didn't even
know either of them.
I was not invited to be part of the wedding party, but I didn't mind.
My sister and I care about each other, but are not close. She didn't have
bridal showers, but I didn't mind that either, since she was already
well-supplied with home basics, obviously, and she wanted to keep this as
simple as possible. So simple, in fact, that there weren't any invitations
-- she just said "it's at the park at 2pm on such-and-such
date". I wish I'd thought to ask which park she meant! I thought I
knew which park, but as I drove to her neck of the woods, and got to where
I thought it was at 1:30, nobody bridal-party-looking was there, at all,
anywhere. I panicked. There were 7 other parks in town and I didn't know
where they all were. I went to the only building there, a
warehouse-looking civic center, and opened the door. Nobody was inside,
but the tables were decorated with lavender and silver bows and white
tablecloths -- there were few other decorations, but I thought that looked
like a color scheme my sister would like. But it was now 1:45 and nobody
was in sight! I drove around for more than an hour, with a map, and found
every single park in that suburb. Nope, nobody there either.
In desperation I went back to the first place, since at least it'd had
a reception laid out. It was now almost 3:30. I got lucky -- I spotted
Dan's mother and some other people I knew. I got out of the car and came
over. Turns out the wedding had not yet begun. Why, you might ask? Because
my parents, who were from out of town, didn't know where "the
park" was either, and were also very lost! They'd split up in
separate cars, hoping SOMEONE would get there. Luckily, my sister flatly
refused to start till they got there. Mom showed up about 15 minutes after
I did, and she called Dad, who showed up about a half hour later. Turns
out they'd both been to this park first as well, within 5 minutes of when
I had apparently, but since Beth and the rest of her bridal party were
"running late", they'd thought they had the wrong park too.
Finally, at almost 4:30, we had the ceremony. The ceremony was held on
a rickety wooden pier over a swampy lake, with trees around. I guess Beth
had seen the place around summer and fallen in love with it, but now it
was October -- the trees were naked branches, and the lake wasn't what one
would call scenic. Also, Beth's dress was this pure white fairy-princess
gown with a huge skirt, train, veil, flounces, lace, the whole nine yards
-- plus high heels. On a pier. I told her I wished she'd go barefoot or
borrow some more sensible shoes, so she wouldn't break her neck, but she
politely refused (after the ceremony, she borrowed Dan's shoes, because
she had, indeed, almost broken her neck in those heels). It was a bit
weird to see such a stunningly expensive, traditional, formal dress in
such surroundings, with her almost-informally-dressed attendant, parents,
and guests, and with her decidedly non-traditional ceremony. Sorry, I
never got pictures! Despite the snafu caused by the lack of addresses,
everything worked out all right in the end. The good part was that we were
able to laugh at the problems -- they certainly didn't overwhelm the
occasion despite how bad they seemed at first. Beth and Dan are still
married and in love, 10 years later, with a handsome son. Ooops0210-03
When my husband and I were married five years ago, a couple -- great
friends of his -- gave us an iron. I had one going into the marriage, and
thought, "Well, I'll just keep the iron in the box until mine goes on
the fritz. That way I won't have a new iron and an old iron to lug around
when we move." I wrote a thank-you note, conveying how much we
appreciated the iron, and for their thoughtfulness and kindness in
choosing a gift we certainly would need. Shortly after the wedding, we
moved to another town and rented his grandmother's house while we built a
house ourselves -- which took three years. As we knew we'd be moving, we
stored all of our wedding gifts. It did not make sense to unpack and take
them to his grandmother's house, which was fully furnished. Three years
later, shortly after we moved into our new house, my iron broke. I
thought, "Great! Now I'll get to use that new iron!" Imagine my
embarrassment when I opened the box and there was no iron -- rather, a
wonderful lead crystal pitcher and stirrer. I promptly wrote another
thank-you note, and apologized for my faux pas. The funniest thing is, and
I guess it's a testament to this couple's manners, they never mentioned
the gift/my faux pas when we had seen them over the summers during visits
to our town!
Ooops0207-03
I recently attended a wedding of one of my cousins. The event was a
very tasteful, high-class black-tie affair, and the bride and her family
were attentive to every detail, especially as far as etiquette was
concerned. I was therefore surprised when at the Catholic ceremony, the
intercessions included (I presume at the bride's request) thinly-veiled
anti-abortion and pro-war rhetoric. I don't remember the exact wording of
the intercessions, but somewhere between the prayers for departed family
members and my absent grandmother, who was unable to travel because of her
health, we were called to: 1) Pray for our brave members of the armed
forces serving overseas (Catholic leaders, including the Pope, have
clearly stated that they do NOT consider the US's proposed war in Iraq to
be a "just" conflict, but I guess that's beside the point). 2)
Pray for the frail, especially the unborn, that our society will adopt
laws to protect them (not surprising, considering the bride comes from a
large Irish-Catholic family, but is a wedding ceremony really the place to
bring this up?) I don't know if Emily Post has made any definitive
statements about discussing politics at family gatherings, but I've
observed that at most social engagements, bringing up subjects that may
cause arguments or discomfort is generally considered to be in bad taste.
Furthermore, it seems to me that a wedding ceremony, being a celebration
of people coming together, is no place to bring up such divisive issues,
no matter how strongly you may feel about them. While I disagree with the
bride I certainly respect her right to her opinion. However I do think it
was distasteful of her to use her wedding ceremony as a bully pulpit for
her political agenda. I realize in the end it was her wedding and her
choice, but she and the priest who presided over the ceremony really
should have shown more consideration for all of the guests, regardless of
their faith or political views. Ooops0212-03
I had a very small, intimate wedding in the posh wine cellar of a local
restaurant. The ceremony was limited to only immediate family and very
close friends, so there were no more than a dozen people there, including
myself and the groom - the reception later would host close to 200 people,
but this was our special time to be shared with people to whom we were
closest. Well, my horror story involves my best friend at the time, chosen
to be the matron of honor and my sole attendant. She was a bit wild, and
my family and his are highly religious and somewhat uptight; her (the
MOH's) entire contribution to the conversation of the evening was a single
"joke", well after she had imbibed too many. It involved a snow
man and his excitement when he heard that the snow blower was coming. I
shan't elaborate, but suffice it to say the entire excruciating moment was
duly recorded by the videographer, and to this day I can't watch the tape
without my eyes tightly closed at that precise moment, in memory of how
classy THAT selection of attendant was.
Ooops0213-03
I am the youngest of three daughters, and was the last one to get
married. I had my wedding last August. We had a very simple, but beautiful
wedding. After the ceremony, my Mom welcomed my new Husband to the family.
Her words were, " We've never had a son in our family and we'd like
to welcome you to it." My one BIL was a groomsman and the other BIL
was videotaping the wedding. Right after my Mom said that, you hear BIL
(groomsman) clear his throat, and everyone started laughing. What Mom was
trying to say was that she only had three girls and no boys. We have it
all on tape and still bug her about it, and now both BIL's tease my
Husband and call him #1 Son! Ooops0215-03
My husband and I attended the wedding of a couple of high school
friends several years ago. When the MOB was seated, I noticed that she was
wearing a white dress. Unusual but I didn't pay much attention, until
later. The ceremony was very nice. Pretty church, beautiful music and
flowers and the bride was lovely. Then we get to the reception at the
local fire hall. We had just taken our seats with the other friends of the
bride and groom when the MOB came running past (and I mean running, she
could have been in the Olympics). No greeting to anyone, she didn't say a
word, even to family members. It seems that someone had forgotten to put
all the condiments on the tables so she was in a panic. She ran by and
flung a handful of butter pats at us and kept on going. It was as she ran
away that we all noticed that she was wearing, under her white dress,
white and black polka-dotted underwear. No slip, just underwear. None of
us ever said a word to our friend, the bride, but the polka-dots were even
visible in the wedding pictures. Ooops0301-03
Fortunately, I was not the victim of this, but am submitting it in
order to prevent it from happening to someone else. Several years ago, I
attended a rodeo (my kid wanted to go) at the local civic center. So far
so good. Now this civic center is attached to a rather nice hotel. We left
the arena via a skywalk that runs through the hotel. Unfortunately a large
number of rodeo animals had been corralled in a parking lot under the
skywalk. The smell was quite obvious. To cut to the chase, there was a
wedding reception being held in a hotel ballroom which also was off the
skywalk. I felt bad for the people at the wedding. If there's a moral to
this story, it's be sure to find out what other events are going on at the
premises where your reception will be held. Ooops0302-03
I am getting married a year from now but since I will be graduating
from graduate school 2 weeks before my wedding, I've started the planning
ahead of time. I was looking in the paper one day and found out that a
Bridal Show was going to be at the local convention center. Thrilled at
the idea of going to one and maybe winning some freebies, I called up one
of my bridesmaids (my best friend "Dani") and my FMIL. Now I
know it's strange to want your FMIL there, especially since this woman has
a tendency to drive me nutty but she had expressed interests in helping me
plan since she had never had a daughter...so I was being NICE and letting
her come with me. Well we are watching a fashion show and she starts
talking to my mother about what to wear to the wedding and in the middle
of describing what she wants to wear, she has the nerve to say,
"Randy (her husband) says it's my day to shine." Whoa, that
floored me...I thought it was MY day to shine since I'M the bride. And
just as I was fuming, knowing that it would be safer to just be quiet, my
loving outspoken Dani replies, "Your day to shine? Hell, I guess I'm
just traditional but I thought it would be the BRIDE'S day to shine."
Needless to say, I don't think my FMIL likes my best friend too much....
Ooops0414-03
Love this site! I don't know if this qualifies as an etiquette
violation, or just an oops, you'll have to be the judge. In any event, it
made me laugh then and still does now. My husband and I got married at
Christmas time several years ago. It was a church wedding, and the church
was festively decorated. We made an effort to include the celebration of
the holiday season in our wedding with decorations, attire, the whole nine
yards. We just got a little bit more 'festivity' than we bargained
for!
Towards the end of the ceremony the Reverend of the church included a
wedding blessing for us. My husband and I were at the altar, hands
clasped, having recited our vows; everyone else had their heads solemnly
bowed. The Reverend was about three words into the blessing when something
electronic, like maybe a cell phone, began playing 'Jingle Bells'
somewhere in the front of the church. I found out later on that my sister,
the matron of honor, started giving the evil eye to the groomsmen,
wondering who had forgotten to turn off their cell phone, while the men
were looking at the women wondering who had managed to hide a phone in her
bouquet. Most puzzling to them was why whoever it was hadn't turned it off
yet. The acoustics of the church made it very difficult to figure out
where the noise was coming from. 'Jingle Bells' finished and transitioned
right into 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer', and that was followed by 'Let
it Snow' which played out in all its glory.
There were only three people in the church who figured out where it was
coming from before it finished - me, my husband, and the Reverend, because
the sound was coming _from the Reverend himself_. We found out later that
he had chosen to join in the spirit and wear a holiday tie under his robes
for the occasion, and he had forgotten that it was musical! He had
accidentally bumped it when he started the blessing, setting it off, and
nothing could be done but let it run its course. The Reverend knew
immediately what had happened, and tried to make up for it by raising his
voice to drown the music out. The longer it went, the louder he got; by
the time 'Rudolph' started he was positively shouting. My husband and I
didn't dare look at each other for fear of laughing. We were both biting
our lips, hoping to get through with some semblance of decorum. Had it
been a cell phone or pager in a guest's hand, we might have been upset,
but this was just too funny. The Reverend is a very sweet man, and
certainly hadn't done it intentionally. After the ceremony, all of the
attendants were determined to find the source of the noise and have a few
words with them - they all thought it had been another attendant or guest,
and my sister was particularly livid about it. Once they found out the
truth of what happened, well, it's something we all still giggle about.
For better or worse, it has become the yardstick for wedding gaffes in the
family. Ooops0429-03
My then-fiancé Doug and I are invited to the wedding of Jim (one of
Doug's childhood friends) and Carol. Since Jim and Carol lived in another
state, Doug and I planned to fly down on Friday, attend the wedding on Saturday
and fly home on Monday. Jim and Carol graciously invited us to
stay in their home for the weekend.
The wedding itself was actually very lovely. And we had a lovely visit
with Jim and Carol Sunday and Monday as well. But what happened on Friday
night... Most of the guests were from out of town. Jim had been previously
married, but he and his first wife eloped, so he had not had a bachelor
party. Jim's numerous brothers (all out-of-towners) and several of his
friends decided to take him out for "a drink". Of course Doug
was invited as well, and I was left with Carol and several of her lady
friends, who were all busy preparing the wedding favors. As the hour grew
later, most of the ladies departed, leaving me with Carol, her MOH and one
or two other ladies. Around 1:00 a.m., Doug called me, and told me that he
was the only one of the men sober enough to use a telephone, that no one
was sober enough to drive, and that he had no idea how to get back from
the bar to Jim's house even if he were sober enough to drive. Carol and
her friends went out to the bar to collect their drunken
husbands/boyfriends, leaving me -- a total stranger -- to baby-sit for
Jim's kids and a few of the other children. I didn't mind, considering the
circumstances. But I really resented it when they returned to the house
several hours later and rather rudely woke me up! Ooops0506-03
My fiancé and I were invite to an old colleague's of his wedding. We
had just recently moved to the Midwest, and they were having their wedding
in New Jersey. So anyway, I packed my dress and grabbed my shoebox. (I
always keep my nice shoes in their boxes to keep them from getting dusty).
Well I made a really big mistake and didn't open the box until we were
getting ready for the wedding over 1000 miles away from home. My shoes
weren't in there...only my black dressy clutch. The only other shoes I had
were tennis shoes. I was horrified...we had 30 minutes until the wedding
started...and I didn't have any shoes. Luckily my fiancé is an incredibly
patient man, and being that in Jersey there are malls everywhere, it was
easy to find a department store. I don't know if you have ever been to a
Jersey Mall on a Saturday, but I've never seen such chaos. In the shoe
department of Lord and Taylor's there were literally piles of shoes
everywhere. The sales people who were working there were running around
with their heads cut off. It was insane. I finally found an available
sales person, and asked her to bring me any black dressy sandals in my
size from the back. Thank God she had taste, and we arrived to the wedding
with barely a minute to spare...and what an amazingly beautiful wedding it
was...glad I didn't show up in Tennis Shoes. Ooops0507-03
Seven years ago, I was a bridesmaid at a cousin's wedding. She and her
now-husband came to me very excited because they had just found this
really inexpensive fabric for our dresses at a discount store. The fabric
seemed to me a little too stiff and not soft at all, and it had a pattern
of flowers of different colors, but I didn't mind. It was a summer wedding
in a tropical location, anyway. The dress did not look good in me, and the
hat I had to wear was not very flattering either, but being a laid back,
fashion-challenged person at the time, I did not mind. It was a lovely
wedding, although I got a little disappointed when realized that the
groomsman that would escort me was about 11 years old -I was 18 at the
time. (Since I am very short and look younger than my age, when we walked
down the aisle I could hear people commenting on how lovely we looked
together and some dare to refer to me as his "little
girlfriend".) Six years later, as a young professional living
out-of-state on my own, I was looking for new furniture for my apartment.
Although I was looking for a plain color sofa, I found myself buying this
cute couch with flower patterns. I was not until days later that I
realized that the fabric of my new couch is IDENTICAL to that of my old
bridesmaid dress! No wonder why it did "catch my eye".
Ooops0512-03
My brother, who was 19 at the time, was asked to be the usher for the
bride's side at my cousin's wedding. The usher for the groom's side was to
be the groom's friend. I was to greet the guests as they entered the
church, and also sit at the register at the reception. My brother and I
were the only cousins on the bride's mother's side, so any relatives other
than my parents were vaguely known to me, and, we discovered later,
totally unrecognizable to my brother. Before the wedding, the two ushers
had a discussion about how they planned to seat people, as both were new
to this. The groom's usher suggested that they leave five rows empty at
the front of the church, and my brother agreed. I assumed that they were
using this as an area for the closest family. The church was huge (the
guests only filled 1/3 of it), and since I was busy greeting people, I had
no idea what was going on up front. The wedding was Ukrainian Catholic,
where the parents and wedding party enter from the back at the time of the
ceremony, so no one in a position of authority was aware that as the
people came into the church, both ushers began seating them on a
"first come, first serve" basis. Since my parents had come with
us, they were in the fifth row, but people such as the bride's
grandparents ended up in middle of the fifteenth. The groom's usher had
apparently meant that the empty rows should stay empty. The bride's sister
is the same age as me, and she had recently begun to date a new man who
was invited to the wedding, who I was anxious to meet. As he came into the
church, he introduced himself and I greeted him with much excitement. My
brother witnessed this, and then the man jokingly said to him, "Your
cousin said you're supposed to give me the best seat in the house".
My brother apparently did not realize this was a joke. As the wedding
couple, bridesmaids, groomsmen, and parents came down the aisle, they were
shocked to find their relatives in a jumble, and the first five rows of
the church vacant except for one lone man in the front row - the new
boyfriend! Ooops0713-03
My cousin got married a few years ago in Houston. We stayed at a hotel
that was across the street from a large mall called the Galleria, which
has several hair salons in it. My mother is always complaining about my
shaggy hair, so I asked her several times throughout the day of the
wedding if she wanted me to go to the Galleria and get my hair done. She
turned me down each time, saying my hair would be fine. That evening, we
were in the bride's hotel suite watching the pre-wedding preparation. My
cousin (the bride, you recall) was sitting in the middle of the room, with
her hairstylist working on her. Suddenly my mom asks the stylist,
"Would you be able to do something about her hair?" and points
right at me! I was mortified! The stylist smiled and said, quite
correctly, "I think I have more important things to work on right
now." I got my mother out of the room and reminded her of my repeated
offers. She could only sigh and say, "I know, you should have
gone." And of course, I was self-conscious about my hair for the rest
of the night. Thanks, Mom Ooops0729-03
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