Etiquette Hell = Where the ill-mannered deserve to go

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Amusing or Horror stories involving children

2002 Archive
Jan-Jul 2003 Archive
Jul-Dec 2003 Archive
Jan-Jun 2004 Archive
Jul-Dec 2004 Archive


 

Let me start by saying I love your website!  I refer everyone who's getting married or planning a different party to it. My story happened decades ago, and I still remember it well. In fact, it was one of my very first memories.  I was at my Uncle's wedding when I was about three. My Mom was seated next to me, and my two-year-old sister on the other side of her.  My mom had given sis some cereal to munch on and keep her quiet during the hour-long Catholic ceremony.  Suddenly, my sister starts coughing, she is choking on the snacks!  My Mom pounds her on the back, which stopped the choking. Unfortunately, my sister thought she was being spanked.  We knew she was about to scream when she took a deep breath and opened her mouth wide.  Ever the quick thinker, my Mom reaches into her open purse, pulls out some tissue, and stuffs them in sis's mouth, right when it's open wide.  Sis calms down in a few seconds and Mom removes the tissue. It sure prevented my sister from screaming during my Uncle's wedding, but could not prevent everyone around us, (who had started watching when sis started coughing) from nearly biting through their tongues to suppress the laughter.  Everyone was laughing at my Mom through the whole reception, and people still mention it to me (I'm 26 now.)  Lest you think this was cruel, sister was not hurt and the tissue did not prevent her from breathing in any way. I thought it was hilarious, but never I questioned anyone who said they didn't want kids at their wedding.

WeddingRugrats0318-05


 

Recently my 20 month old daughter who we will call Sarah was to be a flower girl in a co-workers wedding (the groom) along with the daughter (aged 5) of another co-worker. We thought all would be just as the 2 girls adored each other and we had no doubt my daughter would simply follow along with her friend down the aisle when their turn came. The wedding was to take place in the courtyard of a beautiful inn. Sarah was very excited and I waited with her while my husband waited off to the side at the other end to retrieve her. She was very impatient while the bridal party procession was taking place very excited for her turn. Unfortunately children of this age do not have a very long attention span and finally it was her turn to go. I was horrified when she all of a sudden started screaming at the top of her voice, "No mamma no, no mamma no", as she turned and ran the other way. I quickly retrieved her and tried to convince her to hold hands with her friend who would lead her down but to no avail. As I turned to the bride to apologies I heard laughter. Sarah had decided she was ready to go after all and off she went all by herself. We quickly sent her friend on her way but she refused to go if Sarah wasn't going with her. After some mumbled threats from her mother off she went too. By this stage Sarah had reached the front and not recognizing anybody promptly turned around and started walking back up the aisle towards me. Everybody had a good laugh and the bride and groom thought it was very cute. All in all it was a wonderful wedding.

WeddingRugrats0520-05


 

My husband and I had already been married in a very casual “paper signing wedding” in June of 2002 with just a few of his family and our close friends (my family was all the way across the country, and I just didn’t see any reason for them to be there for this part of it).  We had decided that we would do a wedding with the dress, tuxes and the like especially for my parents later on in the autumn of the same year.  We had our guest list topped off at 200 people, which about 90-100 of them showed up, which was fine with us, it was still a blast in my opinion!  One of my bridesmaids, who, for this, I will call Jane, was first very catty because I couldn’t decide between her and my sister-in-law to be my MoH and was very nasty to her face and talked trash behind my back.  I had to pull both of them aside and apologize for any confusion that I have caused and that I decided that I wasn’t going to have a MoH because of this.  My sister-in-law said she was happy about that, and apologized to Jane about being a jerk to her.  Jane never accepted the apology, and as far as I know has never apologized to my SIL or me.

The second part was that I had asked her 4 year old daughter to be the flower girl.  Jane has never been one to watch her children, or to even care what they were up to, but I thought for this, maybe she would.  Wrong!  When our pastor was speaking, and reading a passage about love from the Bible, and all the while my husband read from 1 Corinthians 13, Jane’s daughter was jumping over the train of my dress and Jane would do nothing, not even look at the little girl.  Finally, someone who was in the front row of the wedding finally picked up the little girl and sat her down.  I was so upset with Jane about this.  Even after the wedding, Jane was saying, “oh, yeah no, I was watching her, but I didn’t think she was bothering anyone.”  Several people had made it a point to talk to Jane to tell her that her negligence of her daughter was very tacky, tasteless and very distracting, but she didn’t care one bit, in fact, she bitched about ME not watching her daughter, even though it was MY wedding! 

Our friendship has never been the same, and she still expects me to be a mother to her children, which is NOT happening.  I have my own children to mother.  She still talks trash about the people that confronted her about her daughter that day, but smiles and pretends to be very friendly to them.  In her eyes, it is I who needs to burn in etiquette hell.

WeddingRugrats0602-05


 

My fiancé and I recently attended the wedding of his uncle and future aunt. They had a little girl as their flower girl/ring bearer. We do not know the little cutie, but she must have been about 3 years old. And she sure did bring a lot of laughs to the ceremony.

First, they had her in her dress very early on in the day. She had to stand around in that thing for about 2 hours before the ceremony. She was twirling the skirt, lifting up the tulle overlay, and getting more bored by the minute! After pictures and all, it was time to start the ceremony. When it was her turn to walk down the aisle, she got a case of stage fright! She did not want to walk down the aisle, and stood up at the top of the lawn (it was an outdoor ceremony) while her mother tried to get her to walk toward the bride and groom. Finally, with the minister on his knees, calling to her like a little puppy to "come over here", she finally relented and made her descent down the aisle.

All the while, the flower girl was using the tulle overlay of her skirt to rub her face. She would not stop! Then, she made it to my and fiancé's row of seats, which were only about 3 or 4 rows from the back. She turned to some people next to us and shouted, "I have boogers in my nose!" We were busting up! She finally made her way down to the bride and groom and took her place next to the maid of honor. She proceeded to fidget, move and twirl while the ceremony progressed. Then she gets bored and decides to sit in the grass and play with her basket. She took off her shoes, put them in the basket, and then announced to the first row that she didn't want to be up there anymore!

She might have been a handful, but she sure was a riot! It makes me happy that I chose an older girl to be my flower girl... and I'll make sure she has plenty of Kleenex!!

WeddingRugrats0620-05


 

A few years ago, some dear friends of ours renewed their wedding vows.  The setting was a lovely country church.  The bride looked elegant in her ivory lace tea length dress.  The groom was decked out in his finest suit.  The afternoon sun filtered through the stained glass windows and cast a warm glow on the guests dressed in their summer finery.  The vocalist sang like a nightingale.  The problem?  A rather large headed two year old boy ran up and down the aisles, laughing and yelling during the entire ceremony!  His parents made no attempts to intervene.  After the ceremony, I spotted the little shriekling's moo and duh in back of the church.  Duh was sporting a black T-shirt and ratty looking jeans.  Moo, who had another baby slung to her hip, was wearing a red T-shirt, micro shorts and knee high tube socks.  If I recall correctly, the invitation did not state "brain cells optional".

WeddingRugrats0605-05


 

Hello! Here's my "rugrats" story, although the perpetrator was actually a pre-teen. Bride and Groom knew each other all through high school, and when they were sixteen/ seventeen they went through the "we want to get married so we're going to play with other people's kids together and it will be so cute" phase (if readers don't know what I'm talking about, maybe my group of friends was just odd). Anyway, the cute little child they liked to play with was probably five or six at this time; Bride went so far as to tell her friends that this girl would one day be her flower girl. Right-- the math doesn't exactly work. (twelve or older, as she would be when wedding finally rolled around, seems okay for junior bridesmaid, but not a flower girl, particularly when the purpose is cuteness, not to honor a special relationship)   Around this time, Flower girl's family moved away from the east coast to California; fantasy of having her in wedding nevertheless remained. 

Six years later, wedding day arrived. I'm a BM and, lo and behold, Flower girl also flies in with her family to be in the wedding. She is now twelve, and not exactly chubby, but certainly not slim, and definitely in the process of beginning adolescence... again, I think weddings should be about relationships and family, but this girl was definitely there to be "cute," or at least simply to fulfill a dream which was no longer  realistic. The parents apparently didn't want to pay for an expensive flower girl dress, so they commissioned a friend to make the FG's dress; as the rest of the wedding was very classy, the slightly chubby twelve year old in the homemade dress (which, to be fair, was well-made but simple and, because the bride hadn't chosen it, not exactly in line with the wedding style) definitely stood out.   Even this would have been okay if FG hadn't been a little full of her own importance... after all, she was twelve and her family had flown across the country just for her to be the adorable flower girl; she seemed to think of herself as the co-star (if not the absolute center) of the wedding. She tried to monopolize the bride's attention all through the morning preparations and tried to seize the flowers from the MOH's hands when the bride passed them during the wedding. Twice.   I can't say enough that all of this wouldn't have mattered if the FG had been important to the B or G; but they hadn't even spoken with her in years.

WeddingRugrats0409-05


 

Last summer, at the ripe old age of 19, I attended my first ever wedding! I was invited along as the date of one of the groomsmen, who was my current boyfriend. I was rather excited as this was a new experience for me, but also nervous as I would be without my very etiquette-conscious mother and was hoping nothing embarrassing would happen (I was also in the unenviable position of knowing absolutely no one at the wedding except my date, who was also significantly older than I, so I was one of the younger attendees!). The whole experience was awkward and ended up becoming rather excruciating, and has completely soured me on weddings. Firstly, I went with my date to church where the wedding party was assembled so they could take photos. For three hours. I waited in the church, until finally, I was forced to venture out to find something to eat so I wouldn't pass out from hunger. 

Finally the wedding commenced, and the receiving line for handshakes formed. I had been told earlier that the mother of the bride was less than thrilled with this match, which she made obvious by her behavior, and even worse, we were wearing similar outfits! (Gray dresses with a floral pattern.) When I went through the line, she glared at me and refused to shake my hand, leaving me standing there feeling stupid. The reception was even worse...my date was, of course, seated with the wedding party, while I was at the last table on the other side of the room (understandably). Fortunately I was sitting with another woman who came with a groomsman and didn't know anyone, but unfortunately, we were also seated with a woman and her small child and infant. There was one bathroom in the entire reception hall, and the baby's diaper needed changing...so the woman proceeded to change the baby on the table we would shorting be eating on! I have a general aversion to babies, and already feeling odd from the time change, too little food, and general unease, I bolted for the bathroom and spent the next thirty minutes being sick. This wedding served as an example of everything I won't do at my (if I have one) wedding....but to be honest it was such an odd experience I will probably decline all future wedding invitations as "date of" anyone!

WeddingRugrats0623-05


 

This story is actually about me when I was in a wedding about 25 years ago. I was 3 years old and was the flower girl for my aunt's wedding. I had begun my journey down the aisle with the ring bearer by my side, and as I recognized people in their seats I walked up to them, lifted my pretty little dress to show my new pink ruffle panties I had on that day. My mom says that everyone was roaring with laughter. I'm told I stopped about 4 times, and nobody stopped me until I got to the very front pew. I lifted my dress for the last time to show the church my new panties with delight! My grandfather pulled me up into his lap, and there I sat until the ceremony was over. My aunt that was married that day swore to me when she heard I was recently engaged that she would have revenge on my wedding day. :D She jokingly said with a smile that she'll "get me back" when I least expect it. Nothing was done on my wedding day to embarrass me, but just knowing in the back of my mind that she might have something up her sleeve was payback enough! Thanks for letting me share my story. 

WeddingRugrats0507-05


 

Early this March my cousin got married, I was the Matron of Honor, my son was the ring bearer & my niece and stepdaughter were also a part of the wedding. On the wedding date after the Ceremony we were taking pictures in the church, of course our children, & the New Hubbies side of the family's children were all playing around till it was their turn to take pictures, well New Hubbie's Sister & Spouse have little twins a boy and a girl and an older child, my niece was playing with the twins and NH's brother in law did not like it, he goes over and tells his twins to go with daddy they refuse and start crying they want to play with my niece. The daddy then proceeds to confront my niece who is in the 6th grade and yells at her "what did you do to them why are they crying" and then follows up with a "if you ever hurt my kids again I will hurt you for the rest of your life and I can do this because I am a police officer:" My niece then comes over whining about this and that, I am trying to take pictures and handle the children at the same time, I tell her to sit still and don't move for just a minute and I get frustrated with her, finally I get a chance and ask her what is wrong why is she whining, flustered and scared. She then tells me what he said to her, I reassure her that no one can hurt her and he is a very young immature man with no common sense and that I would take care of the situation, now I'll tell you one thing she is a whiner, but she never lies I was totally gone for the rest of the evening with anger and helplessness, how can a anyone say that to a young child, I did not tell her parents my sister and brother in law, because it would have gotten ugly at the Reception. But I did tell my Cousins NH. Who I knew could handle the situation better since it was his sisters problem.

WeddingRugrats0429-05


 

One bride insisted that her adorable 2-year-old nephew would make a great ring-bearer. With careful rehearsal, he knew he was supposed to hold the pillow, walk up the aisle, stand next to his dad (a groomsman), and when Grandma gave him the signal, he could step down and sit next to her for the duration of the wedding. He was a smart little guy, and it looked like everything would be just fine. The wedding started, the men filed in...the bridesmaids went up the aisle, and then it was the ring-bearers turn. He took two steps, then stopped. "Go ahead, honey," the bride stage-whispered to him.

He looked confused, so everybody thought he was scared. The FOB said, "It's okay sport, Grandpa's right behind you. Go ahead."

The poor little guy squatted down right where he was and started to grunt. Any mom could tell you what that child was doing, and Grandpa figured it out too. So he tried to bring the boy back into the hall, because the grunting was pretty loud. The little boy glared at his grandfather and shouted, "NO! I AM POOPING!!!"

WeddingRugrats0316-05


Page Last Updated May 15, 2007