Just
Plain Tacky
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Here's a greedy story for you. Let's call
her "Gwen". Gwen was on her 2nd marriage and already had 2 kids
to 2 different fathers, yet a reborn Christian who told everyone else to
do with their sex lives, and would pull stunts occasionally like pulling
out a bible at some of my cocktail parties and sitting there and reading
it for the benefit of everyone else, of course.
She met "Nathan" through me at a
party that was thrown by somebody from my grad school. After about 3
months, Gwen and Nathan were engaged. Then Gwen decided that she'd have
the reception at the Embassy Suites, since there are flowers in the
courtyard and she wouldn't have to purchase any as a result. The reception
food only consisted of finger foods and NO alcohol. And her bratty kids
were running around and I was expected to watch them? Oh, I don't think
so. I was the MOH, so can you blame me if I missed Bridezilla's bouquet
toss so that I could get a drink with some of the other disgruntled
guests? (I didn't think so) Gwen, of course, thought I was tacky for
missing it, but (a.) I didn’t want to catch her bouquet and (b.) She was
tacky for not treating her guests right.
It was a lunch time wedding so after the
reception they went off to their hotel room to sow their wild oats (this
was definitely a reborn Christian wedding that touted publicly "We
waited to have sex" Right, tackballs) Then, later she and Nathan
showed up at their house where me and the best man were waiting, expecting
that we'd go to dinner with them since no dinner had been served at the
reception. Well, Greedy Bridezilla (after announcing that she was sore in
her groin region) had to open her gifts right then, as everyone else
starved, and had the colossal nerve to exclaim, "Oh, this person got
me the cheap version of Waterford Crystal. No class." (The way I saw
it, she exchanged some cheap hors d'oeurves for a nice enough piece of
crystal) Gwen and I are no longer friends, but I have many fond memories.
;)
Tacky 0818/03
I got married two years ago. We had a nice
wedding with about 90 guests. Since we got lots of requests, we did
register at a number of Registries.
One of my husband's college friends came
with his fiancée to the wedding. They didn't give us a present at that
time. About a month later, we ran into them at a coffee shop, and they
mentioned that they still had our wedding present. I didn't think much
about it, I really didn't feel that I needed any presents. About six
months later, when we met them again by chance, they said their wedding
present for us was in the trunk of their car. So they gave it to us. We
thanked them graciously, all the while trying not to laugh.
The present was the freeze-dried bridal
bouquet of someone else! It didn't resemble my bouquet in any way. And it
was clearly a bridal bouquet, with white roses and gardenias. There was a
little stick in it, with the note "Your Wedding Flowers." I was
flabbergasted. I'm not sure what they were thinking. I did send them a
thank you note, saying that I appreciated their presence at the wedding,
and that they thought of us in picking out a present. I didn't manage to
incorporate reference to their ghastly gift.
Tacky 0820/03
I recently attended a very bad wedding in
Scotland.
Here's the setup for the bad event:
We had originally gone to Scotland for my
boyfriend's sister's wedding (We'll call her Anna). Three weeks after this
wedding, another wedding in the family took place. The bride of this
wedding (Julia) did not get along with Anna.
So, here's what happened:
Anna and her husband received the
invitation two days before the wedding. By hand. The RSVP said "Mum's
kitchen" (that is where we were when the invitation was given).
Nonetheless, Anna accepted and even bought them nice wine glasses (My
boyfriend and I also bought them a set as well). Keep in mind that that
the groom (who was a family member) and bride didn’t attend Anna's
wedding, even though they said they would the day before Anna's wedding.
At the dinner reception, Anna's placename setting still had her maiden
name on it and was the only one handwritten. It was handwritten on the
back of a waiter's check. My name was wrong (not spelled wrong, but the
wrong name) and Anna's husband's name was wrong as well. Furthermore, the
groom sat his brother in a corner at a table with all children. It was
just incredibly tacky since the bride and groom invited Anna and her
husband, but hadn't attended her wedding in the first place. They were all
family! Furthermore, neither Anna nor I received thank you notes for the
wine glasses.
Tacky 0827/03
When I was in high school, my father took
up with a ... person ... I will call Bimbolita. She was nineteen at the
time, two years older than I. She viewed my brother and me as direct
competition for my father’s attention; we despised her because she was
shallow, bigoted and about the most self-centered person imaginable.
Bimbolita tried to convince my dad that I needed to be institutionalized
for a nonexistent eating disorder (I am very slim, and she struggles with
her weight,) and talked Pops into believing that my brother was a poor
student, undeserving of help with college, despite his near-straight A
average. And so on.
She moved in in September. We were pretty
convinced that our dad would get sick of her eventually. But in January,
when Dad and Bimbolita were out, my brother discovered a marriage
certificate in Dad's sock drawer. They had been married at City Hall in
November... and HADN'T TOLD US. We couldn't say anything, because Dad
would have gotten het up that we had been snooping. (Bro had just been
looking to borrow a pair of socks.) So we suffered in silence until Dad
finally broke the news... in May. To this day, they still don't know that
we knew that whole time. Bimbolita is still a ringtailed B-word, but she
and Dad are still together... and she is very very relieved that I am
married now, and no longer a threat. Ew. Tacky 0904/03
This was the first wedding I ever attended
in England, and at the time I thought it had to be a British thing. I
later attended other weddings in England and found out that the first one
was NOT a 'British thing' but simply a lack of forethought for one's
guests' comfort.
The bride and groom were living in the same
large city that we were, along with most of their family and friends.
Despite this, for some reason they held the wedding in the small town
where the bride's parents had recently moved, about a 2 hours away by
train. Because the wedding was so far away, we, and most of the guests,
were staying in hotels for the night. We arrived at the hotel, and the
bride and groom provided buses to take all the guests from the hotels to
the wedding site (about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes away from the hotels) since
many people are from the city (at least 50 people needed the bus) and
don't have cars, and if they did, so they didn't have to worry about
drinking and driving. I thought that was a nice gesture and very
thoughtful.
The wedding ceremony started at 2, and
lasted about 15 minutes. Dinner was not served till 4. There was literally
nothing to do but buy and drink drinks from the cash bar while waiting
nearly and hour and a half for dinner at 4 o'clock we were given a lovely
sit down dinner. That lasted about an hour, maybe. Then, again, nothing to
do. The DJ didn’t start till 8 o'clock at night! So for 3 hours after
dinner, from about 5 till 8 o'clock, again, nothing to do! (But buy drinks
from the cash bar.) The DJ played till 12, and at 12:15 AM the buses were
scheduled to pick us all up and take us back to the hotels.
This was a TEN-HOUR wedding! Ceremony at 2,
dinner at 4, DJ from 8 till 12. (Not to mention the 2-hour train ride we
and most other guests took to get there that morning) And the worst part
was that there was no way to leave early - we were in a strange town we
didn't know; it was too far to walk. In hindsight we should have asked the
reception staff for the phone number of a taxi service to take us to the
hotel, feigning illness. I was so bored and sick of being there by around
10 o'clock, I wanted to scream! What on earth made these people schedule
dinner for 4 hours? Why didn’t the DJ start an hour after dinner
started? 10 hours is way too long for a wedding. People were starting to
fall asleep in their chairs, literally. Not to mention, 10 hours is too
long a time to drink alcohol continually, which some did. So those who
were not half-asleep were completely, staggeringly drunk (and I guess,
broke!)
By the time we got back to the hotel, my
husband and I had the best night’s sleep we have ever had, we were so
exhausted.
Tacky 0914/03
"Sarah" got married just before
joining a company I used to work at, so I don't know the circumstances of
the wedding, but I do know she didn't have a reception, because she had
one about 3 months later. She invited all her new co-workers to a formal
afternoon garden party. This was a small, close-knit Silicon Valley
company; we wanted make the new person fee welcome, so we all went. Sarah
was originally from the Central Valley - think West Texas - but had been
working in Silicon Valley for several years.
Well, while all the people from my company
- and Sarah herself - were dressed for a formal afternoon garden party
(tea length dresses and suits, in an industry where CEOs wear jeans and
turtlenecks, so you know we made the effort), every one of her family
members was in what I can only describe as formal rodeo wear - nice new
jeans, nice fringed shirts, big belt buckles. It was obvious they'd
dressed up, and equally obvious they hadn't dressed up for the same kind
of event as we had. The two groups never mingled.
At the time this happened, we thought it
was a faux pas, but as we got to know the bride better, we realized it was
probably intentional - she could've had a less formal event with everyone
in jeans, but she wanted to "show off" her new
"classy" friends to her hick relatives.
(By the time she quit 2 years later my
private nickname for her was "psycho Sarah" - we should've known
something was up when she didn't have a single friend from the company
she'd just left at her reception.) Tacky 0914/03
Of all the wonderful stories on your site I
have never seen anything like this. At my wedding my older sister, who was
a bit jealous that I was getting married before her, pulled quite a number
of stunts to grab attention (minor annoyances). This, however, takes the
cake.
At the bouquet toss my sister caught the
bouquet (by pre-arrangement). Her boyfriend was supposed to get the
garter, but he refused to go up for the toss at the last minute. He was a
weird sort of guy, so the sudden reluctance was not a surprise. In any
case, a friend of my husband caught the garter.
When he went to put the garter on my sister
she just about flipped her gown over her head. The kicker - she wasn't
wearing underwear. Just stockings with a cut away crotch. The poor (shy)
friend with the garter didn't know where to look, he was SO embarrassed,
and the hall just about tilted with the weight of the guys running to get
a better look at the free peep show.
To this day my parents, who didn't catch
the show because sis's back was to them, say how she livened up the whole
thing. I just tell them "you'll never know how much!"
Tacky 0919/03
Hi, I'm not an etiquette expert, but I
think this might be one for the tacky files on your site. Since I've been
"pre-engaged" to my longtime boyfriend for a while now (just
waiting for him to finish college), I enjoy reading about other people's
wedding experiences to get ideas and tips for our eventual nuptials. There
is a rather popular wedding-related message board I used to frequent a
couple of years ago. Almost all of the posters there are brides, and they
post on a myriad of wedding-related topics. Anyway, one of the recent
brides on this board was a very pretty young woman -- I think she was only
22 -- who apparently was from a well-to-do family. She had just had an
evening seaside wedding in South Florida with over 300 guests and a very
extravagant reception. She mentioned in her posts that her parents paid
for all of it, and also that she and her new husband had received over
$10K in cash gifts alone(!). Here's where the tackiness comes in. Now, I
realize that skipping out on a wedding you have RSVP'd for is very bad
etiquette. After all, you end up making whoever is hosting the wedding pay
for a catered meal that you didn't eat, and I'm sure that the dinner
served at this young woman's wedding was very pricey.
But get this -- after the wedding, this
woman and her parents sent nasty cards to all of the guests who had RSVP'd
and not shown up. The cards said something like, "Your
already-paid-for wedding dinner ended up in the trash. Too bad you weren't
there to enjoy it. What happened?" The cards were basically to make
the missing guests feel duly ashamed and chastised for not skipping out on
the wedding. Now, I'm no etiquette maven, but I think it's very tacky to
send a card for the express purpose of making someone feel badly, even if
what the person did was rude. And some of the guests could have had
last-minute emergencies that forced them to miss the wedding -- who knows?
And it's not as if this girl or her parents were hurting for money.
Tacky 0917/03
Ok so looking back on it, this was kind of
amusing. My husband and I had met this couple through a mutual friend. The
young lady was living with her intended at his parents’ house when she
got pregnant. The young man's grandmother insisted they marry so the child
wouldn't be born out of wedlock. My husband and I and the mutual friends
didn't necessarily agree with this practice (the couple was not ready to
start a family but held our tongues and figured they wouldn't listen to us
and maybe it really wasn't our business anyway)
Anyway, both my husband and the mutual
friend were United States Marines. The bride had asked both of them to be
in the ceremony as groomsmen and wear their blues, the nicest uniform of
the Corps. Luckily they both already had them (it's not a standard issue
uniform and is on the pricey side), they just needed to be tailored. Then
we found out my husband could be an usher but could not stand up with the
rest of the party because there were more groomsmen than there were
bridesmaids, but the bride didn't want one more bridesmaid. The other
Marine's wife and I were not asked to be in the wedding. Fine, I had a
small infant who I would have to sit in the audience with anyway. No
biggie.
The bride's maid of honor lived about 2
hours away and couldn't help with the little things a maid of honor
usually does, from what little I knew (I eloped). Not to mention this MOH
was terribly flaky. She would wait till a few hours beforehand to call
about missing an important event (shower, bacholorette party she didn't
even plan). Most of the MOH duties were given to the other marine wife and
I. I didn't have too much of a problem with it, although I couldn't
understand why she was friends with this girl in the first place. We
planned the bacholorette party and sympathetically rubbed the bride's back
when she was in tears cause neither her one bridesmaid or her MOH showed
to her bacholorette party and the MOH didn't show up to the shower. She
"fired" the MOH, moving the other girl up to MOH (still someone
who lived too far away to do any MOH stuff) and instated me as a
bridesmaid which meant we'd have to find a dress for me as I was not
"Tiny enough" to fit in the dress they bought the former MOH
without finding out if it even fit her. Then because someone other than me
pointed out that my husband was having to dress in a particularly
uncomfortable uniform only to sit out of the bridal party, yet be an
usher, the bride begrudgingly asked the other marine wife to be in the
wedding so the party could actually be even on both sides. The other
marine wife was on the heavier side and had a hard time finding a dress to
go with the color scheme (you try finding a springy lavender sundress in a
plus side in September). She did find one the day of the wedding however.
The wedding for the most part went off
pretty well despite the fact that the singer forgot a part of equipment,
the groom's grandmother got very upset that no one was interested in how
she thought the wedding should go (which was actually how most weddings
go, from what I understood of her plans) and even though (from what I know
of weddings) the MOH is usually the bride's gopher, she sat on her behind
while I played fetch. Then the couple decided to open their gifts at the
end of the ceremony after just about all but the family and bridal party
had left. The bride was pretty upset that she got very little of what
she'd registered for and sniffed at the anniversary candle my husband and
I bought for them, a sentiment we enjoyed from my own mother in law. She
didn't understand that we didn't have much money and didn't see the sense
in buying her a nice set of pots and pans when she didn't cook and they
were living with his parents.
Tacky 0927/03
My aunt "Jane" is in her late
40s, has one child (age 10) and was married to this child’s father for
about 20 years. Well, Jane decides to divorce the dad, and she does amidst
much drama. Child custody disputes, etc. follow. Whatever. About a year
after her divorce, Jane starts to date Don. Don is from a large Greek
family somewhere in New Jersey. He seems perfectly nice, if somewhat
quiet. He carries a sword on occasion as an accessory. He has not struck
anyone with it, as far as I know, so I don’t really care about that. It
is just kind of interesting.
Jan and Don decide to marry, and proceed to
do so in this order: 1) they buy a house; 2) they get married, but tell no
one; 3) they begin to plan a huge wedding. They got married first because
her family lawyer was concerned about how it would look for custody
purposes for Jane (and the 10 year old) to be living with Don if they were
not married. This is understandable. The thing is, they do not tell anyone
for several months (all this time planning a wedding) and to this day they
have not told his parents.
My mother is Jane’s older sister, and my
other aunt (Sally) is Jane’s younger sister. Jane requested they be her
bridesmaids. Seeing as Jane has already been married, is in her forties,
and my mother and Sally are in their 50s and 30s, respectively, I think
this is somewhat tacky. My mother thinks it is very tacky but decides to
keep her mouth shut. Jane then expects her bridesmaids to throw a shower
for her. Mother and I have two huge problems with this. First, Jane was
married for a long time, she has everything she needs. She is not setting
up a home. Second, it is totally unacceptable for someone in your family
to throw you a shower. Lots of people try to justify doing this for many
reasons, but I don’t buy any of that. Mother suggests to Jane they have
a Tea, and specify "no gifts" on the invitations. Jane will not
have that. So . . . my proper, southern mother throws a wedding shower for
her sister. Dear god. It gets better.
I get my invitation for Jane’s wedding.
It is actually very nice, simple, and traditional, until I realize that it
is worded such that my dead grandfather appears to be requesting the honor
of my presence at the "marriage" of his daughter. I don’t care
how little you care about etiquette - even if you think it is OK to throw
a family member a shower (which it is NOT) I think everyone can agree that
this is over the line.
I call my mother to prepare her for the
invitation. She is in denial. She says, "Oh my. Well, I’m sure he
is (requesting the honor of our presence)." OK.
Aside from the dead grandfather as
"host" is the fact that Jane and Don are paying for this wedding
and hosting it - not my grandmother (who is alive) and certainly not her
dead husband. Jane is also having someone "give her away" - not
just walk her down the aisle, but actually answer "her mother and I
do" to "who gives this woman." It is not appropriate for
anyone to give you away unless you are theirs to give - that is, they have
been responsible for your well being in some way. Jane has been
responsible for herself for several decades. It is completely
inappropriate that someone "give" her away.
She is also wearing white. You can get away
with wearing white at a first wedding if you have no children and that is
it. Otherwise, wear pink, blue, beige, anything, but please, in the name
of all that is holy, do not wear white.
I realize not everyone will agree with me
that all of this is tacky, but I guess the point is that my views here are
the views Jane grew up with as well, and she is offending everyone and
making everyone do these tacky things. It is too tacky.
Tacky 0930/03
After giving her long time boyfriend the
"marry me or we're through" ultimatum, Carolyn and Stan set
their wedding date for 18 months later. The planning went well, with no
major hitches.
Fast forward to the day of the wedding. The
ceremony and reception were being held in one ballroom of a local hotel.
My DH and I show up about 20 mins. Early, only to end up standing in a
hallway with the rest of the guests wondering what was going on, where was
the ceremony being held since the only room we saw was obviously a half
set-up reception. The wedding party had their photos done before the
ceremony and about 3 mins. before the appointed time, they showed up at
the hotel. Finally, guests were led into the area where the ceremony was
being held and the ceremony began about 10 mins. later. Unfortunately, my
DH and I had a hard time hearing the ceremony due to some idiots behind us
making comments about how awful weddings are and that the only good thing
about them is the free booze. More on that later.
After the ceremony, the guests filed out
and given no indication when the reception would be starting or where to
go, those guests who weren't immediate family (about 80 people) ended up
standing in the hotel hallway again, with no seating for those guests
unable to stand long periods of time, while the hotel staff finished
setting up the reception hall. Eventually, the hotel staff brought some
chairs for people to sit on. The bride and groom were off taking pictures
with family.
After the guests were standing around for
an hour, unsure of what was happening since no one seemed to know, the
cash bar opened and first in line (after making a beeline from the hotel
bar) were the complaining uncles wanting alcohol and refusing to pay for
it. Eventually they did pay and were off and running.
Finally, a total of 2 hours after the
ceremony was done, the wedding party and the families showed up and the
reception hall was opened. The hotel staff refused to open the room any
sooner, as their instructions were to wait for the bride and groom to show
up first.
When the guests were seated, the hotel
staff then started to pour the peach flavored wine (the cheapest you can
find - I know cause I buy it once in a while just for the sake of having a
glass). Well, this wasn't good enough for the drunk uncle’s table (which
we had the misfortune to sit beside). Drunk uncle #1 insisted the waiter
bring an expensive red wine. As the waiter tried to explain that he only
had available what the bride and groom supplied, drunk uncle #2 started
loudly insulting the waiting staff. I don't know if they got the wine they
wanted because they left immediately after dinner.
Thankfully, the wedding was an overall
successful, however a good friend of ours who also attended the wedding
still complains about the 2 hour standing around time, she has very bad
feet and cannot staff for more than 20 minutes at a time. I am sure it is
bad etiquette to leave guests standing around for 2 hours and no idea of
what was happening.
Tacky 1002/03
My cousin, we'll call her Mary, got married
a few years ago to the son of a Baptist minister. Our entire family is
German-Irish Catholic, and my cousin was raised this way as well. However,
she experienced a "born-again" phase, and ended up converting. I
ascribe this to a perceived need to "atone" for both her (as
well as her family's) "sins". In my experience, simply being a
Catholic is enough to earn a one-way ticket to the lowest levels of Hades.
The wedding was a Baptist wedding, with a very large congregation in
attendance (due to the fact that she was marrying the minister's son, and
the fact that our family is quite large). The fact that a large number of
Catholics were in attendance was not lost on the Baptists. Nothing better
than a captive audience, right? Although the wedding was, in essence, a
nice celebration of the union of these two souls, the groom’s brother
began the service by preaching about their faith, and encouraging anyone
who might not be at peace with God (read: every Catholic in the place) to
approach either the groom, bride, himself, or anyone else involved with
the church and they would be happy to give them literature and discuss
their faith. This plea was repeated at the end of the service as well.
To make matters worse (or, at the very
least, to make my mother practically LIVID - something that very rarely
happens), throughout the service, the minister (and others who
participated in the service) repeatedly referred to the fact that
"Mary" had been "saved" and was, therefore, guaranteed
a speedpass through the pearly gates. Yes, she could find solace in the
fact that she'd be standing on Jesus' right hand side on Judgment Day,
while we Catholics would be busy dodging pitchforks and sweating profusely
in Hades. "You're going to be OK, Mary, but the rest of your family
will fit nicely into that handbasket, destination: Hell."
I am a firm believer in "to each his
own". However, this insistence on using what SHOULD be the
celebration of two people's lives together as a vehicle to remind almost
HALF of the congregation that they were assured of an afterlife of pain
and suffering if they didn't convert immediately following the ceremony
strikes me as, at the very least, RUDE.
Tacky 1029/03
This story comes to you straight from the
bridal shop, as witnessed by several *stunned* bridal consultants. I've
been in the business now for 13 years, and this is by far the tackiest
wedding I have ever heard of.
The bride, age 16, was 4 months pregnant
with her 4th child. Yes, you read that right. Her FOURTH child. Each has a
different father. She had the first at age 12. (Sad, but true. Her mother
condoned her child having sex in her home). The groom was a 17-year-old
high school dropout with two other children in addition to the one that
was on the way.
The bride and her mother came to our salon
in search of a wedding dress. The cost was way out of their budget, so I
found a bridal gown that had once been purchased by a woman who had
cancelled her wedding. I called the gown's owner, and she agreed to sell
this young lady her gown for only $150.00 (A great deal for a $1,000
gown!). Out of kindness, the storeowner agreed to have the gown altered by
our in-house seamstress free of charge. I had been married myself just
weeks before, so I gave the girl my slip, shoes, jewelry, and veil. She
was set to get married!
In the course of our conversations with the
bride, we learned that her wedding was planned as the following:
"The weddin' will take place at 9PM on
Saturday, after the bride comes home from a school field trip. Her bus
gets in at 8:50 PM" (She literally had 10 minutes to get ready)
"The reception will be a kegger in the
field behind the trailer court. We're having a bonfire."
We thought this was a joke! We learned it
wasn't when the bride bought the dress back to us the following Monday,
demanding a refund. It appears that she rolled in MUD during her kegger
reception behind the trailer court. The gown was ruined. She was upset
because her gown was unrepairable, yet it was her fault. Apparently she
felt that bridal gowns should be stain-resistant.
Unfortunately, several days later her
mother reversed the $150.00 charge to her credit card for the gown. The
bride kept the ruined gown, and essentially got it for free.
As you probably know, the bridal business
is a small world. Most of the local storeowners know each other. This
tacky wedding took place in 1998. The bride recently turned up at another
local salon in 2003 to buy her THIRD wedding gown. (It is unknown where
she purchased #2). My advice to her this time? Spray your gown with Teflon
coating lol! (Just kidding....not a good idea! Don’t do this!!!)
Tacky 1222/03
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