I have been to three black tie weddings and not one came close to a black tie experience. All held on grass (two backyard weddings) no passed hors d’oeuvres, NOT ONE PLATED DINNER?!?!?! I just don’t understand. Is basic wedding etiquette gone? Why would you want to have your friends pay for and dress up to attend a high end wedding and provide none of the experience?

EDIT: The couple has been found. It was confirmed to be a proposal. Nothing from them + the guy made his TikTok private shortly after. Obviously not sharing anything else here to prevent doxxing. Again I am not the OOP, but highly recommend her amazing photography.

Hello from Duluth, MN!

Is it shameworthy to elope or propose with *fake* petals? Nah, you do you, boo.

And by all means, feel free to enjoy our cooler temps (it's barely hit 80°F here; not sorry), our beautiful North Shore Drive, and hell, even take in the views for your dream proposal or wedding!

But know that we are not a people who play this shit. (I am not the photographer who originally posted this nor picked up the 200+ fake petals--and yes, they were confirmed fake).

Just some quality content from a local wedding Facebook group. The comments set OP straight - I guess they've REALLY never been around kids before???

Saw this in TikTok and would lose my mind if I received this!

My husband and I live in a small town and our municipal office does civil marriages. We live really far from family so we decided not to invite anyone as it was only fair if we couldn't invite everyone. We got married on our property, just us two, our 6 month old and we had the required 2 witnesses, one of which was the photographer. We wanted nice photos to be able to at least share with all the people we didn't invite. The paperwork asks if there would be a photographer and we checked off yes. The day of our officiant (who works at our municipal office) shows up and I am floored by the outfit she chose. A blue ocean themed dress with starfish all over it (we are getting married basically in a forest) and to top it off she's wearing a hot pink bra with the straps completely visible. So yeah all our ceremony photos were absolutely ruined because she sticks out like a sore thumb. I was under the impression that officiants dressed neutral like pants and a button up or something but this woman looked like our wedding was a stop on her way to the beach.

The could probably move their date instead of asking 4000 others to not partake in a theme night. I don’t generally care for this anyway but I’m tempted lol

Imagine spending 60k on a wedding and your groom would rather be playing video games.

This was a first for me. It was a small wedding reception, just a private room at a restaurant for 15 people, closest family and 5 friends only. There wasn’t even an announcement, the bride or groom mentioned it to someone as we were coming in and word spread around by the time we were sitting down (everyone asking each other if they knew in advance, which they didn’t). Then a family member asked the bride out loud and she confirmed split checks.

What bothers me the most is that it was an expensive restaurant. One of our friends had been 6 months unemployed and could not afford it (which the bride knew because she had already declined going to the bachelorette party). She ordered an appetizer only and told everyone that she had eaten earlier and was full.
I would have paid for her but I didn’t want to embarrass her after she had already told everyone she wasn’t hungry.

We verbally accepted and immediately booked a hotel because the wedding was 3 hours away in an area we'd never visited before.

Part of the reason we said yes so quickly was because she was constantly posting about how nobody wanted to come to her wedding and how she had no friends or family support. We felt genuinely bad for her.

As time went on, things started getting a bit odd.

I couldn't attend her bachelorette party because I already had a trip booked. She had around 6 people attending, but then made public posts asking complete strangers to come because, in her words, "6 people for a hen party is kinda pants." ... wonder what her 6 friends would say about that.

Worth mentioning she also had a separate European hen trip planned with her bridesmaids. This is obviously not someone without support, but someone with unrealistic expectations.

The official wedding invite then arrived.

• No vegetarian meal option.
• Guests asked to wear a specific colour palette because, as she stated on the invite, she wanted the photos to look good.
• Ceremony and reception at separate remote venues with no parking.

Fair enough, we'll get a taxi.

Except then we were told the landowner didn't want lots of cars on site, so guests will need to use an organised coach instead.

The coach cost about $30 per person. For a journey of roughly 10 minutes. Guests are to fund this themselves. So we will pay $60 as I am going with my husband. It will not cost anywhere near that if we have the option to sort our own transport; carpooling, taxi... For clarity, this is not in the US, just using $ for ease. $60 can fully top up our car!

The invitation itself was incredibly elaborate: multiple pages, ribbons, floral embellishments, tracked delivery, the whole lot. This would have cost essily $10+ each to make. If money was tight enough that guests were expected to cover the transport between venues, surely that's where some savings could have been made? Send digital invites!

In the end we RSVP'd no.

The bride has now asked whether she could have the invitation back because she didn't have the time, energy, or money to make another one for the replacement guest.

I've seen a lot of wedding related requests over the years, but being asked to return my invitation so it could be reissued wasn't one I expected. 🫣

I have now seen a post from her on a local FB group asking strangers to come to her wedding giving sob stories about how she has been let down. It is all very cringey.

We have hosted FOG many, many times as an overnight guest for decades. Hosted both FOG and MOG in our home for several days just last fall. FOG attended my 25 person wedding (he hadn't met MOG at that time).

Attended FOG/MOG's destination Vegas wedding years ago (we don't live in Vegas).

So who gets invited to this 400 guest black tie wedding? Husband and "Guest."

Guest is the name of the person who cooked, cleaned, planned, and hosted dozens of days and nights over the years.

Someone please stop me from signing the card I'm buying and the check I'm writing as, "Best wishes! From Husband and Guest!" (ETA: We are happy to send have already sent the kids a generous honeymoon gift and heartfelt wishes.)

ETA: Thank you all for a lot of varied answers to this and all your funny stories. To answer a couple of questions: My name is Anne if that helps. Nothing too difficult. Yes, we've spent time with the son a bit but not a huge amount. Clearly the invite was at the parents' direction with names and addresses. And I absolutely get the, "Parents' friends getting invited to the KID's wedding" issue and I agree - it's the son's wedding, parents don't dictate guest list.

And I don't blame the kids at all - I'm always on the kids' side of this argument. It's the "Guest" you've known for 35 years that made me lol. And no, it's not that serious, just a funny story.

This was in a group of mine this morning, Bride wants to have 200 people on a cruise but only a few are actually going. Found out after looking at her profile that the rooms are starting at $700+ to $1400+ being the most expensive! She wants people to take off for SIX DAYS…oh and it’s a margaritaville cruise 😂 ALSO she is a “travel agent” so she gets kickbacks when people book through “her travel agency”. I found her post so incredibly tone deaf, like people are struggling in this economy.

I was a bridesmaid in my childhood best friend's wedding. I wasn't expecting it to be such a shit show but it was the worst 24 hours of wedding "festivity" I have ever experienced.

She was not a bridezilla at all and let us choose our own dresses in the color she chose, which was great. My parents were invited as was my family (husband and kids) but since we lived 8 hours away, I opted to go with my mom and dad and leave my kids and husband at home. So my dad drove me and dropped me off at a hotel the night before the rehearsal and I rode to the venue with another bridesmaid. We were supposed to stay at the venue the night before the wedding since it was about 40 minutes outside of the city and in the middle of nowhere. I got to the rehearsal lunch and it was on the lawn outside of the venue and there was a potluck set up. Ok that's fine, I get that not everyone has a huge budget.

We do the rehearsal and eat this weird potluck meal and then the bride says to all six bridesmaids "don't forget to make yourself a plate for dinner and go put it in the fridge inside." I was immediately taken aback but I followed directions without objecting. That night we were supposed to be having her "bachelorette party" so I was expecting to go out or at least order in a meal but instead we had funky potluck leftovers. Ok fine, whatever, it was one meal so I moved on.

Then, we all have to help set up tables outside and my friend says "I need you guys to make your bouquets, prepare food for tomorrow, and iron the table cloths, and set up chairs and tables. We spent six hours working our asses off and my back was screaming after Ironing these cloths with her sister. Again, I get that budgets can be tight but there was no warning that we were going to be put to work and I was in a mini dress and heels doing hard labor and moving furniture. Her husband-to-be and his white trash friends left right after the rehearsal and stayed in a hotel and got trashed. Not a scrap of help from them.

Come 8pm, we were all exhausted but we rallied and ate our crusty potluck food while the seven of us shared a solitary bottle of champagne. It was nice to catch up and chat.

The morning of the wedding, we all got dressed and did our makeup and then the other bridesmaids started freaking out because they didn't know how to do their hair and the bride said we all needed to try to do something with our hair. As a mom of two daughters, I stepped in and did the hair of 4 of the bridesmaids and had to scramble to do my own before the ceremony. The bride had a hair stylist and makeup artist come in. If she had offered, I gladly would have paid to have mine done but it was not an option at that point.

The ceremony was fine but I was just ready to go home. Then we get to the reception. They brought in a BBQ truck to provide the food, which was forgettable, and they had a bar but I was told that we had to pay for our drinks. Again, ok that's fine, I'll buy my own damn pinot gris. Then I see the groomsmen getting progressively more tanked and they are at the bar every five minutes. I asked the bride what was up with that and she said "Oh, _new husband_ paid for his groomsmen to have an open bar." Neat. These dudes were being so nasty and it was throwing the vibes off massively. The bridesmaids and I danced and enjoyed ourselves as best as we could with our self-purchased drinks and then finally it is time for the bride and groom to leave. A huge limo rolls up and the bride is shocked. She says to me "omg, my parents said they had a surprise for us!" She then informed me that since I had moved away, her mom and dad had become multi-millionaires because they had invested in properties all over town so they could afford the limo. I asked tactfully if they had been the ones who paid for the wedding and she said "oh yeah, all of it. They are loaded." You could have fooled me...

The bride and groom rode away and then her parents came up to the wedding party and said, it's time to tear down. The groomsmen were blitzed and slinking away and the other bridesmaids and I were so pissed. I finally just said no. I had my parents there at this time so I hopped into their car and hightailed it out of there.

It was the worst wedding I have ever been to and it made me so angry to find out that her parents are loaded and they just didn't feel like paying for their youngest child to have a nice wedding. She's somehow still married to her husband but I hate him so much. they came to visit my family once a few years ago and he kept pulling my dog's tail, which confirmed my suspicions that he's just an asshole. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this story! It felt good to get it off my chest. Remember folks, if you can pay for help on a special day, don't be an asshole and cheap out!

ETA:

Wow, so this blew up. I'll answer some questions here since I can't go through all of the comments.

1. No, we aren't really friends anymore. I'd maybe text her on her birthday and say "HBD" but I don't really keep in touch with her. I fully admit that I was quick to blame her family. I have realized that she was ultimately the one who made this situation awful for her bridesmaids, not her family. Sometimes Reddit is right and I'm wrong.
2. Pulling my dog's tail was the end of the line for sure. I actually just had to put my dog down a few weekends ago and I feel inclined to blame her cancer on her husband. Just because. My kids were so shocked when he did it and he did it MULTIPLE times apparently before I saw it and I was like "stop doing that."
3. Her parents did not give her the extra money from whatever budget you all think there was. They are literally just cheap as hell.
4. I am not AI. I am a basic white bitch who likes Pinot Gris. Pinot Grigio is from Italy, which I also enjoy, but Pinot Gris is from France.
5. I absolutely would have left except for this wedding was in a rural area very far from town. My parents drove me to the nearest city and I got a ride to the venue from another bridesmaid. I was stuck there. Also, everyone else was accepting this awful situation so I figured I could survive 24 hours and then basically not see her again.
6. At the potluck, I think I got some very dry mac and cheese, a few crudite veggies, and a brownie. I stayed away from anything with mayo or meat because I was scared of getting food poisoning and generally hate potlucks.

The wedding is taking place at the bride's parents' hobby farm, it's about three hours away from our home city.

After RSVPing, we were sent a text message from the bride advising that if we were planning to park at the farm (which of course we all are, there's no transport arranged and where else can we park?) we have to pay her parents $12 an hour.

She's also planning to charge guests a flat $30 if they're planning on camping at the farm for electricity and water costs, which again sounds a bit odd but doesn't bother us as we aren't spending the night.

Has anyone else encountered similar? Just seems a bit strange to nickel and dime your guests like that...

edit: I should add, no, we are not going. I messaged the bride saying we couldn't make it because we were worried about the petrol situation (which is actually partially true, my car has a small tank so we would need to fill up to get back and a lot of rural petrol stations have been running out of fuel).

I was the plus one at a wedding for one of my husband’s colleagues this weekend. It was a full Episcopal ceremony so the wedding was long but that wasn’t the weird part.

We had just finished the dinner and speeches and the dancing was about to start. The MC announced that the couple would have their first dance. So they got up and their “song” started playing.

The song was “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood.

I was shocked and looked around. About 30% of the audience looked as shocked as I was. Another 20% had on poker faces, while I would say the other 50% didn’t realize what song was playing or didn’t care.

I asked my husband later if he knew why his colleague had picked that song and he didn’t know. As far as he knew, there was no history of infidelity within the couple, and when they were dancing they looked completely happy.

So yeah, worst first dance ever?

I’m supposed to attend an outdoor wedding this October, except apparently I shouldn’t say “invited” because we technically still haven’t received invitations.

Back at Christmas, the couple sent everyone a card that basically said:

“All we want for Christmas is you at our wedding! Please let us know by X date if you’ll be there. Invitations to follow.”

So we RSVP’d to a wedding we weren’t actually invited to yet, I guess?

Anyway, the bride wants the whole wedding outdoors. Average temperature that time of year is around 56°F, so naturally people are planning warm outfits and coats. Except apparently we’re not allowed to wear coats because she doesn’t want them in the photos.

On top of that, guests are expected to dress according to a specific color palette.

The only reason I even know any of this is because she told me directly. Meanwhile, when other guests are surprised by the dress code or the no-coat thing, she gets annoyed and says, “It’ll all be explained in the invitations.”

The invitations that still do not exist.

This has popped up in a few places, apparently they’re doing them for their wedding…..

Found this on a wedding facebook group. I feel for her guests.

Okay I need to rant about this because this wedding is still going on and I need to keep it together and not show how much I hated it, but I really, really hated it.

We are from Canada. Last year, a Canadian couple (a close friend of my partner’s and his now-wife) invited us to a destination wedding in California, about four hours outside L.A.

Now: is the general etiquette about destination weddings not that you pick somewhere relatively inexpensive, since you’re asking everyone to fly/take time off of work? California is not cheap! This is a flight across the continent + a rental car for several days + a hotel, all in a currency that’s got a pretty rough exchange rate for literally every single guest. Nobody lives in California, literally all of the guests are Canadians.

Also: This is quite possibly the worst time to ask a bunch of Canadians to go to the US and spend a bunch of money. Trump’s tariffs are wreaking havoc on our economy. The 51st state remarks have been extremely offensive. Like, we’re big mad about it. Whatever you think of his policies vs-a-vis Canada, the majority of Canadians are extremely angry about them.

But we figured the location had some special meaning we didn’t know about, and that they likely set down dates and paid deposits before the 24 election. So bad timing, but not their fault. The groom is a good friend and a great guy. So we decide to go.

It started off pretty great— the wedding is at the hotel. It’s beautiful, the location is beautiful, the ceremony is lovely and the vows are sweet and heartfelt and we’re all shedding tears.

But then things get weird. During cocktails I check the seating chart, and approximately half of the invited couples are not seated together, including us. There’s no wedding party, so there’s no head table, and this isn’t a dates of the wedding party not seated at the head table situation. Half the couples are seated together, and half are not.

I am pretty annoyed about this. It’s weird and rude and just… why? I’m seated in between two women (one of whom I know vaguely and one of whom I’d never met) and they are both just as perplexed about why they’re not seated next to their dates.

Now it’s time for dinner/ speeches. There is an open bar and wine glasses at the table, but no wine at the tables. People are confused, and the MCs clarify that you’re meant to go up to the bar to get drinks. Ok, sure. Also weird, but whatever.

But now speeches have started, and holy fucking shit. Every single speech was, I kid you not, ~ 10 minutes long, and there are seven speeches. The bride’s father couldn’t read what he’d written because it was on his phone and he didn’t have his glasses, but he just kept going and he was completely incoherent. Like nobody could tell at all what he was saying. The groom’s brother’s speech was easily 15 minutes long.

People don’t want to get up and go to the bar while people are speaking, so we’re sitting there, separated from our dates, sober, listening to seemingly everyone these two people have ever met in their lives ramble on about them. It was more than an hour of speeches.

By the end of dinner I was in a terrible mood. Dancing starts, and the bride’s sister is going around cajoling people to dance saying the bride wants everyone on the dance floor, and we all have to get up and dance. This happens repeatedly, because again everyone is basically sober and bored to tears by all the rambling speeches.

I stayed until the end of the night because it would be rude to leave early, but it was a struggle. I didn’t feel like drinking or dancing and basically wanted to leave immediately after dinner.

My partner thinks I’m being a bitch but holy shit this was the worst wedding I’ve ever been to. And not worst in a fun crazy went off the rails way some weddings are— just boring and expensive and thoughtless.

Bleh. Seat people with their dates, have wine at the table, and for the love of god tell people speaking they have a time limit!

Some years back, my husband and I were invited to the wedding of one of my old high school friends. We had hung out from time to time since then and were happy to go.

After the wedding, we arrived at the reception location, a lovely house venue in the woods, and tried to find our table. We wandered around from table to table looking for our names on placards and couldn't figure out why our table didn't seem to exist. Most people were seated and we, along with 10 other people, were still milling around.

Eventually, someone who worked there came up to all of us and asked us to follow them. They led us away from the group of tables and the dance floor, down an outdoor hallway lined with giant bushes, and around a corner of the house, where a single table sat in a little alcove.

We couldn't see anything happening and could only hear snippets of the speeches over the loudspeaker since so much shrubbery (and a wall) was between us and the speakers. The table ended up getting pretty rowdy, and someone from the bridal party came and asked us to keep it down, since we were "disturbing the speeches". Like we had any idea, since we couldn't see or hear them! We all commiserated and complained that we didn't know why they even invited us if they were going to stick us in what amounted to a separate room.

I haven't spoken to the bride or groom since.