Am I old-fashioned, out of touch or what. I received what I think is an odd wedding announcement.
I haven't attended a wedding I many years so I could be just out of touch with modern times.
This announcement was a long post card. Just the name of the bride and groom with the date and time of the wedding. That's all.
The bride mowed my yard a couple years ago. I know her Grandmother from Bingo. I understand the bride will be in a white gown trimmed in red. The Groom will wear tux pants with a hunting vest. No one attending is to wear shoes. ?????
I know I am a senior citizen but am I having a senior moment, brain freeze, brain fart or what.
It could be worse, Kate. You could be the mother of the groom, forced to attend, wear beige and keep your mouth shut. At least now all you must do is send them a nice card with your best wishes. Polly
"Kate T." Am I old-fashioned, out of touch or what. I received what I think is
That was sort of my knee jerk reaction also. Maybe you could send a gardening tool as a wedding gift. Or - maybe you are on the "B" list (or C, DO, E, F) and anyone not on the A list got a proper invitation? That is a strange one. I went to a wedding in July & the ceremony started half an hour after it was supposed to. Turns out the bride planned it that way, so that nobody would be late! I was wondering why this girl, who seems to be so together was half an hour late for her own wedding. The mother-in-law told me she found out the night before that the wedding was going to start half an hour later than the invitation stated. The ME-I-L called an aunt, who could not have stood around that long to give her a heads up.
Our step-grandson's wedding last year was over a 1/2 hour late starting - as they were getting the bride dressed the zipper broke in her gown. Luckily the groom's aunt had a sewing kit in her car so she sewed Sophia into her dress! I just wish they would have come down and told us why it was taking so long. Everyone would have understood, but there we sat with no idea why none of the wedding party was appearing when they should have! This was an outdoor wedding and it was REALLY windy that afternoon. Some of the chiffon from the trellis where the couple was supposed to stand blew into the pond.
One thing they did that I thought was really neat. They had bought a cute little wooden chair at a yard sale and painted it bright red (the bride is Chinese and they consider red to be a lucky color is my understanding). Everyone in attendance signed the chair with a gold paint pen.
Donna in SW Idaho
I went to a wedding in July & the ceremony started half an
They just keep getting weirder and weirder! At least that one didn't instruct you what gift to send, if any!
One of my favorite nephews got married a month ago or so. The ceremony took place outdoors at the bride's mother's home. The wedding party and most of the guests were skateboarders and/or tattoo artists and dressed in a, shall we say, variety of styles from evening dresses to denim Capri trousers. The minister had just gotten his mail-order preacher's license, and the bride and groom wrote their own vows. The wedding was fun, but far different than anything I ever saw before. I wonder if it's any more legal than jumping over a broomstick. Still, they are a fine young couple and I hope they have a long and happy life together.
HA!! A few years back, our neighbour's daughter was getting married - everyone was to wear black - the bride and groom wore black, bouquet was black - horrible, depressing. When a friend of my daughter's was getting married, she put on the invitation 'no plastic gifts' .... when my daughter got married, guess what her *friend* gave her??? Uh- huh .. plastic!!!
As I understand it, in most states the ceremony could be a game of hopscotch so long as the person signing the license is legal in that state, and the witnesses are of age. It's kind of wierd, my DH has two mail order ordinations and is legal to perform ceremonies in more states than my dad who is church ordained. DD2 who is getting married in May, is getting her officiant in a package deal with her cake. We have been wondering if being a baker requires some form of ordination or etc. in North Carolina. (G)
I had some friends who wrote a very general list, rather than having a list with specific items, I think it was brave of them to say plates, cutlery etc without specifying, but hey. One item on the list was "vases (no flying pigs please)", I think it was to indicate they didn't want anything novelty - anyway, that was the only place they had been specific about something they didn't want, so of course, it was the one thing they definitely got, the bride's father had one of the brides younger siblings paint pigs onto a plain glass vase and he presented it during his speech! This particular couple must have some crazy friends as one of the other gifts was a knitted computer!
I must be positively pre-historic! I hate the idea of sending out a list - it's like begging for things!
My mum asked me what we needed, as by the time Alan & I finally got married, we'd had a house and a mortgage for five years! So I gave her a list of what we would quite like, and when folk wanted to know, mum chose a couple of things off the list in whoever it was's price range (she guessed those - and was extremely accurate!) and kept a list of who she'd told what to (if you follow!) The ONLY duplication we got was a couple of the big square Tupperware cake boxes! Over the last 26 years, those things have earned their keep several times over, and I've occasionally wanted more! Lots of the further flung members of the fasmily sent cheques, which was great, as with those I managed to get all the china I wanted, a complete new set of bed linen from M&S, and lots of other stuff. We had fun planning and spending it, and telling each person what 'their' cheque went on. My gran's neighbour sent us a nice crisp new Clydesdale bank £10 note. I spent that on bath towels, which are old and well worn now, but still in use!
I think that nowadays some "youngsters" are choosing to announce their wedding without the formal invitation, so that people can choose whether they want to participate and to what extent. It frees people from any obligation yet at the same time informs them of the new union. I kinda like the idea, myself.
Kate, I find this one rather odd, too. Considering the degree of acquaintance you have with the bride, I'd send a nice card wishing them well and call it a day.
I agree with you, to be honest I don't think the list I was thinking of was sent out, but put discreetly put on a website. I think the problem is these days, with so much variation of what goes on, that you really can't guarantee that people will call the bride's mother and even if they did, the bride's mother is probably working and it would be quite a burden for her to maintain the list. More and more people are moving away from home and will have friends who don't know the family and the groom's family won't know the brides family etc.
It's indisputable that it is ettiquette to take a gift to a wedding, yet more and more the practicalities mentioned above mean that for many couples it is much simpler to have a list at a store. From the weddings I've been too recently, it would seem that our wedding was small, about
80 guests, probably around 40-50 family units and individuals, had my mum had to return 40 calls or emails with details it would have been quite time consuming, she was working full time and only about 18 months since she'd finished cancer treatments, so was still suffering with fatigue and things like that. So you tread a fine line between it being etiquette to give a gift, but not etiquette to expect one, what we ended up doing, and this seems to be quite common is to include an information sheet in with the invite, so the invite is simply the classic statement, saying where and when, but then further information, such as a map, car parking details, suggested accomodation is given in a separate print out and somewhere on there you sneak in a discreet note that says which store your list is at.
I'd have been happy to have a list that was more general, though it was useful to have things like plates all matching. I know in the past this was sometimes acheived by passing on that you wanted them from a particular range, but that's become a very expensive way to obtain crockery, if you do that now, you'd only getting a dinner service from the whole guest list! We picked cheapish sets where they came four settings in a box and asked for 2 and several other things that matched them, like mats. If you have a more general list it ends up being a person that has to keep track, when it's easier for everyone if it's a computer!
A lot of countries don't have the same ettiquette that we have, which is a bizarre balance having to give a gift and not expecting to receive one. Many other societies do what we would consider very bad form and give gifts of money, which will be quite blatently collected and the amount recorded at some point during the celebrations - so the couple know how much to give when the guests or their families get married, a thought that in US and British etiquette is not really supposed to enter your head!
I am confused. YOu use the word etiquette oddly to me. DO you mean proper etiquette, good etiquette or bad etiquette? Around here it is proper to send a gift but not bring it to the wedding. A gift should never be expected IMO. I give what is in my budget, not what I think is expected. I surely would rather get nothing than have folks spending what is above their means or something they had to charge. BTW, a note with a list or registry really isn't discreet. Taria
Thank you all for your input. I'm confused about giving a gift also. I understand her registry is at Walmart.
But I definitely will not attend the wedding or the reception. The wedding I am told will be in a church and the reception will be at the new home the groom's parents bought for them. The home was placed in pasture land. With no shoes I am not about to step in anything. No hornet nests, wasp nests, fire ant hills and with horses around I won't step barefoot in their leavings in the pasture.
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