Text TACKY to rsvp to this wedding.

OK, I get it.  A lot of people use online invitations and evites these days.  Personally, I don't... There's nothing wrong with evites or other invitations like them, it's just my personal preference.  However, there's a time and a place for them, but I would never in a million years do one for a wedding.

And never in a billion years would I stuff a paper wedding invitation into a regular business envelope and scrawl a name and address onto it...

 ... and I certainly wouldn't have people RSVP via a text message or email.

Come on! It's your wedding, people! The fact that this invitation has "six o'clock in the evening" spelled out tells me they were trying to be a little bit formal about it, but with the text message thing it sends a mixed message.

And then can we go back to the envelope for a minute?  The guests' last name was just scrawled on it.  Not Mr. & Mrs. Jones, but Jones.  Not The Jones Family, but Jones.  Is it a shotgun wedding? Is it an arranged marriage? Where's the joy and celebration...?   I don't know about you, but I've gotten mail addressed to Occupant that seemed a little more cheerful than that. oy.

Do it all on paper or do it all online... just do it consistently. And try to show just s smidge of enthusiasm, mKay?

I'm going to propose. Should I make it sweet... or traumatic...?

I might have been so mad at him for making me pee my pants that I would have told him No.

AW.... this is the way a proposal SHOULD be done.

OK.  There's a ton of what NOT to do regarding weddings...
Click HERE for a great example of a thoughtful and creative proposal for a girl who loves books, from a guy who loves her.

Don't dress like a bridesmaid unless you actually ARE one...

The lovely Stephanie from Binkies and Briefcases posted this on her blog.  I immediately asked her if she would share it here.  Enjoy!

June is a big month for weddings, so I thought I would share a funny and very embarrassing story that resulted in an important lesson about going to them.

Twice in my life I have attended weddings wearing a dress that is way too similar to the dress that the bridesmaids were wearing. It's extremely embarrassing and I'm quite sure the bride isn't too thrilled about it either.

Once it actually was the exact same dress. The lesson that I'm taking from the experience is that in the future I will always wear prints or separate skirt/shirt combos to weddings! But, at least now we can look back and laugh...

In the summer of 2006, our friends Jeff and Renee got married, two months before Eddie and I did, and we were all invited to eachother's weddings. It was a big wedding year for us. Just 3 weeks before Jeff & Renee's wedding, I had been a bridesmaid in another friend's wedding as well. I decided to recycle the bridesmaid's dress from that wedding and wear it to Jeff & Renee's. That is a big mistake. NEVER do that!

I had even asked Eddie to call Jeff (because they were really his friends, they all went to college together. I went to a different school and I hadn't spent very much time with them.) and ask him what color the bridesmaids were wearing. He did not call (that was also a BIG mistake) but told me he thought he had heard that Renee's bridesmaids were wearing black. The dress I wanted to wear was a light pink, so I figured it would be fine.

It was so not fine.

When we arrived at the church I went to the restroom and was greeted by about half a dozen women wearing the exact same dress I was, in the exact same color. They obviously knew I was not part of their group and they looked very confused.

I darted back to Eddie and the group of fraternity brothers he was sitting with and I was livid. I really don't think I have ever been more angry with him. (Although I realize now I should have just called Renee myself) I made him take off his suit jacket and give it to me and I sat through the entire ceremony wearing a men's jacket.

In between the ceremony and the reception we drove off and found a mall nearby so that I could buy a new dress in a hurry. Pickings were slim since I was a size 3 at the time (what I wouldn't give to fit into either of those dresses again!) and the Junior's section was barren because prom season was over.

I finally found one and put it on in the dressing room, ripped off the tags, and was on the way to pay for it and wear it out of the store when I realized you could see my flower printed underwear straight through it. Eddie was on the other side of the dressing room door so I told him he was going to have to go find me a beige thong quickly. Oh, and some different shoes too. I didn't have time to change out of the dress, into the other one, and back again and I was not about to walk around Boscov's with this underwear situation I had going on. We were already very conspicuous walking around the mall dressed for a black tie affair, plus we were late for the reception. I waited in the dressing room, getting more and more irritated.

So then there was a man in a suit literally running through the department store, carrying high heels, in pursuit of women's thong underwear. He said he panicked when there was a group of little old ladies in the underwear section and he told them all his wife was having an underwear emergency.

So by that point, in addition to me being the crazy screaming lady in the dressing room (because I was now even more angry) and being with the strange perverted man running through the store carrying a thong and high heels, there was a group of old ladies who thought I'd had a bathroom accident and wanted to help.

I could not pay for those clothes and get out of there fast enough!

On the plus side, Eddie did a great job picking out the shoes and I still have that pair.

We managed to get back to the reception before dinner was served and Renee never knew! I'm sure she had too much on her mind that day anyway, but she thought it was kind of funny when I told her about it earlier this year when we had them over for dinner.

Remember, ladies, as you are dressing for weddings this season: skirts and prints are your friends. Recycling bridesmaid's dresses is a terrible idea.

The second time this happened to me it was because I re-wore the dress I had worn as a bridesmaid's dress in my dad's second wedding to the wedding of a friend. I figured that since it was just a regular ol' off the rack dress this time would be fine. Um...nope. Although it was not the exact same dress, the bridesmaids that time were wearing the same color and their dresses were the same tea length as the one I had on. Ugh.

Yeah, recycling bridesmaid's dresses? Just don't do it.

Pre-Marital Hypocrisy

image

Erin at Peony Wire Works does amazing things with chicken wire.  She has also been unfortunate enough to witness several wacky wedding situations, but she is nice enough to share some of them with us.

My husband and I lived together before we got married, so we had a pretty good handle on the things we didn't like about each other.  When my Sister-In-Law got engaged, we told her that we were glad we had lived together, because we felt that it worked out a lot of issues before we got married. 

When my husband and I got engaged, she got engaged at the same time.  We are still married, she is not.  

When she was seriously dating her current husband, she was living with a girlfriend, but her husband-to-be was basically spending every single night there too. (Unbeknownst to her parents of course.)  When we once again told her we thought it had been valuable for us to live together before marriage, she informed us that she was raised better than that and that she had better morals than we did.  She wasn't going to live with her man until they got married (apparently him spending the night with her was okay though).  She lectured us on morals and upbringing for a good 15 minutes.  My husband and I were like, "well okay then..." and dropped it.  

Imagine our surprise when a couple of months later, she ends up pregnant (not married mind you), and she and her guy move in together.  At this point, he has not even proposed, so she can't even say she's living with her husband-to-be.  He proposed to her at the baby shower.  

They got married when their daughter was 7 months old, to which his father hollered AMEN, when they were pronounced man and wife.  Now, I am not judgmental, and don't think there is a thing wrong with the way things worked out for them, but what I find rich is the series of events that played out for such and upstanding moral person.  The AMEN was a tad anticlimactic for me.

Seriously?  That's the perfect example of why you should get the log out of your own eye before trying to get the splinter out of someone else's!

Over-exposed... twice.

The wonderful and hilarious Connie at The Young and the Relentless sent in this over-exposed photo and the story to go with it.

I was the cake cutter in my friend's wedding in July 1999.  It scored me a corsage and all the cake I could eat.  This apparently posed a huge problem later when we all went to our favorite bar for drinks.....and my undergarment began to get very tight. 

No problem.  

I'd also had enough Coors Light, that deciding to removing my elastic girdle-like slip thing in the bar in front of everyone was a great idea.  And then I asked someone to take my picture. 

Yep. We should keep our undergarments, um, under our garments...

Pigs In a Blanket

What you wear to a wedding is important.  There are so many rules of etiquette, and they seem to change all the time, don’t they!?

Here’s a basic rule of thumb though: If it is a casual, outdoor wedding, I am guessing the attire is NOT formal.

Erin from Peony Wire Works has several wedding tales to tell us.  Here is another one.

My best friend and I were invited to a mutual friend’s outdoor wedding.  To this day, it is still my favorite wedding.  She had a string quartet playing, there were beautiful blooms everywhere, they served ice cold lemonade and little sugar cookies prior to the ceremony.  Her husband made the arbor they got married under, there were rose petals scattered all around...okay, you get the picture. 

The dress code was a summer casual.  Sundresses… slacks… linen trousers… think Southern.   Everyone was beautiful, cool and serene.  Then we all wore similarly shocked faces when a guest walked in wearing her Prom dress.  (And no, it wasn't prom night.)

Now, have you ever seen Steel Magnolias?  (If not, you should be beaten, but that is neither here nor there.)  Shirley McClain's character Weezer is hilarious!  She is just rude and in your face honest.  My friend and I loved that movie, and when we saw the girl in the prom dress, we looked at each other  and did our best Weezer/SM imitations..."It looks like two pigs fightin' under a blanket!"  We about died laughing.  If you haven't seen that movie, this story will make more sense after you do  The bottom line here?  Miss Prom Dress was wearing too much taffeta and not enough Spanx.

image credit

So the deal is that if you are invited to a lovely outdoor wedding, do not come over-dressed, do not come without some support undergarments, and if you do, do not sit by Erin.  Or me, for that matter, because we will “people watch” you until the cows come home. 

Or the pigs stop fighting. 

Whichever comes first.

A Jerry Springer-style wedding. You can't make this stuff up.

The poor gal who had to endure this nightmare of a wedding asked to remain anonymous.  I can’t say that I blame her.


In 2001, I got engaged to a guy named Jay.  My parents liked him at first, but something changed which my memory fails me as to what... and they all of a sudden began to dislike him.  Typical, Right?
My mom and Dad were moving to Saudi Arabia for my Dad's job and when we got engaged, we did everything in our power to arrange the wedding to be set for when they could come home.  

During this engagement.  My mom found out my Dad was having an affair.  So, she decided to come home to the USA and "help" me with my wedding plans.  When she got home, she did everything EXCEPT help.
She called the minister who was a dear friend of mine that baptized me to help her call off the wedding.  She said ugly things to my bridesmaids about my soon to be husband.. telling them he was a HORRIBLE guy and had no future and would never make any money.  (He was a kindergarten teacher).

During her helpful days, she decided to join MatchMaker.com and met a guy whom she started having an affair with, right in front of me, but played it off like they were just friends. I knew that something was going on and I felt bad for my Dad who was back in Saudi feeling guilty for what he had done, while she is back here doing the same thing.  I prayed  that he would find out somehow.... and he did... she wasn't smart with the credit card since the bills went to him.

The day of my rehearsal, my mother is up at the reception site helping us get things decorated and everything and my mother gets a call and LEAVES frantically.  She is finding out that my Dad knows about her affair. 
So the gals and I finish it up and go meet at the church to rehearse with everyone else.

My mother REFUSED to practice walking down the aisle, lighting the candle or look at ANYONE.  She pulled me to the side to ask if I told on her and if it wasn't me, then it must be my finance, Jay.  So at dinner, she REFUSED to smile for ANY picture taken... and having her sit over there and pout on my night was really hurtful.  Not only that but my Dad had to try to put on a happy face to help make up for her attitude.

The day of my wedding, I met my bridesmaids and got our nails/toes done around noon.  The wedding was set to start at 6pm.  I called my mother to ask her to please remember to bring my dress to the church for me and she said, " That is NOT my responsibility, you need to take care of that YOURSELF!"  I was crushed and now stressed out... crying which wasn't a great look for me on my wedding day.  I went to go get my dress and found it SMASHED in the corner of a closet at my grandmother's house where it was WRINKLED like NO OTHER!  I had 5 hours now till my wedding started and a WRINKLED mess!!!  Thankfully a bridesmaid found a cleaners that would steam it for me.

My Dad was running late to the wedding and later I found out it was because my mother had taken his tuxedo and hidden it from him so he had to rush out and find a tuxedo shop with his size which was almost impossible!  His original tux had a letter he had written to me which I'll never got.
At my wedding, everyone was on pins and needles... not knowing if she would stand up to stop the wedding.  It went smoothly thank goodness, minus any smiles.

We go to the reception and are greeted by our guests.  My new husband and I take to  the dance floor immediately for our first dance and right after that I did my dance with my dad.  All of a sudden.. I hear this GASP and look over and see the crowd part and back up.  I couldn't see what was going on and didn't want to stop our dance... later I find out....

My mother sees tables reserved for my in-laws family but none for my mother's family.  This is due to the fact that she ran out of the decorating of the reception hall when we were all there and we didn't know where/what to do for reserved tables-- plus this place was bigger than the Grand Canyon-- no reserved tables were really needed.

So, my mother went up to my now mother in law and grabbed her arm asking WHY tables weren't reserved... my MIL said, you left and I'm sorry but there are plenty of tables, just pick one!   My mother SMACKED her ACROSS the face in front of everyone. 

image credit

Apparently my mother didn't let go of her arm and my husband came to rescue his mom and pulled my mom's hand off and my mother dramatically fell to the floor making it look like Jay pushed her to the floor.  So, my grandfather thought Jay was shoving my mother and then attempted to punch him while diving through the kitchen double doors.  

All of this... WHILE I AM DANCING MY FIRST DANCE WITH MY DAD.  

I see the security rent cops come and escort my mother and all of that side of the family out of the wedding reception.  I had no pictures with my mother or any of that side of the family from my reception.  I didn't even want to be there.  People started leaving probably just because it was such a crazy event and the "show" was over.  I was suppose to have the reception hall until Midnight but we were gone and out of there by 9pm.

I got a call once from her telling me that she was sick of me ignoring the family since I had not spoken to any of them for several weeks and I owed them an apology.  I told her I owed her nothing.  Its been 9 years this year since we have spoken.  While she might have been right about my husband at the time-- we were married 2 years.... it was still my day, my time and she made it ALL About her.  I will never EVER forget how she made me feel.  It was awful.

You'll all be happy to hear that this poor bride has found true love, is happily remarried and is living a drama free life.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. All kinds of wrong.

Oh seriously.

I thought I had seen some bad wedding photos.

Then I found THIS little collection.

oy.

Does the 5 second rule apply to wedding cake?

As if you needed another reason not to smush cake in each other's faces.



Some advice? Feed a nice little bite to your new spouse and go back to dancing.  Skip the insipid cake fight.

This took some planning...

There are plenty of bad marriage proposal ideas out there, many of which are caught on video. Here is one that could have ended very, VERY badly.

But it didn't.


I'll be back with more bad stuff soon! (Be sure to send yours in...)

3 hours of hair and make-up.... undone in 3 seconds.

If the Best Man from yesterday's post was in trouble for being an idiot, this guy is just going to get tarred and feathered for being clumsy.



oops.

How do you bounce back from that?

The Best Man ain't got no game. (Because he's an idiot.)

Erin at Peony Wire Works does amazing things with chicken wire.  It also appears that she is often invited weddings and has been witness to several wacky wedding situations.  She'll be sharing several of them with us.

First, I'd like to say that I am not a redneck.  I am however surrounded by questionable people (okay, some idiots), but that is not a reflection of me as a person.  Instead, I'd like to look at these  stories as lessons learned, or knowledge gained.  Please enjoy them for what they are... What KNOT To Do...

I think that I should have known that my track record with weddings was off to a shaky start when I was 16.    My sister was getting married, and I was Maid of Honor.  The groom chose his best friend as his Best Man.  The Best Man was 21 and I had known him forever.   



During the rehearsal dinner, the Best Man kept hitting on me.  Because I had known him for such a long time, I knew he was an idiot.  I repeatedly told him "No!" and kept trying to ignore his advances.  

  image

The next day at the wedding, while we were standing up for the bride and groom, he continued to hit on me.  During their vows!  In front of the entire church full of people!  were up on a little stage for the vows portion, in front of a church full of people.  As the couple were saying their vows, the Best Man was mouthing words to me about us hooking up later...and yes there was some inappropriate hand gesturing on his part.

People stopped paying attention to the vows and turned their attention to the Best Man.  People were starting to laugh and the bride and groom became aware of what was going on.  My poor sister was barely holding it together, but the groom thought it was hilarious.  

I think that should have been the moment my sister knew it wouldn't last. 

It didn't.

Holy Jack-Assery! Who does that!?  Seriously!  

Thanks for sharing this story Erin! We're looking forward to your next tale of wedding woe!

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here... to give you a lecture.

Jayna Rae is a witty, fashionable, and crafty lady who writes the blog RockNRegalia.  She was kind enough to share the following story with us....


In January of 2006 I attended my cousin's wedding in Minnesota. Brrrr . . . a cold time for a wedding. That is not the bad part though.

No. No. The bad part is what the minister said during the service. I mean I was absolutely floored.

There he is, marrying my cousin to her high school sweet heart, a man who she had dated for several years, and the minister essentially admonishes them in front of the entire congregation of guests. What did he say? Well, my cousin and her husband had a daughter who was already two at the time, and he began to discuss the ills of pre-marital sex in the midst of their ceremony. Yes, I am serious. If he had a problem with this, then he should not have agreed to marry them. He should have recommended another pastor, or he could have discussed this with them at a time prior to the ceremony.

Image

I felt so embarrassed for my cousin, her husband, their daughter, but most importantly for the minister. It is the person who espouses ignorance that deserves the most pity. He just didn't realize that he permanently would look foolish, as there was a video of the ceremony being made; isn't this typically the case. 

Anyway, like a good woman my cousin kept her calm on her wedding day. I think if it had been any other day he would have seen a different side of her. 

So, dear ministers of the world, if you do not agree with an aspect of a union then DO NOT PERFORM the union. At the very least, keep it to yourself during the ceremony. It is the couple's day, not yours.


Just so we understand.... the minister lectured a couple about sex before marriage...?  When they already had a child together...?  .... And during the wedding ceremony...?    Wow.  That must have been a super awkward ceremony to sit through.  


Thanks for sharing this one Jayna Rae, and if you have a scary/awkward/obnoxious wedding related story, please submit it. 

What KNOT to wear.

Weddings can come with enough rules of etiquette to choke a horse.  While some of it might be out-dated, much of it should still be upheld.

A great rule of thumb?   No one wants to see your ass.
If your cellulite and micro-mini are fighting for position, you should not wear it to a wedding!   (Or anywhere, for that matter.)

This gal pretty much has a black band-aid across her butt.  Dis-reeee-spectful!  All eyes should be on the bride, not on your hot mess of a bad clubbing outfit.  
You're scaring the kids.  Put some pants on.