I stumbled across an article on Project Wedding recently that lit a fire under my ass, and not in a good way. It's called "The Five Most Common Wedding Guest Complaints." Yes. You read right. Complaints. What bizarr-o world do we live in where it's "common" to complain after being fed, liquored up, and entertained for FREE? And this was my reaction from merely reading the title of this article. The TITLE. I hadn't even gotten to the part where they list what guests are actually complaining about. Here's a quote from the article's lead-in: "The last thing you want is for your friends and family to have a terrible time and spend the next 50 years whispering about the things that should have been done differently." Actually, the last thing I want to have happen on my wedding day is realize my friends and family are assholes. Sure, everyone wants their wedding to be enjoyable for all in attendance, but if you can't count on the people you love the most to NOT complain at your wedding, then why did you invite them in the first place?
Here's a breakdown of Project Wedding's "Five Most Common Wedding Guest Complaints" and a follow-up for why I think it's bullshit.
Complaint #1: "Not Knowing Where to Go"
I have never experienced this at a wedding. Because "knowing where to go" is more obvious than popping a boner in spandex. The place you are supposed to be at any given time at a wedding can almost always be determined by the "set pieces." Chairs situated concert-style means sit your ass down and watch the ceremony. Cocktail tables in the next room mean you best gets to drinkin. You see sit-down tables? Well shit, that's the place where you eat. What? Is that a dance floor you see? I don't know, man... a dance floor could mean so many things! Come ON.
Complaint #2 "Left Without a Ride"
Since when are we supposed to ensure our guests get a ride home? Oh, right, it was about the same time we were told we had to tuck them into bed too. Riiiiight.
Complaint #3 "The Speech That Never Ends"
You are the one who decides who gets to speak at your wedding. No one else. And if that means there may be one or two speeches that go long, then oh fucking well. Not everyone can make an eloquent, to-the-point wedding toast. Just sit through it. Or keep stuffing your face with free booze and food. Or WAIT, here's a concept: How about showing the toaster some respect for actually having the balls to get up and pour their heart out in front of a crowd of people?
Complaint #4 "A Table of Strangers"
...Or what I like to call: "Durrrrrr I'm a moron and can't meet people at an awesome party." Here's a solution to your "table full of strangers": they get double the booze. And if they don't drink, I'm guessing they already have a sparkling personality or interesting attributes they can create smalltalk around, because otherwise, why do you care what they think? I've sat at the stranger table before and enjoyed the opportunity to meet some really cool people. And by the end of the night we were practically humping on the dance floor.
Complaint #5 "The Time Between the Wedding and the Reception"
Breaks in between the wedding and the reception are a good thing. Go to a nearby bar and get the party started early. Go get a coffee. Chat with the other guests. Go to a movie. Head back to the hotel and watch some TV. Have a quickie. Take a fucking nap. ANYTHING. Anyone who complains about too much time in between, is a toddler. End of story.
And if any guest we invite to our wedding feels the need to complain about these things, I will 1.) Tell them to BLOW ME, 2.) Kick them out, and 3.) Put their free meal in a doggy bag and instruct them to give it to a homeless person on the way home.
Have you ever complained at a wedding, or heard someone else complain? If so, what was it about?
Oh, man. Have you ever seen this article on the Knot?
ReplyDeletehttp://wedding.theknot.com/wedding-planning/wedding-guests/articles/the-guests-complaint-department.aspx
I was enraged when I read that.
awesome and hilarious! (your post, that is, not whiny guests.)
ReplyDeleteMy friend had a "Do Not Play" list for the DJ at her wedding and it was very short. I think it had 3 stupid ass linedance songs on it. Anyway, her aunt kept requesting one of the DNP songs and the DJ kept telling her Nope. She had the nerve to complain to my friend, her neice!!, about it! Seriously, if it's THAT important to do a lame dance then put on your ipod and do it by yourself outside. :D
ReplyDeleteAhhh, couldn't agree me...I did a post on this a while back. I've heard plenty of complaints about our wedding being in Oregon when we live in FL. The funny thing is that only two guests live in FL so they'd have to travel anyway! My response has been "don't come if you don't want to". It's crazy to me that people would complain. Every wedding I have attended has been for someone I love and would never complain about the way they want to host their wedding
ReplyDeleteThose articles are all written for absolute snobs. And you know what? Maybe 1/3 of my family are snobs. In that etiquette category. Protocol droids. Shrimp fork shooter. And not in a polite way. I was of the same mind as you, and threw a hell of a party, without regard to preempting complaints. I didn't make a dance-chart with shoe prints to show people where to walk in the food lines. It helped everyone relax and forget about conforming to what they were *supposed* to be doing as well. You want or guests to be comfortable too. I have been an uncorfortable wedding guest, but only at weddings that took all these weird things into account to much that there were rules and patterns and rights and wrongs and propers for everything. Do do dat! Silliness. Do what you're doing.
ReplyDeleteErin
So I'm having massive post-wedding drama about things you wouldn't even believe people would even think of complaining about, so this line? "Actually, the last thing I want to have happen on my wedding day is realize my friends and family are assholes."? Felt particularly awesome to read right now. Hopefully none of your friends and family surprise you in a bad way.
ReplyDeleteAnd more directly on point, I couldn't agree with you more. I don't see how any of these are problems. Don't people know how to call their own goddamn cab?
Oh wedding articles, trying to make us feel guilty for not doing things write. As if the fear of being smack talked for the next 50 years will scare us into conforming to wedding standards. First of all, anyone who has so little of a life that they can complain for 50 years is a nutbag and second, who the hell cares?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'm unbelievably sick of trying to cater to our guests. Yes, I want them to have fun, to eat, etc. and I don't plan on putting them through any torture devices, so why does every tiny aspect of the wedding have to take them into consideration? I want to have vegetarian food at the reception? Oh, I can't do that because some guests won't like that. Can't have a dry wedding? Oh no, that's crazy. Guests will hate that. If anyone has the gall to complain about anything that we've "done wrong", they'll definitely get an earful.
awesome plus one. this was great. (also, posts like these are the best way to blow up the industry attempts to send engaged people into anxiety-induced spending sprees. keep em coming! i think you'll win!)
ReplyDeleteI read that article a few days ago and was starting to get a little scared. What if I put to many strangers at a table? or someone didn't have a ride home??? Thank you for writing this. I was a little wigged and now I feel much much better. I really shouldn't worry about such things. My friends are cool and if they turn out to complain and be assholes, then I've learned they really aren't friends.
ReplyDeleteI'm really tempted to link to this on my wedding site:
ReplyDelete"If you have some love and happiness to share with us, send it to [KnitsMcGee's Email] at gmail.com. If you have some problems, the need to complain or the desire to bitch and moan, click here to listen to Bowie Bride."
I know I will get complaints regardless of what I do, and when I tell any naysayers to shove it up their ass may be the only time I embrace the Bridezilla mantra.
hilarious!!! i'm so with u...tell em to suck it!
ReplyDeleteI love you. And I may have peed myself a little laughing at this.
ReplyDeletei made olli read this post, i thought it was so funny. especially "Here's a quote from the article's lead-in: "The last thing you want is for your friends and family to have a terrible time and spend the next 50 years whispering about the things that should have been done differently." Actually, the last thing I want to have happen on my wedding day is realize my friends and family are assholes. "
ReplyDeletealthough i have to admit that i have been one to complain about long/too many toasts. short and sweet- rah rah rah, bride and groom! that's how i like 'em.
but now i feel ashamed, because you're right, "How about showing the toaster some respect for actually having the balls to get up and pour their heart out in front of a crowd of people?"
AWESOME. I knew you'd do it up right.
ReplyDeleteHahaha - when I read this yesterday, I thought the same thing. And, reading your post today made me laugh. Out loud. At my desk (good thing).
ReplyDeleteIf guests have the nerve to complain, you're right, maybe they shouldn't have been invited. Nobody made them come. You didn't twist their arms. And, why should you plan YOUR wedding around what other people want. Isn't the point of YOUR wedding to be YOUR wedding, not everyone else's?
(Gets off soapbox).
Love the post :)
If the guests feel that way then that can go fuck themselves for sure, fab post!
ReplyDeleteThis is why we're preparing our friends and family now - no effed up expectations. Because someone will always complain, most people won't give a damn but might be confused by our "unique" wedding, and I just don't want to deal with crap that day or afterwards.
ReplyDeleteGet over yourselves, party poopers. I've been to a bazillion weddings of all types, budgets, styles, coordination levels and always had a blast.
(though, I do have to say that Project Wedding's "Left Without a Ride" issue was insane... because they mentioned couples providing a ride THERE but not back. Which is pretty effed up, especially if you're at a remote site like mine. But again, WHO DOES THAT?!)
Laughing out loud over here! Your follow-ups are hilarious and I completely agree with them. I read this Project Wedding article yesterday, and I was totally turned off by it. The wedding industry can kiss my ass if those are the "rules" they expected me to follow. Eff them and their bullshit wedding standards.
ReplyDeleteWhen was the last time I told you that I love you? If not recently, then I do. Very much so. I agree with everyone else on your awesomesauceness.
ReplyDeletePeople that complain at weddings should be thrown out. I view it as an honor to be even invited to such an joyous and happy event. It's like "Wow. I really mean something to you". That also depends on what your relationship is with the people and if they are family or not. Ungratefulness is something that I find an epidemic today, which I hope that is just a phase.
I had only two complaints about our wedding and it came from my sister-in-law and grandma-in-law. They complained that the photogs refused/didn't take any pictures of the hubs's family. (Which was a bunch of bull. Looking at the proofs, grandma-in-law and sister-in-law were in a TON of photos and there more photos of the hub's family than there were of mine and I have a larger family than the him!). My sister-in-law even lectured me for a good 5 minutes about how "inconsiderate I was to the family and at her wedding and she NEVER did something like that". Mind you, this was all at the beginning of the reception. So, she didn't even wait till after the wedding to tell me how much I sucked. I actually have a post sitting in draft form about this. I turn into the hulk every time I glance and start to edit that post to try to be nicer about it.
But yes, I agree with you. Some day, I'm going to make labels that say "Suck it" and put them on cans of sodas/bud lites/any crappy drink and leave it on the doorsteps of people I hate.
We had an "anonymous friend" call our caterer to complain that supposedly the "Bride and Groom are completely unhappy with the food, and need a refund STAT. The food was cold and gross, and you should be ashamed" kinda shit. We were uber pissed! How dare someone 1-use US as the complainers, and 2-call the caterer directly instead of asking the head server what was going on. Said "anonymous" also heard people complaining that the meal was a buffet. I have a couple of friends who are vegetarian or don't eat red meat, and the buffet worked awesome because they could then pick their choices of what to eat, and it seemed that everyone LOVED the food and the set-up except for this awful ass-clown. UGH.
ReplyDeleteAnnnnd, I love you even more, Britt. I heard someone complaining about a wedding, just the other day! My friend said the only things she remembers from some fancy wedding she attended recently were: 1. The cake was incredibly tall; it leaned for awhile, then it fell over. (So what?! Cake that falls over still tastes like cake that is standing upright!) 2. The champagne was poured too early, and it was flat by the time everyone toasted (Why wait for the toast? If someone pours me champagne, I'm-a drink it. I'm not gonna let it sit there and die.) DON'T COMPLAIN, PEOPLE. It's ugly.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Britt - did you get the Project Wedding e-mail that asked: "Should you get Botox before your wedding?" HA! I'm 26, and I wear anti-aging cream to bed. I think I'm good, but thanks for looking out, PW!
This is really fantastic. I've actually tried to keep a lot of these things in consideration while planning my wedding just because that's how I wanted to do it. I didn't *want* a break btwn my ceremony and reception. I *wanted* to provide my guests w/ a shuttle so they didn't have to drink and drive. But I didn't do it out of fear that they would complain and hate me forever, I'm just nice like that ;)
ReplyDeleteI'll admit, I went to a wedding a few years ago and did have a legit complaint about: I was seated in a fucking hallway. Yes, it was by the bar. But it was a HALLWAY. It was clearly not meant to be an extension of the ballroom. It was the "dates of the wedding party" table and kind of felt like an afterthought. Whatever. We don't speak to the bride or groom anymore (bc of other things...not the wedding issue).
I want to send this to like, every bride or soon-to-be-bride I know. We have too much other crap to worry about, ya know?
Seriously! "the last thing I want to have happen on my wedding day is realize my friends and family are assholes." I completely agree! I am busting my ass to make sure everyone has a good time, if there are any complaints, well then, they ARE assholes. I've already got a complaint (in my birthday card, no less) that I didn't respond when my aunt and uncle submitted their itinerary on my wedding website! What, did they want a gold star? Ugh!
ReplyDeleteOMG this is exactly what I needed to read today thank you.
ReplyDeleteha ha i totally read that article too. I used to think project wedding was spot on with stuff but that was before i got an email telling me to get botox 'before the big day'. also my favorite line? "Actually, the last thing I want to have happen on my wedding day is realize my friends and family are assholes." (I know someone already said they loved this but it bears repeating!) you hit the nail on the head, lady
ReplyDeleteOMG, I might love you.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness someone else read that post and thought that was a load of BS. Whew! ;)
ReplyDeleteThis post reminds of my gran's ubiquitous: "common sense isn't so common after all". Damn straight! I'd read the same TOP 5 THINGS GUESTS COMPLAIN ABOUT prior to stumbling upon your site.I'd have to be totally off my face not to be able to figure out things like where the buffet line ends and starts. One of my sister-in-laws complained about being sat in a table filled with her only first cousins (who btw are very nice, mild-mannered people). She said afterwards that it was "rather uncomfortable". For a lawyer who deals with greedy corporations and corporate raiders all the livelong day, I suppose it's not surprising that she found it uncomfortable sitting next to humans who didn't want a piece of her, or everybody in the room. LOL...Oh well, and another thing, THANK YOU! I was brought up my grandparents who believed that being invited anywhere, especially to a wedding!, is an HONOUR. That being appreciative, behaving myself (ie, not complaining) and being generally considerate of the feelings of my hosts is part and parcel of the deal. This is what civil society is about.
ReplyDelete