UO Thursday 8/30

rosebud332 · August 2018

No fun gif this week because TB is being a wonky biotch.

Shall we we have a themed UO this week to shake things up? How about Wedding UOs?

rosebud332 · August 2018

I think wedding favors are the dumbest thing ever. They usually cost a fortune and are just a little piece of plastic junk. Plus, who doesn’t just throw them out when you get home? No thanks to your 30 year old chocolate coated nuts. Or a photo of bride and groom who you see once a year. Or a tiny bottle of cheap wine (ok fine I’d probably drink that but they cost the bride and groom like a million dollars. Not worth it!) I ended up making a donation instead of getting favors for my wedding.

texas_t · August 2018

@rosebud332 That sounds fun!

My wedding UO is I don't like unity candles, sand mixing, and water mixing. They bride and groom always play a full length song and the crowd just looks at their backside for 4 minutes

If you're going to do one, the candle is the best of the worst, lol!

My husband if Filipino, so we did a veil and cord ceremony which is a bit more interactive and I liked that it brought a cultural touch to our wedding.

hkom · August 2018

Oooo I have A LOT of wedding UOs. *cracks knuckles*

I'll be back after breakfast...

morgantu · August 2018

I hate the "love is patient, love is kind" reading. My aunt officiated my wedding ceremony and I didn't want to tell her i thought it was dumb, because she had it in hers. So of course she put it in mine. I just feel like it's a lazy reading. There are so many other ones that are better.
Also, I don't like when people refer to it as "giving away". I know this is just what it's known as, but my dad asked me if he was going to "give me away" and my wedding and i told him i wasn't a cow, and he can't give me to anyone, but he could walk me down that aisle lol.
Andplusalso, I don't really like wedding showers. I understand them, and I will go, but i hate watching people open luggage and kitchenaids for 3 hours. I have this same gripe with baby showers as well, which is why mine will be a display shower even though some people apparently think that's super tacky. Whatevs.

Wow, i have a lot of opinions on weddings.

kristah2 · August 2018

I agree with the wedding favors.
We got married on a cruise ship so we did big welcome bags everyone got the first night full of stuff they could use for the week + a beach bag. (By we I mean my mom because she's crazy). For our favors I ordered anchor shaped bottle openers. I was actually shocked when my aunt hauled hers out to open a beer 3 years later. Like didn't that just go in the garbage??

Here's mine..
I think wedding showers are stupid. You expect me to come to your wedding and bring gifts / money or whatever but you also want me to com to a (stuffy) brunch or whatever and bring you a gift a couple weeks before? Why do I need to "shower the bride" with gifts when I'm about to do the same thing at her wedding?!
(hypocrite alert because I had one too but again my mom is crazy and wanted to host one and I think the party she hosted cost more then any amount of money I received.)

morgantu · August 2018

@kristah2 Yes! I have said before that if we all saved the money we spend on other people's wedding/baby showers we could just buy our own stuff.

texas_t · August 2018

I either bring a gift to a shower or a wedding; not both. I didn't even dawn on me that you would be expected to bring a present to both.

runrinserepeat · August 2018

I think bridesmaids care too much about what they're wearing/what they look like in weddings. Sorry, nobody cares. They all just want to fawn over the bride anyway, your job is to stand there and be filler.

hkom · August 2018

+1 to what @rosebud and @texas_t said. Unless it's a destination wedding or in a really expensive place, in which you should definitely do something special for your guests to thank them for spending so much money to watch you get married, wedding favors are just pointless junk.

@morgantu I also hate that reading. Out wedding was a full Catholic ceremony, so I was nervous about the priest would handle the whole "giving away" thing, along with some other stuff. I sat down with him a few weeks before and asked for him to leave out the "who gives this woman to this man" thing, and he was super pleased that I asked, because apparently he hates when brides request that. He told me I'm not livestock and he'd be happy to do it that way. I walked down the aisle with both of my parents, and so did H (it's just as much about him as it is about me!).

I also asked him to make sure that when he "announced" us as a couple that it was "Mr. and Mrs. H's first name, and MY first name, last name. Not Mr. and Mrs. H's first and last name. I hate that so so so much. I do not get absorbed by my husband when I get married. I'm actual still an individual person, just like he is! Priest is awesome and was totally cool with it.

Along the lines of patriarchal BS, the white wedding dress tradition is disgusting. It makes my blood boil to think that people want to read into incredibly personal information about a bride based on the color of her dress. It's even more annoying because that's not even why modern white wedding dresses became a thing anyway. I find the whole thing so gross and it just makes me gag.

@kristah2 I don't like showers either. I had one because of pressure from pretty much all of my female relatives. I actually enjoyed it, but I also tried really hard to make it fun (Caribbean themed! Mojito bar!) and to not spend a ton of time opening gifts. FWIW, I did not expect anyone to get me a gift for the wedding if they came to the shower. Like @texas_t said, I never get gifts for both if I am invited to both.

I'll try to stay general here and just say that I despise traditional wedding receptions. The special entrances by the wedding party make my skin crawl. No one cares to watch you awkwardly dance to John Legend with your new spouse, or to some equally sappy and unoriginal song with your mom/dad. Don't hire a DJ and give them free reign on the music. Get someone who will play the music you want! I have never been to a wedding where the DJ has been anything more than mediocre. And they always have the music up wayyyyy too loud. The large majority of the people at your wedding actually want to be able to talk to people without having to literally scream 6 inches from their ear. If people want to get turnt immediately after dinner, then point the speakers at the dance floor and not at the guests sitting at tables. The garter toss is lewd and the bouquet toss is downright insulting. Finally, it's not that difficult to get good food. Like, don't you taste stuff from the caterer before you hire them? There is no excuse for food as bad as some of the wedding food I've had. If you can't afford to buy a good meal for 150 people, then don't have a wedding with a full meal.

Anyway, I've probably insulted everyone on this board in some way. Love y'all!

hkom · August 2018

@runrinserepeat I think bridesmaids and groomsmen are useless in general. No one cares about them, so why have them? You can hang out with some special friends on your wedding day without asking them to spend hundreds of dollars on an ugly taffeta dress and uncomfortable shoes or a tux, hijacking their entire day, and making them sit at a head table away from their dates.

morgantu · August 2018

@hkom yaaaassss to the Mr and Mrs Husband's name thing. I also said a big hell no to that. I even struggle to be Mrs at all because it's really just the possessive of Mr. I also never use the term "maiden name" haha i was not a damsel in distress. I usually say "my last name before I was married" or something equally wordy but less cringy.

kristah2 · August 2018

@hkom I actually agree with 100% of the things you said! I also had "Mr and Mrs <both our names and H's last name>"
I hate yelling over loud music.
I think the garter toss is too much. I think the bouquet toss is weird (plus I wanted to keep my flowers, why would I either throw them away or pay way too much for a "toss bouquet"?!)
And bad food is a no go with me. We got married on a cruise, I paid for open bar for the reception and upgraded all the food based on our/our guests taste and then we paid to rent out the steak house and had dinner there. People said it was the best wedding meal they've eaten. Part of that comes from being on a cruise and being able to order whatever you wanted from a large menu. And the price per person was reasonable for us to cover. But I hate a bad wedding menu.
I was at a wedding last weekend and the food was good (they did mini tacos and sliders) but you could only order 4. Being pregnant 4 mini tacos is not supper. That's an ap. Where is the rest of my dinner?!

westcoastfoodie · August 2018

I agree with pretty much all of these so far. Wedding favors can be iffy... they have to be really good, otherwise they go in the trash. Like, definitely nothing with the bride and groom's name on it. Why would I keep that?! We had an old timey carnival themed wedding so our favors were whatever people won at the game booths. We did also have hand fans and vintage hankies, but people could take or leave those. The wedding we went to this weekend had cute little potted succulents and I kept that!

I'm sure I have some wedding related UO's. I'll be back when I wake up more!

runrinserepeat · August 2018

wrt favors, we were married in January, so I made little hot chocolate packets with swiss miss, crushed candy canes, chocolate shavings, and mini mallows. Our priest commented on how it would be good with schnapps. I can't get behind cheap trinkets that people just throw out. Just no.

hkom · August 2018

@kristah2 We thought about a steakhouse type place but couldn't find one big enough. We ended up having our reception at an old Italian restaurant and I'm still in love with how great it was. We had a huge buffet with pretty much anything that you would usually get at a traditional red sauce place (spaghetti and meatballs, lasagna, eggplant parm, calamari, antipasti, etc.). People still tell us unsolicited how good it was. I just can't get past the sad chicken breast with whatever weird sauce/gravy or tough roast beef that is so ubiquitous at wedding receptions.

That mini tacos and sliders is fun! I had a friend who tried to to tapas/mini food like that at her wedding and it didn't turn out well. I think the catering company may have been a little inexperienced because they didn't bring nearly enough food. I was in the wedding so we got first pick of like 7-10 different things, but my husband, who was sitting at another table (HUGE wedding pet peeve - let your wedding party sit with their dates!) only had like maybe 3 options. It was sad, but then again the food wasn't even that good to begin with.

westcoastfoodie · August 2018

People not having a registry at all. I get that some people already have everything they need, but tell me where to spend my money for you! I'd ever rather it be to an online honeymoon fund or make a donation in the couple's name or something like that, than there be no registry at all.

This past weekend the wedding we went to was for my boss, who is also my friend, but when I asked her where they're registered she told me they're just asking for money towards their house. Ok, totally understandable, I just felt weird handing them a check. Like... she knows how much I make and all that. Just felt weird.

lexidawg · August 2018

I agree with all the things that @hkom said! This is why I had a completely non traditional small wedding brunch where my husband and I put together our own non traditional ceremony that we had an officiant do. Then we had an after party at a karaoke bar. Fun times.

ab_canada · August 2018

My two cents:

Wedding showers: I actually don't mind them. You don't have to come and bring a gift if you don't want to. The same thing with weddings. I will come and bring a generous gift to someone I love, not because it's expected of me. That being said, I feel like I was the one who made my shower awful - there were SO MANY gifts (big family) and I didn't realize how long it was taking to open all of them.. So for the gift opening for the wedding (which, by the way, I DO think is terrible and we argued with my MIL about having it - she won), we told people to come for 11am but really started opening the gifts at 10AM and displayed them.

Wedding favors: Totally agree that they just get thrown out, so I made cookies! They were a huge hit. People who loved them kept going around the tables asking for the ones that didn't get eaten. And we had little napkins with our names and the date on them so the grandmas who love keeping something from each wedding still got what they wanted.

The dance: I can't remember if we did this for our own dance, or just the mother/son and father/daughter dance, but we basically started out the dance with just the two people to get some good pictures, and after that had the band invite everyone else to join (so fathers and daughters for the F/D dance, etc). Everyone loved it and I didn't feel so in the spotlight.

Slide shows though! Don't know if it's just in our "community", but basically 15-20 minutes of people looking at pictures of the bride and groom. Just.. WHY? I mean, the first few baby pictures are adorable but after that nobody cares.. They are just trying to look for themselves in all of them anyway. What a waste of time.

hkom · August 2018

@ab_canada I've never heard of being required to sit there and watch the slideshow! That is crazy! I've only ever seen them played in the background while everything else was going on.

Someone, I can't remember who, asked H and I if we wanted them to make us a slideshow to play at our reception. I had to inform them that there are literally maaaybe 10-15 pictures of H and I in existence, not including the minimal wedding photos we had taken (we just aren't picture people - at least pictures of ourselves), so the slideshow would have taken like 2 minutes and been completely pointless.

westcoastfoodie · August 2018

I agree with all that @hkom said! ESPECIALLY the food. Wedding food doesn't have to be expensive either. We tasted with a few traditional caterers, where the plates were $75+ per person, and all mediocre at best. We ended up going with a chain restaurant (*gasp!*) that does BBQ/grilled food and everyone was raving about it! And it was only $15/pp, with TONS of leftovers.

Ugh I forgot about the dances. Our friend (who is now divorced) had a full choreographed dance with his wife. It felt like it was 10 minutes long. Ok. We get it. Can we just drink and party now?

hkom · August 2018

@westcoastfoodie Oh god, the choreographed dances are by far the worst.

Our food was $15ish pp too, and we got tons of leftovers as well!

kristah2 · August 2018

oh my god slide shows.
NOPPEE.
There's a reason we ran away and did a destination wedding with 40 of our close family and friends.
Yes, I know, not fair I made everyone pay to come to our wedding. But seriously. I got to skip all those traditions.
We didn't do any other dances besides mine and Robs. We did a quick thank you speech and that was it. No garter toss, no bouquet toss. In fact our reception was only about 2 hours. Then we had an hour break (very easy to do when everyone is on the same boat with a million things to do) and then we had dinner. When that was done anyone who wanted to leave did and the rest of us went to a bar to dance and hang out.
My favorite part, when I was beyond tired at 11:30 and just wanted to go eat my chocolate covered strawberries in my bed and take off my dress that felt like it weighed 1000 lbs by that point, I could. It's not like people were counting on us to stay to keep the party going.
But I'm also non-traditional for the most part so it was perfect for us.

PensiveCrayon · August 2018

Wow you guys have been busy this morning!

I can't begin to address everything, but here are a few miscellaneous wedding thoughts.

Definitely I only give EITHER a shower gift OR a gift at the wedding. Not both.
Our reception was an afternoon tea with delicious food if I do say so myself (though for the life of me I can't remember eating any of it...just looking jealously at the cheese tray). No weird entrances, no music aside from some soft classical mood music. I can't remember if we had a slideshow, but I don't think so. Just a table with pictures for people to peruse at their leisure. Our favors were a couple sachets of Harney and Sons tea. The good stuff
Re: slideshows, the receptions I've been to have had the slideshow playing in the background. I like that. Cute/blackmail baby and awkward middle school-age pictures of the couple are always entertaining.
Unity candles/water/sand pouring is dumb.

Here's my true wedding UO: Fondant is delicious.

rosebud332 · August 2018

@kristah2 Your wedding sounds like it was a blast.

We did have a traditional wedding but if I had to do it again I wouldn’t. We spent such a ridiculous amount of money. Why?? I’d go much smaller and non traditional if I could. We did have good booze though so there’s that.

+1 To the head table is horrible! Particularly for the spouses/dates who end up having to sit with a bunch of randos most of the time. I’ve only been subjected to that once.

This may not be a UO so much but cash bars or no alcohol weddings should be outlawed.

kristah2 · August 2018

@PensiveCrayon you win wedding UO - fondant is nasty.

PensiveCrayon · August 2018

@kristah2 Here's where I insert the gif of Trump saying "wrong".

I'll be sure to update as soon as TB isn't being a jerk about images.

@rosebud332 We had an alcohol-free wedding because it would have been scandalous not to

(Mennonite and Baptist guests). That said, I really appreciate alcohol at weddings now that H and I are boozers.

And yes on the head table thing. SIL and BIL had a head table, which meant that MH was alllll the way down the row from me. I mean it was nice chatting with SIL's sister and her SIL, but I missed my hubby, man! Plus we were elevated...it was so weird.

hkom · August 2018

@rosebud332 Cash bars are just rude. We didn't have liquor at ours (for other reasons than the expense), but we had an open bar with tons of different beers and wines and everyone seemed to be perfectly satisfied with that. Dry weddings are an abomination. My cousin had a dry wedding with H O R R I B L E food. It was just so bad.

rosebud332 · August 2018

@PensiveCrayon The only alcohol free wedding I’ve been to was a Baptist one. Most people I know are not that strict but I think it was the same—they would have scandalized the guests if they’d had it. There was also like no food so maybe that has tainted my view as well.

temmetime · August 2018

So many things I agree with!

I don't like the garder toss. It becomes awkward and raunchy so we didn't do that. The the choreographed dances are annoying & seem to be a fad.
I think long speeches are crazy. You already make people sit around and wait for you, and then have to sit and keep kids quiet while your best man goes on & on about some inside story/joke that I can barely hear is horrid.
I don't agree with making your guests wait hours and hours at the reception waiting for the bridal party while they go get shitfaced. If you're going to do that at least provide unlimited snacks & a slideshow or photo booth to entertain the guests.
I agree with disliking wedding favors that are useless. We did koozies which ended up not being too expensive & it's nice to still see our koozies around at people's homes and they actually use them.

hkom · August 2018

I don't buy the "we'll scandalize our religious guests if we have alcohol" excuse. My best friend has a Catholic family and her husband is Muslim. His parents and many of his relatives are pretty anti-drinking. They had quite a lot of alcohol at their reception and no one seemed scandalized. And if they were, they got over it. If someone gets so worked up about having alcohol at an event that they can't let it go and it ruins their experience then honestly, screw 'em. It's not their wedding. That might sound harsh but I just can't imagine being that uptight. And if you are that uptight, then I just don't care because that's ridiculous.

gorgeousariel · August 2018

Favors: There was a local gourmet popcorn shop that we got our favors from. We had two flavors they could choose from : champagne & strawberries and a chocolate peanut butter flavor. Everybody loved them and I know they weren't thrown in the trash.

Alcohol: We had beer, wine and homemade sangria. The wine was from the winery in Michigan where DHs family is from. My sister's wedding ( 2weeks after mine) was a dry wedding. DH put vodka in a water bottle so we could have something.

My UO: if I'm invited to the shower and wedding I will give a gift for both. The shower gift is smaller and more personalized, wedding gift will be off their registry.

katy0990 · August 2018

@runrinserepeat We also did hot cocoa favors. I put them in a little bag with a thank you tag. It cost less than $20 for all of them and they doubled as table decor.

I also don’t mind a slideshow in the background, but would hate to sit and have to watch it for 20 minutes.

I never thought of me buying a gift for either the shower or the wedding. I always thought I was expected to do both. I’ll have to remember that!

My UO:
I hate it when the bride wears so much make up that she doesn’t look like herself. Why would you want wedding photos where you are unrecognizable?

Cash bars at weddings are tacky. Either open it up, just provide beer and wine, or don’t have one at all.

I hate it when the couple smashes cake in each other’s faces. You are wearing nice clothes, why ruin them? Especially when you just vowed to not do shitty things to each other.

temmetime · August 2018

@hkom I agree! It's like if I was against eating meat so I decided not to serve my guests any because it's my own personal belief. You're throwing a party for other people, not just yourself.
*this is very hypothetical as I love my meat.

kristah2 · August 2018

FWIW I love favors that are food. Popcorn sounds delish and my fav wedding favor to date has been cookies.

Jens_Hoes · August 2018

I'm sad I got here late because I was going to say anything but a full open bar is TERRIBLE. And I can't get behind cheap alcohol. I've been to too many wedding recently where they were trying to skimp on the bar and only had one or two types of beer and wine and "themed drink". TERRIBLE.

I agree for the most part with everyone about favors. We didn't do father-daughter or mother-son dances or the bouquet or garter toss. We had a great DJ and awesome food -both of which people tell us about. Our favors were hershey kisses, which were cheap.

I disagree with most people about the shower and wedding gifts. They're two different events. If you don't want to give two gifts, don't go to both. I agree with @gorgeousariel that the shower gift is usually small, and then the wedding gift I like to cover my plate.

My thing is timelines. I HATE when people have you waiting around for no reason. If the ceremony and reception are in the same place, the reception should follow IMMEDIATELY. If you do need to travel, add on a little bit of time for potential traffic issues, but I don't want to have to waste 2 hours because you want to take pictures in all these different places AND attend all of your cocktail hour.

eta: making the bridal party sit away from their dates is a terrible thing and no one should do it

hkom · August 2018

@temmetime Haha yes! Good example. The friend I mentioned also had both halal and haram food. None of the Muslims were offended by the haram food - they just didn't eat it! I still think about that halal meal - it was some of the best food, wedding and non-wedding, that I've ever had in my life.

@katy0990 I also can't stand the crazy makeup. Several of my friends got airbrush makeup for their weddings and they looked insane. I've had professional makeup done several times and I've always hated the way it turned out. For my wedding I just treated myself to some nice products and did my own makeup. My philosophy is that I do my own makeup every day and I'm good at it, so no one knows how to do my face better than me!
I can understand, though, that if you weren't good at makeup that you would want to have a professional do it. A friend of mine is super terrible at it and it was good that she got it done.

hannelorre · August 2018

I dislike weddings where there is a long break between the ceremony and the reception. I never get to relax in the full get up and I cant be in heels that long!

Re: slideshows - I'll do you one better. One of MH's friends had a wedding where the videographer made the video of the wedding and we got to watch it again at the reception. Why? We were literally just there!!

Agree with favors. We only kept two wedding favors to date (wine glasses and coasters) and still use them. Cant even remember the others.

I think the bad food has to do with where you have the reception. If the venue is strict about their vendors as I've seen with some hotels, people may not have a lot of choice. My reception was at a restaurant and the food was amazing. The floor manager blocked people from coming up to us for the first 20 mins so we could eat our prime ribs. I still love him for that

hkom · August 2018

hannelorre said:

Re: slideshows - I'll do you one better. One of MH's friends had a wedding where the videographer made the video of the wedding and we got to watch it again at the reception. Why? We were literally just there!!

I am dying! That is horrible. I probably would have been super bratty and left to hang out somewhere else in the venue for that.

katy0990 · August 2018

@hannelorre Why in the world would they think anyone would want to watch the video immediately afterward?

I completely agree about having the wedding party sit away from their dates. When I have been in weddings before, my husband always dreaded having to sit at the “loser table”.

hannelorre · August 2018

@hkom @katy0990 oh I forgot. It was also a dry wedding. I had nothing to do but to watch it.

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