Via

We talk a lot about weddings here, because for many adults it’s the first time the World of Etiquette descends on them in such a massive way. I’m having a wedding tomorrow. I’m sure it will be lovely, and I used much of Victoria’s and my own advice in planning it in as polite a way as possible.

But I have a secret for you–even if you’re the editor of a minor etiquette blog, you will fuck up. You will do some tactless things and commit some faux pases. Some will be out of thoughtlessness, and some will come after you’ve thought everything through and said “fuck it,” and you will not know if it goes unnoticed but you also will not care. Here are a few things we did:

• Got overexcited and emailed a bunch of friends for their addresses with the hint that it was for invitations, before we were solid on how many people we could invite, and then didn’t invite some people on that list.
• Threw an impromptu “engagement party” by inviting a bunch of local friends to a bar, including people who were ultimately not invited to the wedding. (I justify it in that it was clearly not an Official Wedding Event.)
• Had an engagement party thrown for us (by my grandmother) which included guests not invited to the wedding. (This was an Official Wedding Event, but we did not have control over it.)
• Asked people to turn of their phones/not take pictures during the ceremony (which some people think is rude but Victoria assures me is not.)
• Invited people and not their spouses or long-term partners.
• Invited some people within one “tier” of relation and not others.
• Had a B-list.
• Not had seating charts, which is apparently Not Done if you have over 50 guests. The justification is that we went to a wedding of 120 with no seats and everyone figured it out just fine.
• Not realized we had to actually tell people our plans about day-after breakfast or afterparties or anything.
• Ignored emails with helpful “suggestions” from family members.

More than the actual rude actions though, there have been rude feelings, which I hope you know are okay to have. It’s okay to wish that you could spend the day drinking and partying and not having to say hi to every person. It’s okay to realize that after a year of planning, if you had to do it over, you might not have a wedding in the first place, but accept that that would be impossible feel that way without having planned it already. It’s okay to not have a vegan cake option (sorry, Steve). Make every effort to ensure people have a nice time, but remember that you can’t please everyone. Just don’t apologize for not having wedding favors.