Wedding Reception Etiquette

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Is it just me or do these intense wedding reception setups make you feel kind of nervous and claustrophobic? [via Wikimedia Commons]

Receptions are the really fun part of weddings but they can also be the most complicated and fraught with etiquette conundrums. Etiquette doesn’t care about what your decorations are, your colors, how many people you invite, whether you have a band, a DJ, or an iPod, or which of the zillions of traditions you want to include. There are a million websites and books out there to help you decide on the style of your reception. But there are a few etiquette points that are important to keep in mind.

Reception Timing and Meals:

Often, your ceremony venue will have specific times that you are allowed to be there, this is especially true for churches. What do you do when your ceremony has to be at 2pm and you want to have an evening dinner reception?

Typically, you should do your best to avoid a gap, but they can be unavoidable. If you must have a gap and your wedding site is too far away for most guests to return to their homes/hotels, you need to have something for them to do in the meantime- many couples will have a longer cocktail hour at the reception venue to fill the time. Gaps are especially rude if you use them as a way to avoid paying for a meal for your guests- for example, having a wedding at 3pm and then having a “cocktail reception” starting at 8pm.

This leads me to my next point, you need to provide a proper meal if your wedding takes place over a mealtime, or be ready to expect some grumpy and hungry guests who order pizza and eat it in a parking lot (it happened on an episode of Four Weddings). If your ceremony starts at 4 or 5pm and is immediately followed by a reception that goes until 9, 10, or later, you need to provide a full meal of some kind. It is very poor hospitality to expect people to be spending 5, 6, or more hours on your wedding and not eat a real meal in that time. Now, very very heavy finger foods and appetizers can certainly count, but only if it is truly enough to fill up hungry bellies.

If you can’t afford to provide a full dinner for your drinking and dancing late into the night reception, then you need to consider other options:

  • A ceremony followed by a simple 2 hour cake and punch reception is a perfectly proper celebration for a wedding on a budget. Have the wedding at 2 and everyone is gone by 5 and you have no etiquette faux pas.
  • A morning wedding followed by a brunch or lunch reception gives you the ability to provide a nice meal which is usually much cheaper than a full dinner.
  • A very late evening wedding with the ceremony starting at 8 and followed by snacks, cake, drinking, and dancing late into the night.
  • A dinner reception with more casual foods- you don’t need to serve a choice between plated rubber chicken and filet mignon. Why not try a big pasta buffet, catered barbeque, takeout Chinese, food trucks, or big sandwich platters? Think outside the box and you will find something that will suit your budget and satisfy your hosting requirements!

It is smart to include a hint of what your reception will be like on your invitation so guests know what to expect ie cocktail reception to follow, dinner and dancing to follow, join us for cake and punch after, etc.

Toasts:

Traditionally, the Best Man and Maid of Honor give toasts at the wedding. Please ask them well in advance if they feel comfortable giving a toast at all. Check out Jaya’s post on toasting etiquette for more!

Seating:

If you are serving a meal, you need to provide seats for all your guests.

You don’t have to have a seating chart or assigned tables, but it can take the pressure off your guests and prevent the “school cafeteria” feeling of “where do I sit?” It also prevents the problem of large groups pulling in chairs to overfill one table and leaving another table with only two chairs for a couple of guests to sit awkwardly.

If you have assigned tables but not assigned seats, you can either have a list posted somewhere or “escort cards,” these are little cards (or something else more creative!) that have the guests’ names on them. They pick them up before going in to dinner and see what table they are at. If you have assigned seats, just use normal placecards at each person’s seat.

Receiving Lines:

You don’t often see receiving lines anymore (or at least not in my circle!). Most couples have opted to skip them in favor of going around to each table during the reception. Whichever you choose, you must do something to ensure that you speak to each guest for at least a moment during the wedding. Even though it seems like it would take a long time, the receiving line might actually be faster and allow you to enjoy more of the reception than trying to greet each person while they eat and reduces the risk that you will miss someone.

For the logistics: you either have the receiving line immediately after the ceremony and guests go through it as they exit the ceremony and go to the reception or you have it at the reception as everyone goes into dinner. Obviously, the couple needs to be in the line, but usually their parents and often the attendants will stand in it as well.

You needn’t do more than greet each guest and thank them for coming. After that, move them right along to the next person to keep the line moving.

Cash Bars:

I am going to take a very strong stance here and say that at American weddings, cash bars are always against general etiquette. Think about it: a wedding reception is essentially a thank you gift for your guests for taking part in your Important Life Event, and you shouldn’t ask anyone to pay for part of a gift. Also, it has always seemed strange to me that alcohol is the one area people feel comfortable asking others to chip in for. If you wouldn’t ask someone to pay for their dinner or their share of the cake, you shouldn’t have a cash bar. You are the host; you have to pay for everything associated with your event.

That being said, you are not required to serve alcohol at your wedding. You are also not required to have a full open bar; beer, wine, and soft drinks are a perfectly acceptable and cheaper option. Anyone who complains about your hospitality is being rude.

Another problem with cash bars is that it creates a situation in which some guests have something that the other guests do not because they can afford to pay for it. All of your guests should receive exactly equal food and drink and it is extremely rude to flash differences in their faces.

If you even THINK of having a cash bar for ALL drinks including soft drinks, then, I don’t even know what to do with you. (I have never seen this in real life, but it happened once on another episode of Four Weddings. That show is a mess.)

Of course, you are welcome to do what works in your community and if every single wedding you have every attended has had a cash bar, then you are probably okay.

Money Dances/Wishing Wells:

In a few cultures, money dances are traditional and therefore acceptable. General American culture is not one of them. In traditional American culture, your guests have already purchased a present or given you a check, so why are you asking them to give you even more?

Reception Activities:

Weddings have many fun traditions such as special dances, cake cutting, and bouquet and garter tossing. You can choose to have these as you wish, and don’t let anyone pressure you either way. However, some thoughts:

  • If you decide to do a garter throw/bouquet toss, do NOT force people to participate and don’t let anyone drag all the single people out onto the floor. Personally, I would also recommend keeping the retrieval of the garter tasteful, but you should do what works for you. And if you want your groom crawling up under your skirt to porno music in front of your grandma, that’s your business.
  • I have seen the first dance/father daughter dance occur between the cocktail hour and dinner, but traditionally they happened immediately after the dinner and toasts and opened up the floor to dancing. I have also been to weddings where there was dancing between each course of the dinner, so in those cases, you don’t really need to open the dance floor. Just be thoughtful about how you are scheduling activities and how they will help your event flow.
  • Some modern couples are opting to do a “marriage dance” where all the couples dance and the DJ has them sit down in order of how recently they have been married and then the couple who has been married the longest gets the bouquet. This can be a nice alternative to a bouquet toss which makes single people feel put on display, but at the same time, it excludes single people entirely. Basically you can’t win, so go with what works for you. Or start a new tradition where the whole reception has to try to catch the bouquet? Or you hide the bouquet and there is a search for it? So many possibilities.
  • If you are Jewish, you might want to dance the Hora. Presumably, you already know how to do this, but if you are having a lot of people at your wedding who have never done it before there are a couple things you might want to remember:
    • Everyone is allowed to join in! But your gentile friends might not know what to do, so make sure there are enough people around to show them the ropes.
    • Only the bride and groom go up in the chairs (though we’ve been to Jewish weddings where the parents went up too). Make sure the people lifting you know to keep you close enough together that you can both hold onto the napkin (“schmatta”).
    • Don’t use folding chairs for this activity unless you want to lose a finger!
    • (H/T to my good friend Rachel at whose wedding I had my first Hora experience and who was kind enough to answer my questions.)
  • Cutting the cake: this is pretty simple- the couple goes over to the cake, hold the knife together and cut a small slice. Then they feed it to each other and pose for pictures. Smashing the cake into each others faces is a thing in some places, and it’s totally at your discretion, but definitely don’t do it if one half of the happy couple doesn’t want to! Icing on that $4,000 dress!!
  • Reception activities should happen fairly quickly after dinner and end with the cake cutting. If you are having a “sending off” you can do the bouquet toss/garter throw immediately before you leave. (This is actually more traditional than having the bouquet toss randomly in the middle of your dance- originally it was more of a “just toss the bouquet in the direction of your girlfriends as you head out the door” type of thing than an event that everyone gathered around to watch.)
  • Have your MC announce when these activities are taking place as people will want to watch.

Ending the Reception:

Back in the day when parents hosted the wedding and the couple was the guest of honor, the couple would be expected to leave the reception before it was completely over. They might even change into “going away clothes” and there would be a big sending off as they left on their honeymoon. Then the guests would know that they could leave and everyone would start clearing out.

Now, often, the couple has paid good money for this party and they want to enjoy it until the bitter end. This can create a conflict with some older and more traditional guests who feel like they absolutely have to stay until the bride and groom leave. Nowadays, most people know that the cake cutting signifies the end of official reception activities and that people are free to leave anytime after that, so you might consider making sure that it is the end of official activities or even having your DJ or band leader announce that it is “the last activity but to please enjoy the music and dancing until [end time].” You might also want to consider having it (and your other “official” activities) fairly early during the reception in consideration of guests who might need to leave.

Other Things:

  • Apparently it is a tradition for guests to take home the centerpieces? If this doesn’t bother you, that’s great. If you have plans for your centerpieces, warn your caterer/wedding coordinator/family members/etc or maybe put a note under them saying not to take them.
  • Tip your vendors! Make sure either someone is assigned to handle this or you’ve prearranged the tips.

How Do I Make It Clear This Is A “Friends Only” Easter Dinner?

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Unexpected guests are never fun [Via]

Dear Uncommon Courtesy,

 I’m writing because I recently had a problem come up multiple times and I’m not sure if I’m the person practicing bad etiquette or if my friends are. Basically, every year I throw a small Easter dinner. It is small because my apartment can only seat 8 people maximum. Generally I invite my best lady friends, I make them Easter baskets, and I serve a 4 course meal with wine. The majority of people invited are repeats year-to-year.

This year I sent out a paperless post invitation to seven of my lady friends. 3 of them came back to me asking if they could bring their significant others. All the ladies who asked have been to dinner parties at my house and know how squished my apartment is. Also, the invitation showed that the RSVP only counted for one person, and there was no option to invite others.

I feel like this puts me between a rock and a hard place because if I say no I seem insensitive for not understanding that they no longer can function unattached to another person. If I say yes and one of my originally invited friends who hasn’t responded yet then responds that she can come, I have to tell her that her space was taken. Further, an extension of their request to bring a +1 is that they’re also asking me to spend a decent amount of money and make an Easter basket for someone who I don’t know well at all.

Is it ok for me to say no, or should I have assumed that if I invite a friend with a boyfriend or girlfriend to something I must always invite the +1? If it’s okay to say no, do you have suggestions for how to do this as politely as possible?

Sincerely,

SO Confused

OFFICIAL ETIQUETTE

Many of the etiquette tips we’ve found focus on how only those whose names are on the invitation are invited, and it is rude to ask to bring a date, even if it is a long-term significant other. Amy Vanderbilt wrote, “Invitations to company dinners are not lightly treated. The hostess obviously is going to considerable trouble, especially if she has little or no help.  Guests should not disappoint her at the last minute without a believable excuse such as illness. Neither should they ask to bring another guest, with the possible exception of another single man for whom most hostesses have need.” The Emily Post Institute says, “It is not incorrect for someone to ask if s/he can bring a friend to a large party, although no one should do this when the invitation is for a small dinner party.”

However, The Institute also says, “You are obligated to invite spouses, fiances or fiancees, and significant others of your guests. If your friend has a long-standing relationship/is living with her ‘special person’ then he really needs to be invited. If not, and he is someone she is dating, it is not a requirement that he be included.”

OUR TAKE

Victoria: This was exactly my problem recently! TECHNICALLY if someone has a husband, fiance, or live in partner, they MUST be included on ALL invitations. BUT I think if you make it like a specific ladies only event, that’s fine and they don’t need to be invited.

Jaya: Really? Partners need to be invited even to small dinners and friends-only nights out? Wow, I’ve been an asshole.

Victoria: The rule was intended for dinner parties, but I imagine it extends further. But I think it’s fine to say “Ladies only, no SOs.”

Jaya: Definitely. Though I’m wary of saying “Ladies only” because what if a girlfriend of yours is dating another lady? These boundaries get tricky.

Victoria: Oooh yes. But maybe you have your “girls” and she has her “girls” and you make it work anyway- commenters weigh in!

Jaya:  I think there are two ways to look at this. 1. You have your group of friends, and you have a small apartment, and it’s rude to ask for +1s (though not rude to ask for honest clarification about invitations), and really that’s that.

Victoria:  These people are being so so rude by asking if they can bring someone for something like a dinner party. Although, I suppose at this age, people who are used to throwing BYOB parties have no concept of how expensive it is to throw a nice dinner party (not to mention all the planning and cooking!!!), so it’s really asking a lot to bring a date.

Jaya: Exactly, this isn’t like meeting up at a restaurant. It requires a lot of work on the host’s part. The LW can absolutely say that it will be a just-friends occasion. You can also say you have no space, but that also leaves it open that if someone declines, you will have space for someone else’s date, which doesn’t seem like what the LW wants to happen.

Victoria: Yes, I think for the LW, my advice would be to make it clear when issuing invitations that you are hosting a dinner for “the girls” or “our group” and if asked if someone can bring a plus one, just say, I’m sorry, it’s just going to be us this time and make a little joke about limited space.

Jaya: I do want to bring up something else though. I sense some hostility when the LW writes that her friends “no longer can function unattached to another person.” What a way to talk about your friends! Most of the time, wanting to bring an SO to an occasion is not a case of not being able to function alone, but wanting to introduce your SO, someone you care about, to your friends, other people you care about. You don’t have to all hang out together all the time, but these are all people in your life that you spend a lot of time with, and it’s nice to have them not be strangers.

Victoria: Yes,  lowering the hostility is good (though as a single person, I can understand the annoyance of a tag along SO) because they might end up becoming a good friend too, and your friends are probably coming from a good place. This does not mean that you have to invite anybody’s flavor of the week to your parties, though if you are inviting tons of other couples, I can see where someone would be hurt that you wouldn’t invite their significant other, no matter how insignificant you might deem them to be. And in this case, it sounds like the LW is mostly dealing with people in short term relationships. So she is pretty much in the clear in that regard.

Jaya: True, and there is a big difference between a “flavor of the week” and having been seriously dating someone for 4-5 months and wanting to introduce them to your close friends and not being able to go to any party without your significant other. The LW will just have to gauge what is the case.

So maybe her friends thought that this would be a lovely, convenient opportunity for everyone to get friendlier. Of course, for LW this is not the right time, because her apartment is small and she has a set guest list. But, in the spirit of what her friends are probably trying to achieve, I’d suggest she bring up another time where bringing SOs is proper. You can say “You know, I wanted to keep Easter dinner as a just us thing, but next week we should all go out for dinner because I’d love to get to know Charlie better” or “I really want to keep this Easter tradition of dinners with our great group of friends, but let’s plan another party soon for everyone.” Something like that.

 

Thank Goodness We Don’t Have to Do That Anymore: Churching

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The author, at a church but not being churched.

The author, at a church but not being churched.

I love Renaissance Faires and hanging out in fake Medieval Times as much as the next person (erm, except for Jaya who does not like it), but outside of awesome turkey legs and jousting, there were a lot of not-so-fun parts. And life especially sucked if you were a woman.

Take for instance, the concept of churching.

Due to some Levitican nonsense about women being impure after childbirth (Leviticus 12:2-8)  and some Virgin Mary copy-catting (Luke 2:22-40), the thing to do in Medieval Times was to stay at home for 40 days after giving birth and then head to the church to be blessed and become pure again.

When it was time to be churched, a woman would go to the Church with her midwife and the other women who had attended the birth. The new mother would have to wear a special veil to show her impure state. Then they would have to wait OUTSIDE for the priest to come perform the ceremony before the new mother was able to enter the Church.

During the 16th century, the Church began to worry that churching was based on Jewish rather than Christian beliefs and in 1549, Edward IV declared that the service must change from a purification to a Thanksgiving (Medieval Times had both misogyny and anti-Semitism, so fun!). Thereafter, the ceremony was more of a blessing of the woman and about being thankful that she had survived giving birth. The most controversial part became the difference in wording to use if the child had or had not survived the birth.

Technically the service still exists in the Catholic Church (and other more orthodox churches too!), but it isn’t commonly practiced. However, apparently, it was still a common practice in parts of Ireland well into the 1970s and was still making women feel ashamed or dirty because of their post-partum state.

How To Live In A Dorm

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typical_hofstra_dorm_roomWe already talked a bit about roommate etiquette, but living in a dorm room is like roommates to the tenth degree. Not only do you have to deal with living with someone in close vicinity, but you most likely don’t even have your own room, you have to share a bathroom with ten other people, and at least one person will vomit in the hallway right outside your door.

  • Don’t vomit in hallways. Or shit. Apparently this needs to be said because multiple people I know have experienced someone taking a #2 in their dorm hallways.
  • Be conscious of each other’s schedules. If one of you has class at 8am and the other regularly works until midnight, do your best to let each other sleep when you need it.
  • Keep tidy. This goes for all roommates but especially when your beds are three feet away from each other.
  • I would say “don’t have sex when your roommate is sleeping” but let’s be honest, it’s going to happen. Try to avoid it if possible, and keep as quiet and still as you can if it comes to it. Same thing goes for shower sex.
  • Speaking of showers! Be quick. It’s good for the environment and for the line of eight people waiting for you to get out.
  • Don’t badmouth your roommate. Not everyone is going to get along, especially if you’re randomly assigned someone to live with. But just because you don’t get along with your roommate doesn’t mean the whole floor should be turned against them.
  • Do not spend all of your time in your dorm room. When you’re given a space that small for two people with no walls between you, personal time is always welcome. Study in the library sometimes. Watch TV in your friend’s room. Give each other some breathing room.

Do I Really Have to Buy This Bride All These Gifts?

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What you don’t realize is that all these gifts are from one person. [Via Flickr user frostnova]

Dear Uncommon Courtesy,

I am in this girl’s wedding in May. I assume I get her a wedding gift. I’ve also been invited to her bridal shower, that says bring a gift, and her bachelorette party, that says bring a gift. I assume that the bachelorette gift is suppose to be a gag gift, but I’m not sure. How many freaking gifts am I actually expected to get this girl? I cannot afford to get her 3 gifts.

Sincerely,

Gift Fatigued

 

Official Etiquette:

Technically, yes, you should give a gift for both the wedding and the shower. But they can be small gifts! Bachelorette parties should not have a gift element unless they take the place of a shower. Guests should not be invited to more than one shower and if they are, they don’t have to give a gift the second time.

 

Our Take:

Jaya: How rude to demand gifts!!!!

Victoria:  Hahahahahahahahaha, this is a crazy situation and exactly what is meant when people talk about gift fatigue. Though, I assume no one is really demanding gifts so much as inviting her to parties that often have gifts. Except the bachelorette, omg, bachelor/ette parties should not be gift giving occasions.

Jaya: Yeah, seriously.

Victoria:  I wonder who is organizing the shower/bachelorette. If they are the same person, you could maybe talk to them.

Jaya:  Shower is bride’s sister, bachelorette is MOH (ED: maid of honor, fyi). The letter writer thinks the bride would understand if she was just like, hey, I’m broke and already spending money on hotels and dresses and stuff, which is definitely what I think they should do. Apparently the bachelorette is in another town so she had to pay for hotels for that weekend too.

Victoria:  Omg, I would just not go. I mean seriously, wtf kind of wedding is this?

Jaya:  Ridiculous, apparently the bride is totally normal and understanding, but her family is a little more difficult.

Victoria:  Hmm, yeah, I would talk to the bride. I mean, I would be MORTIFIED if I was getting married and found out these people were planning these kinds of things and demanding gifts from people.

Jaya:  Seriously.

Victoria:  So the bride could theoretically talk to the MOH and get rid of gifts for the bachelorette entirely and then I would get something small for the shower. And something small again for the wedding.

Jaya:  Or maybe split a gift with some other people, like we have done.

Victoria:  Yeah, although, then you run into the problem of the organizer being like, let’s buy them a $500 vacuum and that will come out to $100 each- hope that’s okay with everyone, xoxoxox!

Jaya:  Hahahahaha, oh god, just a Hey Ladies email.

Victoria:  Yep, like, just buy them a muffin pan and call it day. Write a nice note. The bride will understand.

Jaya:  I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of invitations specifying to bring gifts. I’ve heard of them saying “no gifts,” but not “yes mandatory gifts.”

Victoria:  Yeah, well, I assume here that with the shower, gifts are implied and the invitation included registry information. Which is allowed because the whole point of the shower is to shower the bride with gifts, so its really “not done” to come without one.

Jaya:  True.

Victoria:  And then I’m betting for the bachelorette, they were like, we’re doing blah blah in blah city staying at blah hotel and please bring a fun lingerie gift for the bride!

Jaya:  I don’t know, the way she said it it sounded a lot more explicit on the invitation. The bachelorette one just says bring a gift, not specifying like, a gag or sexy gift, just a gift. You could probably infer not to bring a toaster to a bachelorette party though.

Victoria:  Ahh well some showers are specific kinds of showers? Like they will be like please bring a bottle of wine to stock the happy couples bar. But yeah, that is not really okay for the bachelorette. Omg, trying so hard to believe that people aren’t being so outrageously rude!

Jaya:  In general it just seems like a lot

Victoria:  I think that people planning these things really need to keep the big picture in mind. Like, if you are having a big blowout out of town bachelorette, maybe no showers? Definitely no presents. If you are keeping everything small and local its fine to do a shower and a bachelorette. If you have out of town bridesmaids, please be extremely aware that they probably won’t be able to make it to anything except the wedding and you can’t guilt them about it. And for showers- you don’t invite the same person to multiple showers!! And if you do because they are a bridesmaid or the sister of the bride- they only have to bring a gift to one shower. And a very nice bride will mention that while she is opening gifts so people don’t wonder why sally didn’t get her anything

Jaya:  Yes! Yeah, I think people forget that sometimes one person will be going to four parties not to mention traveling to the wedding and buying a bridesmaids dress. It’s a lot to ask of a person and people need to be more sensitive to that.