OMG, y’all. Remember back when wedding planning was fun? It’s like it was sooo loooong agoooo. These last couple of weeks, I’ve tackling the crapfest known as save-the-dates and wedding invitations. I realized in March that I had had our save-the-dates since JUNE OF 2011 and STILL had not sent them out. Oy. Major fail on my part. So I powered through it and forced everyone involved to FREAKING GIVE ME YOUR GUEST LIST ADDRESSES (coughcoughmomcoughcough), formatted them, printed them on to cute Martha Stewart for Staples labels (super easy by the way), and mailed them off. Yippee!
Then the nightmare began. Some people got there’s and called us to thank us for inviting them, congratulate us, compliment the cuteness, etc. Other people were stupid assholes. For the record, NONE of MY people were the stupid assholes (coughcoughTheBoy’sfriendsandfamilycoughcough).
Here’s a small sampling of the Assholery… in Four Acts.
Image Courtesy of: Oh So Beautiful Paper
Act One:
Asshole: “So, the wedding is at you house. Can I crash there for a few days?”
The Boy: “No. We’re too busy with the wedding to have houseguests. Please book a room at the hotel or stay with a friend.”
Asshole: “But I’ll sleep on the couch!”
The Boy: “No. We don’t have time to entertain, cook, for, clean up after a houseguest. Get a room somewhere else.”
Asshole: “Oh, you won’t have to clean up after me or cook for me! It’ll be fine.”
The Boy: “Dude. No. Grow up. Get a room.”
Image Courtesy of: Oh So Beautiful Paper
Act Two:
Asshole: “So, the wedding is at you house. I can wear (jeans, shorts, fishing shirt, insert inappropriate level of casual clothing here)?”
The Boy: “No. This is a wedding. Please dress appropriately.”
Asshole: “But it’s at your house.”
The Boy: “It’s still a wedding. I’m wearing a suit. People are wearing nice dresses. Put on some slacks and a nice shirt.”
Asshole: “But I can change for the reception?”
The Boy: “Dude. Grow up.”
Image Courtesy of: Crafty Minx
Act Three:
Asshole: “You didn’t put my girlfriend’s name on the save-the-date. I told you to put her name on there.”
The Boy: “Listen. In the time Cris and I have been engaged you’ve been married, divorced, living with someone, and have dated at least 3 other women. We decided to just let you bring a guest with you to the wedding. We’ll get whoever’s name when it gets closer.”
Asshole: “But I love her.”
The Boy: “But if you break up with her and her name was on the invitation then technically, she’s still invited. Would you have a good time if she showed up?”
Asshole: “No. But I love her. We’ll still be together.”
The Boy: “Dude. Grow up. Then bring her as your Plus One.”
Image Courtesy of: Allison Maire Photography
Act Four:
Asshole: “It’s at your house? So I can get drunk and crash on your couch, right?”
The Boy: “No. This is a wedding. You need to go home at the end of the night.”
Asshole: “Oh. But I can get drunk right?”
The Boy: “There will be a keg at the wedding but you probably will not be able to get drunk on it after everyone shares.”
Asshole: “Oh. So I bring beer? Cool.”
The Boy: “No. This is a wedding not a BYOB frat party.”
Asshole: “It’s okay. If I get drunk I’ll just bring (insert 18 year-old-son’s name here). He can be my Designated Driver.”
The Boy: “No, you cannot. We invited you and a guest. You wanted to bring your girlfriend. That means you can’t bring your son. Pick one.”
Asshole: “But I want to get drunk.”
The Boy: “Dude. You’re in your 40’s. Grow up.”
Aaand scene.
Image Courtesy of: 100 Layer Cake
I’m not the only one who’s had wedding invitation/save-the-date nightmare experiences with my guests. Here’s a small sampling from around Tulle Nation:
Liz Lewis (aka The Ranty Bride): “I was surprised that we got 'maybes' on the RSVP cards. If I recall correctly, most of those people ended up not coming anyway. And, really, if you don't know if you can attend a month out and travel is involved, you're probably not going.”
Mindy Marzec (aka The Budget Fairy Tale): “We just sent ours out last weekend. I'm scared because we aren't giving anyone +1s and I know that causes a lot of drama.”
Brynn Davello (of Davello Photography): “This is more funny than rude, but still bizarre. My MIL asked us to invite some really good friends of hers that don't know us. We happily did so but at the time of mailing my invites the post office was using an ASPCA postage mark. Every envelope had a dog and kitty picture on it. The lady thought it was a fundraiser for homeless pets and told her husband to throw it away. He saw it was hand addressed and opened it. He then asked his wife why they had been invited to a gay wedding because he read my name as BRYAN! They RSVPed yes and then no-showed.”
Annie Resnicoff-Guditus: We had a lot of non-responders from Hubby's father's side and had to personally contact most of them multiple times to get an answer. Most of them didn’t bother to send back the RSVP cards which, of course, were already stamped. How hard is it to check a box or write a number and throw the thing in the mail!?!?! Lots of them said they lost the cards – how disrespectful is that? And talk about wasteed postage. I would have happily spent that money on something else!”
Janna (of Sparkly Love): “One of his mom's friends flipped a psycho shit that we didn't invite her adult son (who we are not friends with). She sent back the response card with her sons name added at the bottom and his mom was like ‘Don't worry, I’ll cover his meal’ and I was like UMM it has NOTHING to do with that. Wedding response cards show you who your real friends are. Trust me. There were people I thought were like amazing friends and then were like ‘Oh, my friend is having this bonfire on the beach for 4th of July and I go every year so I can't come to your wedding.’"
OMG! I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE! What is the deal with rude wedding guests? Is there a law or something that says that someone somewhere has to be a complete dick and ask for something really inappropriate? Tulle Nation – please tell me that someone out there has had a good invite/guest experience.
Katie @ Lovebird Productions says
I have to be honest. I am not surprised that people were rude. We invited people and included RSVP cards per my mothers request. I hated them. People wrote things on them like sorry our favorite college football team is playing that weekend. I don’t think they helped. We got way more RSVP cards than actual guests showed up. I agree that you really find out who your friends are when it comes to returning those cards. The one plus is my sweet girlfriends wrote the kindness notes on the cards. It was always nice to get those messages 🙂
Ariella says
When my fiance’s roommate (we’re in housing limbo at the moment) found out our wedding was at my aunt’s horse farm he said, “Oh man, I don’t want to go if I’m going to have to smell horse sh*t the whole time.” My fiance’s response was, “Well I guess you’d better not come then, because it’s going to smell awful. Oh and we’re not having alcohol at the reception.” Neither of those are actually true, but if that’s his attitude we’ll be quite happy not to provide food and alcohol while that he complains about everything.
Rogue Bride says
Holy SHIZ THIS IS THE BEST POST EVER. We’re sending our invitations out this week, so let the games begin. The only crazy thing that’s happened so far was with the Save the Dates – one distant relative (whom I’d sooner not invite because – distant) was annoyed that her grown son didn’t get a Save the Date, while hers was addressed to her and her grown daughter (because they’re weirdly close). I didn’t even know the guy existed and Mom clean forgot he did too. Why the F- am I inviting these people? I still don’t know. Praying for RSVP Nos.
Mindy says
Haha, this is hilarious! Thanks for the shout-out and for the record, NO ONE has complained about the +1 thing. A wedding miracle?
Liz says
Ok, so I censored my original comment QUITE A BIT because it was posted on the FB.
However, we are clearly going to be related after your nuptuals, because The Boy and The Husband OBVIOUSLY are from the same family.
We didn’t do Save the Dates, because I didn’t feel like it and really didn’t care if ANYONE attended by the time they would have gone out. We did, however, send the out of town invitations early so people had plenty of time for travel plans. Regardless, I just wanted to be clear that all of these responses came to the actual invitations.
In addition to the maybes, we got:
1) The friend who said they could not attend because – I SHIT YOU NOT – Judas Priest was in town that day. Just say you have a prior commitment!
2) My grandmother, who was annoyed that she was not ‘honored with her own invitation’, because I included her on the invite with the aunt she lives with. My other grandmother wasn’t going to come out to the reception until she found out we were ‘serving good food,’ and noted she was going to cut back in the days prior to gorge.
3) The niece who refused to come unless she got to bring her boyfriend. Naturally, they broke up before the wedding.
4) The IL who threw a fit that their children from another marriage were not on the invite – which, admittedly, was a crappy oversight on our part – so, we changed the arrangements and said of COURSE we’d love to have them…and they said they didn’t want to come anyway.
5) The cousin who expected to stay at our house over our wedding weekend, along with her three small children who were not invited (because she does not supervise them).
6) The guests who demanded cheap beer after they found out we were brewing our own.
7) The ILs who wanted us to throw a house tour for them and entertain them the DAY BEFORE the wedding, because they had ‘never seen a house that expensive.’
8) Those who complained about having to wear real pants.
9) The ILs who wanted a morning brunch for out of town guests, which was basically them, so they could gossip about all our gifts and have breakfast on our tab, as we paid for most of the wedding ourselves.
10) The ILs who announced they were NOT GOING TO BE INCLUDED and who were obviously NO LONGER LOVED when they discovered that the wedding was not in the groom’s small hometown. Where I’m not from. And we don’t currently live. And 99.5% of our guests don’t live.
11) The 90% of the Husband’s friends and family who never bothered to return the pre-stamped and addressed RSVP card (but, of the 10% who did, half of them canceled the week before the wedding anyway).
Good times!
Erin says
Thanks for this one!! Our wedding was this past weekend. I have to say I can relate because all of my friends and family seem to understand the concept but the new hubby’s not so much. Funny how the people who I had to chase down to get an answer and then said “of course!” they were coming ((never sent the response card)) didn’t end up showing up. One sent a text message the night before. Really? Thanks for the heads up. haha. I left their seating cards out in a passive agressive nod to people who knew them which is normally not my style, but the wedding took me there.
Jen M says
Oh ladies, you give me so much to look forward to! Knowing a few of his family members and my crazy ones, I can only imagine the fun that’s about to happen when we send our invites out in a few weeks. I live in a constant state of “please Lord, don’t let my aunt’s creepy new husband show up” or “please don’t make me have to break up any fights”.
Is it now that the “should have eloped” feeling kicks in or did I miss the family red flags earlier?!
Liz says
BTW, more entertaining offenses are still to come along the wedding timeline. My favs from ours:
1) Re-gifting us something that was taken from a dead relative’s house the weekend of the wedding. And, not a sentimental thing or something of value, because I would understand more in that scenario, like, “oh, great grandma’s serving set”, but just something random that will creep me out every single time I look at it, which is often, because The Husband won’t get rid of it because he feels bad since the dead person ‘gave it to [us]’, even though they didn’t, because they were already dead.
2) MIL commandeering our rehearsal dinner to publically present the Husband with a scrapbook of, basically, her – like vacation photos of her and her new husband, ie., not the Husband’s father – and some photos of him with vomit-inducing stickers with phrases like, “Mommy, hold me,” on them, next to a pic of him in high school. And, everyone sat there in awkward silence [some drank, read: me] while she went through every. single. photo. with him. At length.
3) The ILs demanding my husband open all their gifts in front of them, before the wedding, without me there. Because apparently the only joy they want to see is his? And it was girly stuff anyway, not something manly like a reciprocating saw that he would actually ooh and aah over.
4) Three words: white tennis shoes.
5) My father waiting outside the church for two hours in a parking spot to reserve it for my aunt and uncle, who were bringing my grandmother, just in case the handicapped sign and signs that basically said, “Reserved for old people,” AND the announcement on the website weren’t enough. That, in and of itself, is not so horrible…it was the refusal afterward to stand outside and greet guests because *I* “made him stand outside for two hours” that got me. BTW, the aunt and uncle? Two totally capable adults, so I’m sure they could have figured our how to drop off the cranky old lady who lives with them.
6) The ILs showing up at the church several hours in advance – like, before the BRIDAL PARTY – so they could catch their son and have quality conversational time with him before the wedding. No, not busy at all!
7) My father standing up in the middle of our entrance to the reception, right in front of the photographer, and making a ginormous gesture of pointing at his watch to indicate “how late” we were. Except, we weren’t.
8) My father browbeating my awesome setup helpers into dragging out an extra table at the last second, BEHIND US, because apparently his family couldn’t sit with other people.
9) The ILs sticking cameras basically up our noses as soon as we sat down to eat and refusing to leave us to chew until my husband threatened them with bodily harm. (not really, but close. dude was hungry.) This was immediately after he yelled at them to cease the endless glass-clinging. Apparently the part about us needing to eat didn’t sink in.
(I know some people LOVE glass clinking. I hate it, but I obliged the first 5-7 times right in a row. After that, I think I am FULLY ENTITLED to eat something for ten minutes.)
10) The ILs commandeering our photographer to take family photos. Of THEM. Without the bridal party. Oh, yeah, and it was at the church. Did I mention they physically blocked the door so we, the bride and groom, couldn’t exit? And then continued to try to take our photographer to ditch us? GO TO OLAN MILLS. Shucks, those didn’t make the online gallery.
And, my personal favorite…
11) SIL, at the last minute, deciding that BIL and nieces cannot attend because they’re SOOO BROKE. Destitute. Cannot pay their bills. And HEARTBROKEN about it.
And, then, hitting us up for $$ on FACEBOOK three months later to send one high school aged niece on a trip to Europe. For 12 days. That costs FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS.
Oh, and then asking for money for a laptop for her college, because they’re broke.
KissMyTulle says
Holy shitballs. Y’all have had me laughing all day long at your comments. THANK GOD I’m not the only person dealing crazies once the invites go out!
P.S. Act 3 and Act 4? Same. Exact. Person.
kristina says
Our a-hole guest is our best man. I use the term BEST very lightly. I;m hoping this immature a-hole doesn’t come. He cancelled last minute on the bachelor party that takes place next weekend b/c his band has a gig. He was also in charge of buying 8 tickets to a baseball game for the other bachelor party guests. He didn’t screwed everyone out of the game. People have zero respect sometimes. I’ve found out you learn who your true friends are when your planning a wedding.
Ashley says
Our invites go out this week… Yikes!
Layla Mayville {Simply Savannah Events} says
WOW sorry this is such a pain for you guys, but those stupid people are pretty funny! Thanks for running thru the details, I can pictures this being a sitcom episode on “How I Met Your Mother” or something like that show. Good for you for holding your ground!
KissMyTulle says
Ha! I would totally cast myself as Barney Stinson. WHY? Because I’m legen…whatforit…DARY!