Electronic Wedding Etiquette

It seems like every day one hears of new ways in which electronic communications are being used in appalling ways related to weddings. As technology evolves, etiquette comes along for the ride to ensure that brides and grooms know how to graciously comport themselves in any situation. This is the latest electronic wedding etiquette, including Facebook, texting, wedding websites, and email.

Did you hear the one about the groom who stopped in the middle of his wedding ceremony to update his status on Facebook to “married”? Either he has the world’s least trusting bride or he went way too far. A marriage ceremony is a solemn and momentous occasion, certainly not one which should be interrupted by something so trivial. The worst part is that once word of something like that gets out on the Internet, other people will also decide to give it a go, even if it is only done in jest.

It should really go without saying that guests should turn off their cell phones for the duration of a wedding ceremony (as well as for funerals). Times being what they are, it must also be stated that the groom should turn off his cell phone, and that the bride should not be carrying one at all, even if she has one of those wedding gowns with pockets. No matter how many crystals you put on it, a cell phone cannot count as wedding jewelry! Save the ringing for the church bells, please.

Wedding websites can be a fantastic way to share information about your upcoming nuptials with your guests. They can, however, get a bride and groom into some trouble. For one thing, bridal registry information, while an acceptable item to include on a wedding website, should not be the main feature. Wedding invitations and thank you notes should never be sent by e-mail. This is one time when the old way of doing things is still the best way, even for the most modern of couples.

Wedding Etiquette Books

Just as every bride is different, so is every wedding etiquette  book. For instance, if you are the kind of bride who likes everything to be “just so”, with your sets cultured pearl bridal bracelets, matching earrings, and necklaces, you will enjoy the style of “Miss Manners on Weddings”, which happens to be my personal favorite wedding etiquette primer. It is a short book, and by no means comprehensive, but it hits the high points, and does so in the usual amusing style of the doynenne of etiquette, Miss Manners. The witty anecdotes are a very amusing distraction from the stress of planning a wedding, and should you ever need to know the polite way to respond when someone asks to bring a monkey to your wedding ceremony, this book will have all the answers.

If you are looking for a basic wedding etiquette book that will cover every conceivable detail from the bridal shower through the end of the reception, then “Emily Post’s Wedding Etiquette” is for you. It is a hefty book, and at over 400 pages, you might not end up reading the entire tome from start to finish, but it makes a very handy reference tool for all of those sticky situations that crop up during the course of planning a wedding. The Emily Post book also covers quite a few contemporary etiquette situations, such as multicultural weddings and blended families.

For brides who spend hours on the internet checking out all of the latest tips and ideas or who buy every wedding magazine at the store, there are a couple of wedding etiquette books out now from the top wedding magazine/website editors. The countless fans of The Knot, will enjoy delving into “The Knot Complete Guide to Weddings in the Real World”. Another fan favorite is “Brides Book of Etiquette” from the same people who write the popular magazine “Brides”.

There are also more specialized wedding etiquette books available. Budget bride? Then check out “Bridal Bargains, 9^th edition: Secrets to Throwing a Fantastic Wedding on a Realistic Budget”. Or perhaps you need help fine tuning your wedding invitation wording. “Crane’s Wedding Blue Book” is there to help. There are also etiquette books on topics ranging from military weddings to gay weddings to weddings for blended families. Whatever your situation, whatever your style, there is an etiquette book available to help you plan your dream wedding.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Bachelorette Parties

Does a bachelorette party have to be rauchy? No! For that matter, neither does a bachelor party. The idea is to get together with your friends for one last night of fun before your wedding, and if Chippendale dancers and suggestively shaped lollipops are not your idea of a good time, then by all means skip the naughty stuff. A girls’ night out at your favorite pub or hitting the dance floor at the hottest nightclub in town are also fun and memorable, and you won’t spend the night feeling embarrassed.

Who pays for the bachelorette party? The bachelorette party is most often organized by the maid of honor and the bridesmaids (one more reason they deserve really awesome bridesmaid gifts!). If the party is one night at a local bar, they will usually split the costs between them. It may be that any upfront costs are evenly divided  and that each person pays for her own drinks and chips in extra to make sure the bride’s bar tab is covered at the end of the night. However, if the bachelorette party is going to be held over a weekend away at a spa or a party town like Las Vegas, the bride should be expected to pay for many of her own expenses. And no, the bridesmaids do not have to cover her gambling losses at the casino!

Who should be invited? Certainly, all of the bridesmaids and the maid of honor. Unless you are opting for a spa day or some other G-rated activity, the younger members of the bridal party should sit this one out. When the bachelorette party is held locally, feel free to invite the bride’s other friends who are not in the wedding, her co-workers, and so on. Who to leave out? The mothers and grandmothers of the bride and groom! Also don’t plan on inviting an extended entourage if you are taking the party on the road; it is just too expensive for most people.

Can it be co-ed? Sure! Just as bridal showers are now sometimes “Jack and Jill” events, so too can there be a co-ed bachelor/bachelorette party. Assemble the whole gang for a wild adventure at a favorite watering hole or club. At least this way, the bride and groom will not have to wonder what the other one did at their party!

Thoughtful Brides Know…

Sure, most of the brides you see on television are not the most thoughtful people. After all, more people will tune in to see an episode of “Bridezillas” than to watch a program about brides behaving beautifully. When it comes to your own real-life wedding, though, you could not do any better than to get a reputation for being a considerate and gracious bride. These are the things that thoughtful brides all know…

Your guests do not want to be inconvenienced. This means things like going with your second choice reception venue over your favorite because it is fifteen minutes away from the church instead of almost an hour away. It could mean setting up a bridal registry at a national chain, not just online if you will be having a lot of older guests who might prefer shopping in a brick and mortar store with salespeople to help them. Not hosting your reception in a remote location like a mountain top that involves a hike, unless all of your guests will be fitness nuts.

Everyone appreciates being appreciated. There will be countless opportunities to express your gratitude while planning your wedding. One of the most important ones is to give special thank you bridesmaid gifts like jewelry to your wedding party. If you take the time to customize or personalize your bridesmaid jewelry gifts, your attendants will feel even more special. And don’t forget about everyone else who helped to make your wedding a success; a simple note of appreciation with a photograph will mean a lot to your baker, florist, and the rest of your vendors.

Spending time to get the reception seating chart just right is really important. No one enjoys making seating charts, but the best hosts will always make an effort to seat people together who will enjoy each other’s company at dinner. Do your best to avoid leaving anyone stranded at a table with total strangers. Finally, be sure that anyone who does not get along will not be at adjacent tables, and arrange it so that divorced parents can each head their own table in a way that will make them feel equally important. It takes a little extra effort, but it is well worth it to be a gracious bride.

Tacky Wedding Ideas

The dictionary definition of the word tacky is “lacking style or good taste”. Not exactly the vision that most brides would say they have for their weddings, and yet every Saturday of the year, there are plenty of tacky things taking place at weddings around the country. These are some of the tackiest wedding ideas that some couples have at their weddings; ones which brides of taste should try to avoid at all costs!

One of the first examples of this that comes to mind is something that happened at a friend’s wedding. When her in-laws suggested a dollar dance, the naïve young bride, thought to herself, “Money is tight when planning a wedding, so a dollar dance would be a great way to raise some cash for the honeymoon.”. What she did not consider is that a dollar dance was not a custom that was usually observed where she came from, and far from lining up to dance with the bride and stuff money into her apron, the guests were appalled. Everyone remained standing on the sidelines while the bride suffered through the awkwardness of standing out on the dance floor alone for most of the dollar dance. A word to the wise, ladies, no matter how good it may sound at first, a dollar dance is always a tacky idea.

Another truly tacky idea that some couples have is to attempt to round up sponsors for their wedding in the same way one would for a charity event. The bride and groom go around to their relatives asking for donations in exchange for billing in the wedding program or a mention in the wedding toasts. It usually goes something like this: “Aunt Margaret, if you wanted to buy my wedding jewelry and veil for me, I will put a note in the program telling everyone how generous you were. And Uncle Bill, would you like to sponsor the d.j. for the reception?”. There is no other word for this behavior than shocking (or at least no other word that can appear in print!).

There is another very tacky thing that is sadly rather commonplace these days, which is including bridal registry information in the wedding invitations. Many brides may not even realize that this is in poor taste, especially since some registries will give you little cards for the express purpose of putting them in the envelopes with the invitations. But keep in mind that the store may not be worried about offending your guests, but you should be. After all, the last thing that you want is for the first impression people have of your wedding to be,”Oh my gosh – how tacky!”.

Rehearsal Dinner Etiquette

It is customary to hold a rehearsal dinner on the evening before a wedding. This event can be as formal or casual as you like, but either way, there are still some basic rules of etiquette that should be observed. Here is what you need to know about rehearsal dinner etiquette.

One of the biggest questions about any part of the wedding is who should be paying for it. Traditionally, the rehearsal dinner is planned and paid for by the groom’s family. This was done to help alleviate some of the financial burden from the bride’s father, who traditionally shouldered the entire burden of the other wedding expenses. These days, the groom’s family is more likely to pitch in with some of the other wedding costs, as are the bride and groom themselves. If the parents of the groom is helping to pay for the rest of the wedding, it is not technically necessary for them to cover all of the costs for the rehearsal dinner, although in most cases, they still will.

The next question is who should be invited to a rehearsal dinner. Etiquette used to be that the guest list for the rehearsal dinner was a small one: the bride and groom, their parents and other immediate family like siblings, and the wedding party. The age old question is whether it is necessary to invite the spouses or significant others of the bridal party, and the answer is yet. A rehearsal dinner is a social event, after all, and it is never appropriate to invite only one half of a married couple to a dinner party.

Something else that couples wonder is if they should be presenting their bridesmaid jewelry gifts and groomsmen gifts at the rehearsal dinner. The answer to this is no. The only thing that goes on at a rehearsal dinner (other than dinner, that is) is a couple of toasts, often from the parents of the bride and groom. Bridesmaid gifts like jewelry are best presented at a bridesmaids’ luncheon which takes place about two days before the wedding.

Planning a rehearsal dinner need not be a very time consuming or stressful thing. It should really be no more than a nice dinner to give the close family and friends of the bride and groom a chance to do a “meet and greet”. Now that you know the rehearsal dinner etiquette, the rest should be easy.

Wedding Etiquette for Divorced Parents

It is extremely common these days that either the bride, the groom, or both will have divorced parents. While hopefully, the families can put their differences aside for one day, there can be some sticky issues that arise. Etiquette to the rescue! With this guide to wedding etiquette for divorced parents in hand, it should make it easier to get through the wedding day in peace.

Beginning with the wedding invitation, when the bride’s parents are divorced, it is customary to list the name of each parent on a separate line, with any new spouses included. There is no point in trying to maintain the fiction that the bride’s parents are still a couple, nor is it acceptable to omit the name of a step-parent, even if the bride wishes that her parents were still married.  Regardless of financial contributions, the bride’s mother’s name is listed above her father’s name, in the spirit of “ladies first”.

Speaking of “ladies first”, at the wedding ceremony, it is generally going to be the bride or groom’s mother who occupies the place of honor in the first row or pew for the service. When the parents are divorced, the father will sit in the second row. Each parent can have their immediate family sit with them, and then the rest of the extended family can just be seated in the first available seats by the ushers, just like the rest of the guests.

One of the most difficult situations faced by brides with divorced parents involves the step-parents. Your wedding is one time when it is important to rise above petty differences and be as gracious as possible, which means being sweet and respectful to your step-mother, even if it is done through gritted teeth. For example, if the bride and groom are giving gifts of wedding jewelry to their mothers, it is also necessary to give any step-mothers similar wedding jewelry gifts. To not do so would definitely be a slight.

There are also cases where the bride has been primarily raised by her step-father, but is concerned about hurting her natural father’s feelings by diminishing his role in the wedding. Where this really comes into play is in deciding who should escort the bride down the aisle. The best advice that I can offer is to ask the man who you view as your “real father” to walk you down the aisle, and to let the other parent down as gently as possible. When the bride is truly torn, she will usually enlist her birth father for this special honor over a step-father.

Juggling divorced parents while planning a wedding is never easy, but in most cases, it can be managed well. As long as you try to be thoughtful of all parties involved, you will get through it just fine. And certainly knowing the proper wedding etiquette when questions do arise will help to make your job a bit easier.

Bridal Shower Etiquette

Whether you are a bride, a bridesmaid, or the mother of the bride, you will likely be attending a bridal shower in the near future. Before you get started on the planning, though, there are some important things that you should know. Getting familiar with the proper etiquette of bridal showers in advance will help you to have a lovely event that everyone will enjoy.

An important thing that the bride should remember is that you cannot ask a friend to have a shower on your behalf. Planning a bridal shower is time consuming and expensive, and although one is usually organized by one or more of the bridesmaids, it is not one of their obligations. Chances are that one of your close friends will step up and offer to host a party for you anyway; just make sure that she does it willingly, not under pressure.

The guest list of a bridal shower should consist only of guests who are actually invited to the wedding. It is the height of rudeness to ask guests to come to a party and give you a gift without including them in the main event. The only possible exception to this is if you work in the type of office that has a cake for every imaginable event. If your co-workers want to get together and toast you before your wedding, that it their prerogative.

After the wedding, there is one final piece of etiquette to be observed: writing the thank you notes! It is the bride’s duty to handwrite a thoughtful note for all of her wedding gifts, from the most stunning piece of jewelry down to the lowliest potholder. And don’t put it off – this is a task that is easiest when it is tackled in the week after the shower. A good tip is to have someone make a list of the gift and the donor’s name during the shower. That way, you will be sure not to forget to thank anyone. After all, showing your heartfelt appreciation is always good etiquette!

Rehearsal Dinner FAQs

When Is It Held? Usually the rehearsal dinner is held shortly after the wedding rehearsal on the day before the wedding itself. Sometimes one event flows directly into the other, although there may also be a lapse of a couple of hours in between. The time of day is important, as well. Ideally, you want to have your rehearsal dinner end fairly early, so that the bride and groom can get plenty of rest for their big day.

Who Should Be Invited? The key players in the rehearsal dinner are the bride and groom, their wedding party, the parents of the bride and groom (in any form or number!), and the officiant and his or her spouse. It is often common to add extended family and out-of-town guests to the list of invitees, as well.

Who Pays For It? The traditional answer was the parents of the groom, and this is still often the case. However, in many families, the old rules about who pays for what at a wedding are no longer strictly observed (which is usually a relief for the bride’s parents, who had to foot the bill for most of the wedding costs).

How Formal Should It Be? The formality of the rehearsal dinner in no way needs to match the level of formality of the wedding. You could be having a very grand black tie wedding with all of your guests in tuxedos, gowns, and their best wedding jewelry. That does not mean that your rehearsal dinner the day before the wedding can’t be a clam bake on the beach. In fact, a more relaxed atmosphere can be ideal for letting both sides of the family get to know one another better before the wedding.

Gracious Ways to Handle a Wedding “B” List

It is a fact of life: when you are planning a wedding, you can rarely invite everyone that you would like to. Either the budget is too small, the venue is too tight, or your family is just too big. One way that some couples handle this dilemma is by grouping their wedding guest lists into “A”s and “B”s.

In a nutshell, the “A” list is the group of people that you will definitely be inviting to your wedding. This group usually includes your immediate family, attendants, close friends, and the random people that your parents insist on inviting to your wedding because they are paying for it. The “B” list will typically be people that you would like to have, space permitting. “B” lists are generally populated by people such as more recently acquired friends, old college chums you haven’t seen in a while, and your co-workers.

As the R.s.v.p.s start to roll in from the first set of invitations, you can invite one person from the “B” list for each declined invitation.  The wedding invitations need to be sent out to the “A” list well in advance of your wedding date, usually at least 8 weeks, but sometimes even more. Where it gets dicey is that you have to finagle responses from all of the guests on your “A” list much earlier than usual – four weeks before the wedding at the minimum. If people ask why you need to have your answers so early, blame the caterer; whatever you do, never let on that you have a “B” list waiting in the wings.

Some people find the idea of two separate guest lists to be highly offensive. If you feel this way, then there are a few other paths that you can take. One of the nicest things that a couple can do is to scale back on the luxury of the wedding to be able to include everyone who is near and dear to them. Maybe you have to have your reception in a mid-range hotel instead of a ritzy private club, but in the end, you may find that who you have at your wedding is more important than where you have it.

Other couples will find other cost-cutting solutions to be able to expand their guest list. For instance, you can have a brunch instead of a sit-down evening reception. Another way to cut expenses is to order your bridesmaid jewelry sets online. You can find truly beautiful handcrafted bridesmaid jewelry sets made from Swarovksi crystals and freshwater pearls – they will look like a splurge, but can actually be very affordable bridesmaid gifts.

Whether you decide to have a two part guest list, or simply to cut your expenses so you can expand your guest list, the key is to be gracious. If you do have an “A” and a “B” list, be careful to keep that piece of information private. As long as you make all of your guests feel welcome and wanted, your wedding is sure to be a fabulous success.