5 things wedding guests hate
When we organize a wedding and we imagine the whole D-day, we think a lot about the decoration, often in the smallest details, about the sequence of the different phases of the wedding, from the town hall to the vin d’honneur and the secular ceremony, and sometimes we forget some essential points which are nevertheless fundamental for the well-being of the guests. So that each guest keeps a great memory of the most beautiful day of your life, we reminds you of 5 important points to think about, for more fluidity.
Waiting too long between the ceremony and the reception party.
The day of a wedding is busy. You have to go to the town hall, the religious ceremony, the secular ceremony, then the vin d’honneur, the meal and the dance party… it’s a lot. But already, on the one hand, maybe you will lighten the planning by not doing everything on the same day. On the other hand, maybe you will “spread out” all these steps so as not to speed up everyone. Then there may be “gaps” in the day, and there, especially for guests who come from far away and have no place to stay, it can be long. We invite you to think about these moments of latency for those who cannot go home and who will have to spend several hours in cocktail dresses/suits and high heels… Where will all these people go? Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself what you would have liked to be proposed in their situation.
Example: the civil wedding is scheduled in the morning and the secular ceremony in the afternoon. You have planned to go home to eat, but what are the others doing in the meantime? Their hotel room won’t be ready yet and squatting for 4 hours in a restaurant is not always a good idea… and drying off in a park is nice, but in winter or when it’s raining, thanks…
Anticipating this kind of thing will allow all your guests to have a good day.
You can also ask people to go collect leaves for the exit of the ceremony. Let them at least serve a purpose!
Group photos that go on too long
Again, ask yourself what your guests are going to be doing all this time. Having a list of 45 groups of people to photograph will make everyone go crazy. Especially your photographer. Who will happily hate you in the end. Even from the beginning, right when you present the list. The list of people you’ll be photographing will include: “the grannies”, “the grandpas”, “the uncles but only the ones who are drunk and wearing glasses”, “mom-in-law’s yoga friends”… nobody cares. Don’t monopolize your photographer for that, there are so many more important moments to capture. It’s boring for everyone. Go to the essential for the “official” group photos, let it go fast so that we can finally go to the cocktail party!
If you’re looking for me at a wedding, follow the Champagne source!
Too long a drive to the reception venue
Again, it’s all about planning. But for the guests who have already spent more than 3 hours in the car, getting up at dawn to attend the 15 minutes at the town hall, if you ask them to drive 1h30 again to the place of the ceremony, there is a moment when they might cringe. Here again, you can optimize by proposing to these people to meet you directly at the reception place. They will have time to go to the hotel to freshen up, drop off their stuff, change clothes, get a makeover… in short, they will appreciate you offering them this option.
(For example, the bride’s great uncle, who has driven 5 hours from far and who has to drive 1h30 more in the other direction, to attend the ceremony. At this moment, he is exhausted and he hates the grooms. He will drink more than he should at the vin d’honneur and will end the evening dancing shirtless while asking the DJ for Johnny Hallyday. Nobody wants that. So suggest a plan B).
A beautiful but impractical decoration !
The trend in terms of wedding decoration and more particularly centerpieces is to compositions that more or less block the view to the guests. It’s pretty, it’s really nice, but frankly, it’s not practical to discuss. So unless you have only invited people who can’t stand each other or have nothing in common, or you are obliged to put at the same table pro-vaccine / anti-vaccine people who must not talk to each other under penalty of declaring the third world war, avoid.
Being able to exchange with more than two people (your table neighbors) is still nice. (especially if they are jerks)
The exorbitant costs to participate in the wedding
Of course your guests are happy to participate to the most beautiful day of your life… but they still need to be able to afford it and especially to calculate, from the point of view of the people who will come, what it should cost.
Travel, accommodation on site, “on the side” (restaurant if they have to wait as announced in the first point)… think that all this will influence the envelope they will leave you in the ballot box . It’s not what’s important, it’s obvious, but maybe it’s better that this money is used for your honeymoon rather than in freeway expenses?
