By Georgina Clatworthy

If you have been invited to a wedding, then brushing up on your wedding guest etiquette skills would not be a bad thing.  Many of us think we know how to conduct ourselves in public, but in practice can often let the sense of occasion (and the free flowing champagne) cloud our judgment.  And whilst a drunken reveler at a wedding reception may seem like good entertainment on the wedding video, it is a potential headache for the other wedding guests and the bride and groom!

To begin with a dress code may have been specified by the bride and groom.  Often referred to as black tie, evening dress or perhaps a specific theme, each guest will be expected to arrive suitably suited and booted as it were and to not do so would be considered rude in the eyes of wedding etiquette.  If you are at all concerned about what you are expected to wear then a polite phone call to the bride’s mother or to the maid of honor should help you.

For the wedding ceremony each guest is expected to arrive around twenty minutes before the bride.  If you are late do not enter the ceremony venue but instead go directly to the reception venue, you can give your excuses to the couple later.  To enter the ceremony part way through what will be an emotional time for the bride and groom is very unsettling and can spoil what would be a romantic atmosphere.

When shown to your seats at the ceremony, make sure you have turned off any mobile phones and pagers and that you are comfortable – some ceremonies can take a long time so try to visit the bathroom before you sit down!  Try not to make any blasphemous comments if the ceremony is a religious one and be careful of your language! 

The wedding reception is the part everyone looks forward to the most, but this too is often filled with many traditions and customs that require a degree of etiquette to be applied from the invited guests.  Don’t take advantage of your host’s hospitality too early on!  A welcome drink is usually on supplied one to each guest, so make it last unless a pay bar is available.  Depending on the style of the wedding and the hospitality laid on you maybe offered a refill, but try not to get roaring drunk before the first speeches have been given!

Make yourself available for the wedding photographs and don’t disappear off to the bar at the first opportunity!  Many couples like to have a photograph of themselves and all the wedding guests so whether you are close to them or not, make sure you can be found when called upon.  Peaking too soon on the free Champagne and wine is one of the biggest problems faced by wedding guests and the bride and groom.  No-one wants a drunken reveler loosing all their inhibitions and shouting out comments about the bride or what the groom got up to on the bachelor party!  Keep the drinking in check at least until the evening party is in full swing, then you can let loose!

By Georgina Clatworthy

By modern standards there are many different ways of getting married and of celebrating the occasion.  The traditional white wedding is perhaps less favored these days, although for many a formal occasion with many of traditions and customs is popular.  And, although times have changed and the modern wedding etiquette guide is now more widely accepted, the idea of a wedding having a big sense of occasion has remained and it is this that will sway many brides towards a church wedding rather than a small civil affair.

Wedding etiquette has not been immune to the changes in the modern wedding, couples these days are less likely to follow it to the letter and instead the unwritten rules of social behavior have been relaxed and amended a little!  Gone are the days when the bride and her mother would organize everything, when it was customary for the groom’s parents to pay for the ceremony and the bride’s parents to pay for everything else and even the roles of the wedding party has changed significantly.

That said, so many couples still like to let the traditional etiquette guide them and to take on board the opinions and feelings of their family and friends.  There are many protocols, traditions and customs associated with weddings, but just how many are included in the modern wedding is a matter for the bride and groom.  Whether you choose to follow wedding etiquette to the letter or to decide to follow just a few of the formalities, the modern wedding does require a certain amount of flexibility within the long-established etiquette familiar to most.

Invitations for instance, traditionally wedding etiquette would guide the couple to choosing formal wedding invitations which contain just the bare minimum but essential information the wedding guest would need to know.  Enclosures such as gift registries, accommodation and travel details and perhaps even RSVP cards where definitely frowned upon, but for the modern wedding they have become something of a necessity if only to save the bride’s sanity from answering endless phone calls about local hotels, directions, and preferred wedding gifts!  The inclusion of an RSVP card also necessitates a speedier response from the recipient, allowing the wedding planning to proceed at a faster pace than perhaps it would with a more traditional wedding.

The matter of who pays for the wedding and who consequently will host it has also changed beyond traditional etiquette.  As alluded to earlier the groom’s parents would pay for the ceremony, the groom would pay for honeymoon and the bride’s parents would foot the bill for everything else.  Because they would have paid the most, the bride’s parents would then become the hosts, hence the traditional wedding invitation wording ‘Mr & Mrs Smith request the pleasure of the company of ……….. at the wedding of their daughter Felicity Jane to Michael James Brown’.

Today most couples will pay for the wedding themselves or the cost will be shared between the couple and their parents.  This can lead to a dilemma – who is the host? Traditional wedding etiquette would say that whosoever paid the most amount of money towards the wedding would become the hosts, but many couples will still observe the traditional rule of the bride’s parents being the hosts.  I guess what I am trying to point out is that in the modern wedding anything goes! You can choose to follow the traditional wedding etiquette to the letter or to bend the rules a little in your favor.  Making your life a little easier during the wedding planning is no bad thing and on the whole is encouraged, do what you feel comfortable with and abandon the rest – it is your wedding so do it your way!