1. Expecting no friendly exes on the guest list
This is a mistake that hovers between brides and grooms, without the family and friends involved. Which can actually make it even more intense. Either you or your groom wants to invite an ex to the wedding, and that idea is not going over well. It doesn’t matter how intense the relationship was, if it was intimate or if you never slept together, the issue is often the same. You don’t want your groom to even be reminded of an ex-girlfriend on your wedding day, and wouldn’t seeing her there
automatically bring up memories of their vacation to Mexico? It’s an insecurity roller coaster if you let yourself get caught up in petty jealousies over a friendly ex on the guest list when the ex in question is out of the picture fully. If she’s married now with three kids, and they’ve remained friends, that shows you what a great guy you’re marrying. Some guys discard women and never even think about remaining friends because they’re of no use to them. So the mistake here would be in becoming the problem by lapsing into insecurity, worrying if he still has feelings for her, if she was prettier, etc. A nervous mind can create all kinds of worry scenarios. So just brush it off and think of it another way: she’s just a woman he knows. And maybe what he learned in their relationship made him a better boyfriend to you. So this woman might be the reason he was ready for marriage when you were. Now, if this ex still flirts with him and behaves inappropriately, explain to your groom that her behavior makes you very uncomfortable, and you feel strongly about her not being invited to the wedding. It would be a big mistake for her to be invited, since her attention-grabbing antics and past disrespect for you have no place in your wedding day. Don’t turn this into a loyalty tug of war. He’s loyal to you. He’s marrying you. He just might have some mutual friends who would take issue with her not being invited. Make sure you know the intricacies of his issue with this before you attempt to lay down a rule on him. Always be partners in your decisions, and let him know that her presence would take some of the joy out of your day, and if she caused any problem at the wedding, you would have a very hard time getting over it, because you did request that she be left off the list. Let your groom know that this is a serious issue for you, and that you’d really like him to honor your request here. And see the gift in this mistake you’ve just avoided: it got you really working together as a team and represented the kinds of give-and-take that make for successful marriages. Thanks, ex-girlfriend!
2. Not giving ‘And Guest’ invitations according to a set rule
This one falls under the Etiquette heading, and according to etiquette, every single guest over the age of 18 should get an And Guest. Today, though, with weddings being so expensive and guest lists so large, some couples are taking etiquette into their own hands and creating their own rules for the +1. It could be that guests can bring a date only if they’re engaged. As you might expect, that creates a firestorm of controversy, because what happens to the longtime couple who’s been together for five years, they’re not engaged, but the cousin who just got engaged to the guy she met on the Internet two months ago does qualify for an And Guest? This is the kind of thing that offends people, gets the gossip mill running full steam, and those ‘what about me?’ e-mails come pouring in to you and to your mother, controversy swirling all over the place. To avoid this current firestorm, you can decide that you’ll give an And Guest to all your single guests. Including senior citizens who appreciate the gesture, and often bring their personal aides or nurses as a treat and for their own assistance. It’s just a cleaner way to handle your guest list, and it prevents a ton of additional mistakes that almost always follow a ‘no and-guest’ ruling…and those would be giving in to pressure from some guests, allowing them to bring a date, and then others hear about it, and pretty soon, you have a lot of hurt feelings. It is okay to specify that teens are not to bring dates. That one is okay to claim without controversy.
3. Allowing some guests to bring kids after you’ve said "No Kids"
Again, this mistake taps into the mass confusion caused by your backpedaling on your own rule and giving in to pressure. Guests know that when they get a wedding invitation and it doesn’t say ‘and family,’ that it means their kids aren’t invited. And many guests are happy about that. A night out without their toddler? Bring it on! Of course, there are always some guests who look at your wedding like a family reunion, thinking “This would be a great opportunity for all the faraway relatives to meet my two kids for the first time!” So you get phone calls and e-mails asking if they can bring the kids, and then you’ll also get the litany of issues such as not having a babysitter, not being ready to travel without the baby, and so on. Your solution to this is to let the guests know that they can bring their kids with them into town, and to the hotel, but not to the wedding. And when they call to say they heard your sister’s kids are invited, because they’re the flowergirls, you might be pressured to let it slide just this once. And then another time. And then you have forty kids invited, with half the guests certain to be angered over the fact that they went by the rules and hired a babysitter when so many other people weren’t required to do so. It really is quite unfair, and they have every reason to be upset. When you essentially ignore those who have honored your request, it comes off as favoritism or a double standard. Which doesn’t make for a happy wedding guest. Worst of all is when they find out at the wedding that so many others were able to bring their kids.
Do: Stick to your plans about guests bringing kids. You can allow the closest kids in your life, such as the flowergirl, the ringbearer, and your best friend’s child who is your godson, and not worry about any perceived favoritism from other guests, since it’s a given that you will have a few VIP kids in attendance.
Don’t: Make exceptions for anyone, and don’t allow parents to pressure you into making exceptions for anyone who wants to bring the kids along. For anyone who asks, let them know that there will be plenty of mingling and social time during the wedding weekend for them to show off their kids, but for the wedding itself, would they like to hear about the special babysitting suite you’ve arranged with qualified babysitters and a kids’ menu? Case closed!
4. Allowing parents’ guest lists to take over your space
If parents are paying for all or part of the wedding, they see it as Their Party. So they may feel entitled to invite a few dozen of their closest friends. Which takes valuable space away from your ability to invite all of your friends. Parents say it’s important to share this big day with their friends, since their friends are all so happy for you and supportive of your happy marriage, and that their friends are likely to give more generous wedding gifts. That shouldn’t matter at all. When you find yourself in a situation where your parents have more friends invited to the wedding than you do, something is wrong with this picture. Sensing your oncoming confrontation, parents step up with the dreaded, “We’re paying for our extra invited friends, so what’s the problem?” The problem now multiplies, because they just insulted you by implying that your issue is the money. That you’re greedy. Somehow, they managed to gloss right over the fact that they’re hijacking your guest list and outnumbering the people with whom you’re closest. So prevent this dangerous mistake by stating early how many guest spots your parents can have. If you’re at any early stage of the wedding plans, tell them (in that same conversation where you say that no guests can be verbally invited yet) that you’re ballparking their allowable friends guest list at 15 for now. Once you get a more realistic feel for your own guest list, you might expand or contract that amount. If parents feel the first sting of your taking control, just lighten it up with a smile and a simple, “We just have to figure out how many people we can fit in our locations, and we don’t want an enormous wedding that’s more like a circus.” Parents also might need to hear, “A more intimate, smaller wedding would be far more impressive to all of our guests, because we’ll have more money to devote to the beautiful things like the flowers and the cake. We don’t want a giant wedding that doesn’t have anything beautiful, right?” You’ve just prevented an enormous problem by buying time now, and figuring out your parents’ guest list later. That’s the best way to avoid this mistake.
5. Giving in to friends’ pressure to extend obligation invitations
It’s not all your parents’ fault. Sometimes it’s your other friends who put the pressure on to invite satellite friends and other couples with whom you all socialize. You might not have spoken with some of your college friends in years, but, they say, wouldn’t it be great if you could all get together at your wedding to re-connect and re-live old times? That’s what class reunions are for. This is your wedding, and the only people who should be invited are the people with whom you’re currently close and who you plan to have in your life in the future. If some members of your former circle of friends have drifted away, there’s a good reason for that. You’ll know the difference between friends who have just been busy or live faraway, and you can go 6 months without talking but it’s like no time has passed when you do call to catch up. That’s not the kind of friends we’re talking about here. We’re talking about friends you have outgrown, or with whom you have nothing in common anymore. It’s just a different feeling, a sense of dread when you think about devoting two guest spaces to them. If you’re feeling dread, it would be a mistake to invite them. So close down the peer pressure by letting your friends know that you’ll see those other friends at the class reunion someday but for right now, you’re sticking with friends you talk to often and see often.
6. Verbally inviting people before your plans are set
Again, the excitement gets you – and your parents, who are often the major offenders with this one – and you’ve mentioned the wedding to the entire family before you’ve really even figured out your budget or your locations. Colleagues think they’re invited, your parents invite their friends, and pretty soon that guests list is out of control. And then you have to handle the inevitable letdown of letting parents know that they can’t invite so many of their friends, or let your colleagues know that you’re out of space so while you wish you could invite your closest co-workers, you can’t invite some but not all. It turns into a mess. So here’s your solution: tell your parents now that you’re putting a gag rule on the wedding plans. They’re not to invite anyone until you’re at a good place in your planning, know your budget and your space availability, have your locations booked and know just how many people can share in your big day. With the ruling handed down now, you prevent a collection of major mistakes that hurt feelings and get parents wheeling and dealing to get their friends invited to the wedding they’re helping to pay for. Egos stay out of it, and it becomes a timing thing.
7. Not following office protocol
It’s important to maintain a certain protocol when it comes to co-workers and bosses on your wedding guest list. You can invite just the office friends with whom you socialize, and not the entire department. Your boss should be invited if he or she gave you time off to plan the wedding, and if you have a great relationship. It’s becoming a more common practice to invite the boss even if you have only a professional relationship, as well. Where you make a mistake is in inviting too many co-workers as a way to get more gifts. I’m hearing this more and more – from the co-workers who are offended that brides and grooms are inviting them to showers and weddings when they barely know them. That’s a too-obvious grab for gifts. You need to know about that perception even if it’s not your intention. You thought that it was the right thing to do as a matter of etiquette, inviting all rather than some, but it comes off as greedy. So draw the natural line to include only the colleagues you’d normally socialize with outside the office, those with whom you’re close, those who have enjoyed discussing your wedding planning with you and perhaps suggested the caterer you hired, and the others will understand if they don’t make the list. It’s part of office culture to have groups, and the many outsiders don’t get invited to everything.
This is a mistake that hovers between brides and grooms, without the family and friends involved. Which can actually make it even more intense. Either you or your groom wants to invite an ex to the wedding, and that idea is not going over well. It doesn’t matter how intense the relationship was, if it was intimate or if you never slept together, the issue is often the same. You don’t want your groom to even be reminded of an ex-girlfriend on your wedding day, and wouldn’t seeing her there
automatically bring up memories of their vacation to Mexico? It’s an insecurity roller coaster if you let yourself get caught up in petty jealousies over a friendly ex on the guest list when the ex in question is out of the picture fully. If she’s married now with three kids, and they’ve remained friends, that shows you what a great guy you’re marrying. Some guys discard women and never even think about remaining friends because they’re of no use to them. So the mistake here would be in becoming the problem by lapsing into insecurity, worrying if he still has feelings for her, if she was prettier, etc. A nervous mind can create all kinds of worry scenarios. So just brush it off and think of it another way: she’s just a woman he knows. And maybe what he learned in their relationship made him a better boyfriend to you. So this woman might be the reason he was ready for marriage when you were. Now, if this ex still flirts with him and behaves inappropriately, explain to your groom that her behavior makes you very uncomfortable, and you feel strongly about her not being invited to the wedding. It would be a big mistake for her to be invited, since her attention-grabbing antics and past disrespect for you have no place in your wedding day. Don’t turn this into a loyalty tug of war. He’s loyal to you. He’s marrying you. He just might have some mutual friends who would take issue with her not being invited. Make sure you know the intricacies of his issue with this before you attempt to lay down a rule on him. Always be partners in your decisions, and let him know that her presence would take some of the joy out of your day, and if she caused any problem at the wedding, you would have a very hard time getting over it, because you did request that she be left off the list. Let your groom know that this is a serious issue for you, and that you’d really like him to honor your request here. And see the gift in this mistake you’ve just avoided: it got you really working together as a team and represented the kinds of give-and-take that make for successful marriages. Thanks, ex-girlfriend!
2. Not giving ‘And Guest’ invitations according to a set rule
This one falls under the Etiquette heading, and according to etiquette, every single guest over the age of 18 should get an And Guest. Today, though, with weddings being so expensive and guest lists so large, some couples are taking etiquette into their own hands and creating their own rules for the +1. It could be that guests can bring a date only if they’re engaged. As you might expect, that creates a firestorm of controversy, because what happens to the longtime couple who’s been together for five years, they’re not engaged, but the cousin who just got engaged to the guy she met on the Internet two months ago does qualify for an And Guest? This is the kind of thing that offends people, gets the gossip mill running full steam, and those ‘what about me?’ e-mails come pouring in to you and to your mother, controversy swirling all over the place. To avoid this current firestorm, you can decide that you’ll give an And Guest to all your single guests. Including senior citizens who appreciate the gesture, and often bring their personal aides or nurses as a treat and for their own assistance. It’s just a cleaner way to handle your guest list, and it prevents a ton of additional mistakes that almost always follow a ‘no and-guest’ ruling…and those would be giving in to pressure from some guests, allowing them to bring a date, and then others hear about it, and pretty soon, you have a lot of hurt feelings. It is okay to specify that teens are not to bring dates. That one is okay to claim without controversy.
3. Allowing some guests to bring kids after you’ve said "No Kids"
Again, this mistake taps into the mass confusion caused by your backpedaling on your own rule and giving in to pressure. Guests know that when they get a wedding invitation and it doesn’t say ‘and family,’ that it means their kids aren’t invited. And many guests are happy about that. A night out without their toddler? Bring it on! Of course, there are always some guests who look at your wedding like a family reunion, thinking “This would be a great opportunity for all the faraway relatives to meet my two kids for the first time!” So you get phone calls and e-mails asking if they can bring the kids, and then you’ll also get the litany of issues such as not having a babysitter, not being ready to travel without the baby, and so on. Your solution to this is to let the guests know that they can bring their kids with them into town, and to the hotel, but not to the wedding. And when they call to say they heard your sister’s kids are invited, because they’re the flowergirls, you might be pressured to let it slide just this once. And then another time. And then you have forty kids invited, with half the guests certain to be angered over the fact that they went by the rules and hired a babysitter when so many other people weren’t required to do so. It really is quite unfair, and they have every reason to be upset. When you essentially ignore those who have honored your request, it comes off as favoritism or a double standard. Which doesn’t make for a happy wedding guest. Worst of all is when they find out at the wedding that so many others were able to bring their kids.
Do: Stick to your plans about guests bringing kids. You can allow the closest kids in your life, such as the flowergirl, the ringbearer, and your best friend’s child who is your godson, and not worry about any perceived favoritism from other guests, since it’s a given that you will have a few VIP kids in attendance.
Don’t: Make exceptions for anyone, and don’t allow parents to pressure you into making exceptions for anyone who wants to bring the kids along. For anyone who asks, let them know that there will be plenty of mingling and social time during the wedding weekend for them to show off their kids, but for the wedding itself, would they like to hear about the special babysitting suite you’ve arranged with qualified babysitters and a kids’ menu? Case closed!
4. Allowing parents’ guest lists to take over your space
If parents are paying for all or part of the wedding, they see it as Their Party. So they may feel entitled to invite a few dozen of their closest friends. Which takes valuable space away from your ability to invite all of your friends. Parents say it’s important to share this big day with their friends, since their friends are all so happy for you and supportive of your happy marriage, and that their friends are likely to give more generous wedding gifts. That shouldn’t matter at all. When you find yourself in a situation where your parents have more friends invited to the wedding than you do, something is wrong with this picture. Sensing your oncoming confrontation, parents step up with the dreaded, “We’re paying for our extra invited friends, so what’s the problem?” The problem now multiplies, because they just insulted you by implying that your issue is the money. That you’re greedy. Somehow, they managed to gloss right over the fact that they’re hijacking your guest list and outnumbering the people with whom you’re closest. So prevent this dangerous mistake by stating early how many guest spots your parents can have. If you’re at any early stage of the wedding plans, tell them (in that same conversation where you say that no guests can be verbally invited yet) that you’re ballparking their allowable friends guest list at 15 for now. Once you get a more realistic feel for your own guest list, you might expand or contract that amount. If parents feel the first sting of your taking control, just lighten it up with a smile and a simple, “We just have to figure out how many people we can fit in our locations, and we don’t want an enormous wedding that’s more like a circus.” Parents also might need to hear, “A more intimate, smaller wedding would be far more impressive to all of our guests, because we’ll have more money to devote to the beautiful things like the flowers and the cake. We don’t want a giant wedding that doesn’t have anything beautiful, right?” You’ve just prevented an enormous problem by buying time now, and figuring out your parents’ guest list later. That’s the best way to avoid this mistake.
5. Giving in to friends’ pressure to extend obligation invitations
It’s not all your parents’ fault. Sometimes it’s your other friends who put the pressure on to invite satellite friends and other couples with whom you all socialize. You might not have spoken with some of your college friends in years, but, they say, wouldn’t it be great if you could all get together at your wedding to re-connect and re-live old times? That’s what class reunions are for. This is your wedding, and the only people who should be invited are the people with whom you’re currently close and who you plan to have in your life in the future. If some members of your former circle of friends have drifted away, there’s a good reason for that. You’ll know the difference between friends who have just been busy or live faraway, and you can go 6 months without talking but it’s like no time has passed when you do call to catch up. That’s not the kind of friends we’re talking about here. We’re talking about friends you have outgrown, or with whom you have nothing in common anymore. It’s just a different feeling, a sense of dread when you think about devoting two guest spaces to them. If you’re feeling dread, it would be a mistake to invite them. So close down the peer pressure by letting your friends know that you’ll see those other friends at the class reunion someday but for right now, you’re sticking with friends you talk to often and see often.
6. Verbally inviting people before your plans are set
Again, the excitement gets you – and your parents, who are often the major offenders with this one – and you’ve mentioned the wedding to the entire family before you’ve really even figured out your budget or your locations. Colleagues think they’re invited, your parents invite their friends, and pretty soon that guests list is out of control. And then you have to handle the inevitable letdown of letting parents know that they can’t invite so many of their friends, or let your colleagues know that you’re out of space so while you wish you could invite your closest co-workers, you can’t invite some but not all. It turns into a mess. So here’s your solution: tell your parents now that you’re putting a gag rule on the wedding plans. They’re not to invite anyone until you’re at a good place in your planning, know your budget and your space availability, have your locations booked and know just how many people can share in your big day. With the ruling handed down now, you prevent a collection of major mistakes that hurt feelings and get parents wheeling and dealing to get their friends invited to the wedding they’re helping to pay for. Egos stay out of it, and it becomes a timing thing.
7. Not following office protocol
It’s important to maintain a certain protocol when it comes to co-workers and bosses on your wedding guest list. You can invite just the office friends with whom you socialize, and not the entire department. Your boss should be invited if he or she gave you time off to plan the wedding, and if you have a great relationship. It’s becoming a more common practice to invite the boss even if you have only a professional relationship, as well. Where you make a mistake is in inviting too many co-workers as a way to get more gifts. I’m hearing this more and more – from the co-workers who are offended that brides and grooms are inviting them to showers and weddings when they barely know them. That’s a too-obvious grab for gifts. You need to know about that perception even if it’s not your intention. You thought that it was the right thing to do as a matter of etiquette, inviting all rather than some, but it comes off as greedy. So draw the natural line to include only the colleagues you’d normally socialize with outside the office, those with whom you’re close, those who have enjoyed discussing your wedding planning with you and perhaps suggested the caterer you hired, and the others will understand if they don’t make the list. It’s part of office culture to have groups, and the many outsiders don’t get invited to everything.
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