Now, for most of you reading this, it’s likely that you are the HOST of a party (most likely the party in question is your wedding) so, this post may not apply to you, specifically, BUT, if you may find it amusing/relevant to some of your guests… AND you may find yourself posting this to your Facebook wall in the hopes that the offending friend happens to see it, read it, and correct his or herself. 

The truth is that for every major fete that gets planned, there is at least ONE guest who receives the invitation and, on the turn of a dime, morphs from being your friend or relative that you wanted to include in celebration to a guest from hell.  It’s possible that this bad guest might be you!  In case you weren’t sure what constituted good or bad guest behavior, we at the AAB offices developed a quick quiz to help you diagnose and correct your behavoir. Sadly each and EVERY case here has happened in real life.

1.  You receive a Save the Date for an old friend’s wedding.  You immediately:

a) Mark the date in your calendar, book your plane ticket and reserve your hotel room.

b) Put it up on your fridge with the other ones.

c) Call your mutual friends to see if they also got it and bitch, collectively about how much these weddings always end up costing and the only kind of travel you ever seem to do anymore is to go to weddings.

d) Email the bride or groom with a list of questions about who else you know might be coming, if they might know of cheaper hotels than the ones suggested, if you are invited with a guest because it didn’t specify if you were or not.

2.  You and your spouse receive an invitation in the mail addressed only to you and making no mention of your very adorable young daughter.  You:

a) Immediately start calling your parents/ baby-sitter of choice to see if you have childcare available before you RSVP.

b) Call / Email the bride to see if they have a baby-sitting service that they can recommend or that the hotel recommends.

c) You call/ email the bride to say that you aren’t sure if you are going to be able to come or not because it didn’t seem like your adorable daughter was invited and you aren’t sure if you can arrange childcare. You are doing your best, but you will have to let them know at the last minute if you can actually make it.. The entire call is in the hopes that they r hopefully break down and just tell you to bring her.

d) Begin shopping for adorable dresses for adorable daughter to wear to the party and emailing bride to tell her about your daughter’s peanut and gluten allergies.  They must recognize how ridiculous it is to invite people who have children to parties and then expect them to not bring them, so CLEARLY it was an oversight that your child’s name wasn’t on the invite.

You get invited to a destination wedding, with an invitation that directs you to a very robust website filled with travel recommendations, accommodation info, a guest book and a detailed itinerary of the weekend. You:

a) book your flight and hotel. You email some of the other guests that you see are invited to see if you can share a rental car. You LOVE destination weddings!

b) Realize that the dates/ cost aren’t in your budget and send your regrets promptly along with a gift from the registry.

c) Email the couple with questions easily answered on the website.  Post travel advisories to the area on the guestbook.  Email the couple to find out who else is coming that you would know and can they help you get from the airport to the resort.

d) Email the couple and tell them that because of the expense of the location you chose, you aren’t sure yet if you can afford to join them.  You want to, but you are going to have to let them know really last minute, and you hope that will be okay. Then you never actually tell them one way or the other.

You are on your way to a wedding that has an invitation time of 6PM. You:

a) Arrive at about 10 of 6, you never know if these things will start on time.  You arrive alone as you are single and not dating anyone in particular and weren’t invited with guest.  You wear a lovely jewel tone cocktail dress.  You enjoy the ceremony, chit chat at cocktail hour, dance when it’s time to dance and tell the couple how pretty the room looked and what a beautiful wedding it was.

b) You arrive at 6:15, a little nervous that you are late.  It was hard making your way on the train with the GIGANTIC panini press you saw on sale at Williams Sonoma earlier that day, which wasn’t on their registry, but WHO doesn’t love Panini?  You are so stressed out that there will be no single guys to dance with that you zone out for the whole ceremony.  You drink too much at cocktail hour, but meet very cute guy sitting at your table.  You end the night dirty dancing on the dancefloor before you leave in a taxi without saying anything to the bride or groom. Crap! But you text them to tell them how much fun you had and you hope they like Panini.

c) You arrive at 6:30 because your date was late.  You weren’t invited with a date, you realize this, but you are sure that your friend will understand especially when you tell her that he is the love of your life. You are hoping that you can quietly find him a seat at the table without calling to much attention to yourself. Your stress about this causes you to zone out for the better part of the ceremony, BUT you find the wedding planner during cocktails and resolve the extra guest issue without too much of a scene.  The reception is awesome, though you drink too much worrying that you might never get married yourself and your date has to take you home early.  You did kiss the bride before you left to tell her how beautiful she looks.

d) You arrive at 6:45 because your uninvited date dropped something on your white dress and it took you a minute to clean the mark off yourself before you head out.  You are shocked when you get there and the ceremony already has started and so you exclaim “But the ceremony NEVER starts on time!”  I don’t know that I need to get into the rest of the night except to say that you found the band too loud and the room too cold and told EVERYONE and you decided to move your table to sit with your friends.

If you had mainly A’s.  You are a model wedding guest and friend.  You should hire yourself out.

If you had mainly B’s, you are a normal person and a wedding guest.  You are probably better than average, you know that this event isn’t about you, and you try and be gracious and polite when push comes to shove.

If you had mainly C’s..  you were raised better than your guest behavior.  You are subtly aware that you are making the event about yourself with your bad behavior, but you can’t stop yourself.

If you had mainly D’s.. you should hug people for still inviting you anywhere.  Talk less, listen more and remember, you aren’t the star of every constellation. (That’s real talk.)

The Q:  My son just got engaged to his very wonderful girlfriend, who I like quite a bit.  I have two daughters who are already married, so I am quite accustomed to being the Mother of the Bride, but the role of Mother of the Groom is a new one for me.  My son’s future in-laws have never planned a wedding before.  How can I be helpful without seeming like I’m over-stepping my boundaries?

The A:  My Aunt Linda, the mother of two now married sons, often passes on the advice that a friend passed along to her before her eldest sons’ wedding.  “The mother of the bride needs to do two things: show up and wear beige.”  She then admitted that at her second son’s wedding she actually wore navy, but only after she spoke to the mother of the bride about what she was wearing.

Now, while that is a sure-fire way to offend no one and step on no toes, if you feel that you can be helpful and that the help is wanted and needed than I think that’s fantastic.  The way that this will be received is best predicted by the way that it’s put out there.  Reach out to your future daughter-in-law and possibly her parents and just let them know that you are so excited about the wedding, that you know they haven’t been down this road before, so if they want any extra hands you would be more than enthusiastic about weighing in on contracts, or bands or whatever.  The main thing to keep in mind is that there is a big difference between offering assistance when asked and butting in.  There is also a difference between helping out and giving your opinion.  I think the main point is that the role of the mother of the groom is, to put it in Hogwart’s terms, to be the Room of Requirements.  You kind of are whatever is needed, all while being supportive, positive and… wearing beige. :-)

Unless you spent last week literally on a safari in the middle of nowhere with no cell service or internet, you might have heard that a little storm passed through the East Coast of the states…   In truth, here in NYC, while it was not the worst that was feared by many (including my boyfriend, who taped up all the windows of the apartment like we were ready for a blitz- never let it be said I don’t love a prepared man!) it did quite literally put a damper on many celebrations up and down the East Coast and here in the city.

Many couples, after months and months of preparation and monetary commitment decided to persevere; albeit with many guests missing and potentially many vendors…  But still others had a thought about it and wondered if re-scheduling the “DAY” might not be the best call after all.  While there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer (each choice comes with it’s own pros and cons)  it did get me thinking about Rain Plans and “Acts of God” and how hard it really is, emotionally, to make that call.

Years ago, early in our career, we had a wedding ceremony planned underneath the Brooklyn Bridge.  We had a great rain plan, but what we never discussed was WHAT MERITED A RAIN CALL?  The day of the wedding approached and thunderstorms were flashing off and on with severe lightning all day. Not constant, but big and bold. The bride broke out in hives with worry, but she refused to make a rain call.  The florist wouldn’t delivery the arrangements (in iron pots) to the boardwalk.  The musicians wouldn’t bring their instruments out in the weather.  The chair delivery company felt it was a liability to have their staff on the boardwalk.  But the couple did NOT want to make a rain call.  We instead sorted the chairs out ourselves, bought a ton of umbrellas and rented a speaker last minute to use an ipod.  It was lovely, but it was a gamble that took years off all of our collective lives.

After that day, Mayra and I decided we would always set in advance what would merit a weather call.  It can be not raining, but 100 degrees and too humid (which stinks) or it can be gale like winds and not a cloud in the sky (not fun) or.. it can be an impending hurricane that may or may not soak your party and leave your guests stranded.

Winter brides know all too well that they need to factor in weather as a concern when they set a date. What if there is a blizzard and our guests can’t get in?  What if there is a snowstorm and our vendors can’t make it?  But sometimes, it’s just good to gauge your  bad weather plan and know what is your “threshold” to change your plan in general.  Here is a list of things to consider when considering to go to your “Plan B” or even, in a worst case scenario, Postpone the celebration.

1.  Does the weather compromise a large part of how you imagined your day?  Can the band not play the song you dreamed about?  Are you out a photographer?  Is the location itself going to be soaked or cold or unusable?

2. Does the weather carry with it any OBVIOUS danger to anyone attending OR working on your day?  I’m not thinking of people getting wet… they will live, but I am thinking of being hit with a flying piece of debris, or a venue where the floor is slippery and soaked and impossible to navigate for 40 waiters without incident.

3. Will everyone be able to get back to where they need to be at the end of the night? There was a mild freak out in mid-town on Saturday because many (if not all) Starbucks were closed.  While many needed their lattes, I totally understood why they shut the Starbucks… their staff could easily get in the AM, but with no trains or buses and bridge closings, they could not get home.   For many people this weekend, the day might have started off fine enough, but there was the anxiety of how their guests would get home.  This is something to consider and is often an issue in snow.  We had a wedding start out with flurries and end with 24″… but transportation was still running and most of the guests lived in the city, so it was ok in that case.

4.  Will enough guests not attend to make you feel that it wasn’t ideal?  This is a super personal consideration.  For many couples the only people who matter are the couple themselves and their immediate family and friends.  As long as those people are there, it’s enough. But for some, the purpose of the reception was to gather as many as possible and if that gathering is impeded by weather, is that reason enough to postpone?

5. Degree of difficulty making a change. If you have lots of flexibility as to what your weather plan looks like OR, worst case, you would be able to re-schedule your celebration, AND your vendors are on board and you think your guests can make it work.. well, it might be an easier call than if, say, you have known for 18 months that this is the only day you can POSSIBLY do for any number of reasons… Or if your venue can’t accommodate you again until next year.. etc. etc.

Universally speaking, whatever political beliefs you may have, I think everyone is in agreement that the hero of the week is President Obama. (and of course, our brave U.S. Navy Seals) Well, perhaps the best way to say thank you to our President is to offer him an invitation to your nuptials?

Now, don’t expect he and Michelle to show up with that blender you were hoping to get, but unlike all of those lazy friends of yours who don’t know how to fill out an RSVP card, you WILL receive a response. And a nice little note. My friends are getting married this month, sent an invitation to Our President and First Lady, and just got a lovely note from the White House wishing them well. It may not be quite as good as seeing President Obama dance with your Aunt Lulu, but it’s a note from the First Couple, and that is pretty fantastic. So, if you are rushing that list to the calligrapher this week, make sure to add one going to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Q: I am getting married this summer. I’m one of several of my girlfriends getting married this year. In fact, we’ve already been to three weddings this year. Which is part of why I’m writing. My maid of honor has also been a guest at the other three weddings and, by the end of each one, she and her boyfriend end up uncomfortably making out either on the dancefloor or slobbering all over one another at their table. Actually, it usually starts off on the dancefloor and by the time the cut the cake, they look like they are eating each other instead of waiting for dessert.

I’m actually totally confident that on the day of my wedding I won’t care at all about this, but I know my family and my family knows her and I just don’t want her to embarrass herself. Is it ok to say something to her about maybe toning it down a notch? I don’t even know how I would do that?

The A: You know, you would think this would be an unusual occurrence, but in actuality, I cannot tell you how many weddings end looking like a bad high school dance; some young couples necking in a corner a little TOO enthusiastically. Interestingly, it usually ends up being a surprise to everyone… “Hey, can you believe how all over each other Tim and Lisa were?”
I actually get it… Something about weddings can be an aphrodisiac: the romance of the vows, the free-ness of the liquor, the all-to-infrequent opportunity to slow dance with your significant other, the ability for that slow dancing to maybe turn a little dirty…. and, well, that’s often when it spirals out of control.
You have the rare opportunity of knowing that your MOH is a little bit more susceptible to the Love Potion of a wedding, and I think she has the track record that you can completely feel comfortable saying something… Now HOW you go about saying something is another matter entirely.
Personally, if it were me who wanted to say something to say, Mayra, I’d say something like “Hey, so should I warn my grandma that you and your man are going to be necking like teenagers in front of everyone? Or are you going to turn it down a couple of notches for my wedding.” If she asks you what you are talking about, you can jokingly say that weddings must be their “thing”.