7 modern wedding guest etiquette questions (+ bonus advice for couples!)
A couple months ago, I was interviewed for an article on Refinery29 about modern wedding guest etiquette. While the article used several of my quotes, I figured I’d share my ALL my answers for seven wedding guest etiquette issues, because who knows! Maybe you’re trying to figure out how to decline being a bridesmaid, or whether you should dress less weird at someone’s wedding.
Plus, I’ve got two bonus etiquette issues for engaged couples at the end. Advice for all!
When to send out your invitations and save-the-dates
You’ve got your date, you’ve probably got your venue, and now you’ve got to let everyone know about it. That’s where your invitations and save-the-dates come into play. Whether you’re opting for more traditional mailed invitations or saving a tree with some emailed invites, here are some rough guidelines for when to send your wedding invitations and save-the-dates.
Open thread: How should an offbeat wedding guest dress?
“I am generally under-dressed at formal weddings or I end up buying a dress that is boring, wear it once, and donate it. I don’t even know where to look for some cool, offbeat wedding guest dresses. I even googled “dresses to wear to formal weddings” and was overwhelmed by blandness.
I guess basically, can someone tell me (and probably others) what an offbeater wears to a formal gig?”
Poop it out: How to deal when guests bail the night before your wedding
“The evening before my wedding, three guests cancelled via text. I was pretty gutted as there didn’t seem to be any reasoning behind them cancelling. Obviously if it was something really important behind them cancelling, I would be so understanding — but they didn’t really give a valid reason.
I’m a bit sad that they didn’t come and I’m not sure what to say when I see them next.”
How to make your wedding feel small and intimate without cutting the guest list
My friends’ small wedding was so full of love and they really made all of their guests feel like each one was a critical piece of who they were as a couple. My future husband said to me, as we left, that he really felt honored to be there. The problem: There’s no way my future husband and I can cut our guest list to under 100 people. So how do we make our wedding feel small and intimate without being able to cut the guest list? I think we discovered the answer…
How to deal with misbehaving guests & abusive relationships at your wedding
My wedding was amazing… but for one guest. We’ll call her Cruella. When we got home from our honeymoon, I learned more about the “Cruella Sagas” — I was not the only person she got out of line with at the wedding. Looking back, I would have trusted my gut and handled the situation differently. Here’s the advice I would have given myself about dealing with a difficult wedding guest, having now been through it…