A wedding clearly takes a lot of planning and thought. When I got married, we managed to infuriate my aunt by altogether forgetting to invite her. She just got overlooked (no malice intended) and was justifiably miffed when she found out.
The guest list is not the only way to annoy your guests. Here are just seven other ways:
- When you send the invitations out, be as unclear as possible. Don’t spell out who exactly you are inviting (is plus one invited, or are the children?). Explain that there are various stages of the ceremony, but don’t actually specify what happens when, or who is invited to what.
- If you are holding your ceremony outdoors, ensure there is minimal, or no, shelter from the elements. People love sunburn almost as much as being soaked or frozen.
- Invite your guests to keep their phones on and to take photos throughout the ceremony, even if you are paying a photographer to do the job. The more guests that can block other people’s view by holding their phone in the air, the better.
- Have no thought for the audibility of the event. Nobody actually wants to hear what the celebrant – or couple – are saying, do they?
- Ensure there is plenty of “dead” time between the ceremony and, say, the canapes. The couple may go off and sign a certificate or have photos taken, but don’t let the guests know. It’s even more effective if nobody can tell anybody what’s meant to be happening. Oh, you get bonus points if guests are hungry and thirsty, but have no idea when the refreshments are served.
- The seating plan is a wonderful way to get even with people. You can “innocently” seat someone with their ex, or place enemies next to each other. Very rewarding.
- When presenting a speech, cramming it with in-jokes, preferably, about one side of the family only, is very satisfying and can exclude surprisingly large swathes of your guests.
Please don’t feel that this list is comprehensive. There are other ploys you can use very successfully. Perhaps you can think of a few?
I’d better point out that this list is delivered tongue-in-cheek! Should you choose to honour, entertain and please your guests, of course these are what you should strive to avoid.
If you want to chat about a dream, rather than a nightmare, ceremony, then please get in touch with me.
Photo: courtesy Matt Penberthy