This article could go on for volumes but I will render you the condensed version of the things I have seen at weddings that would fall under good and bad wedding etiquette.  The term wedding etiquette refers to the things you are expected to do at a wedding or the things that are considered to be in good taste.  Anything that falls outside of good wedding etiquette is usually frowned upon and can lead to the couple probably never speaking to you again.  These all really happened at weddings I have attended.

Just Shaddap

It is not good wedding etiquette to just grab the microphone from the bride or groom’s hand when they are trying to say something to everyone at the reception.  People that walk up to the head table and think they can just grab the microphone and say anything they want should be duct taped to their seats for the entire wedding.  It isn’t your wedding; it isn’t your day – so just sit down and shut up.

This IS a Wedding

Off color jokes about the bride during the reception while you have a microphone in your hand and everyone is watching and listening to you is pretty bad wedding etiquette as well.  If you have a raunchy joke to tell about the bride then tell the couple when you are talking to them and even that may be bad wedding etiquette but it certainly bad wedding etiquette to question the bride’s promiscuity when her entire family is there and they are all dressed in wedding attire.  There is a time and place for everything and the middle of a wedding reception is not the time for dirty jokes about the bride.

Don’t Make Your Own Plans

Nothing ruins a reception or a wedding faster than people that think they can plan some elaborate surprise for the couple without first clearing it with the best man.  Receptions are run like clockwork and you never know what the best man has planned so if you really insist on reuniting the old high school cheerleading squad to cheer the groom one last time then you may want to clear it with the best man first.  That is good wedding etiquette.

Keep It to Yourself

If you don’t like the food at the reception or if there is something else you do not like, then keep it to yourself and complain about it when you get home.  There is not better example of bad wedding etiquette than telling the bride how awful you thought the food was as you are leaving the reception.  Tell your own wife about it after you get home and let the bride stay in dream land for a little while.

Related posts:

1. Wedding Invitations and Etiquette
2. Who Pays the Way: Bridal Shower Etiquette Revisited

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