Etiquette Hell

caitlin1214

caitlin1214

tPF Bish
O.G.
Jul 7, 2006
29,110
780
#1
I love reading these entries! It's shocking to see how little the people know about basic etiquette!

If anyone wants, go here: Etiquette Hell

and post your favorite ones!

(My favorites are the ones where someone talks about what they think is apalling etiquette, and the owner of the site blasts them for their poor etiquette!)



I don't know what people will think of this, but, FH an I were thinking of just having rolled up scrolls of TY notes on pretty paper and attached by one of those silver rings you buy at Michaels. We'll have them at the table for the reception so people can have each one of them. Its going to be our TY notes to everyone for coming. We just don't want to spend an entire week trying to write TY cards to everyone because we did that after our shower, and it took us 4 hours doing all of them. My mom thinks its a great idea. However, I can't help think that it seems a little lazy, but at the same time, very practical.

May your guests rise up in rebellion at having to labor 2 to 6 hours of work earning the money for a wedding gift, having to spend at least an hour to shop for the gift, spend yet another 30 minutes wrapping it, and at least 20 minutes transporting it to the shower or wedding. Four to eight hours invested in gifting a lazy, ungrateful bride is simply too expensive in terms of time and money.





Many years ago, I worked as an Accounting Clerk for a non-profit youth services organization. I can’t mention the name of this organization, but I can tell you that they known for their annual cookie sales. I was employed there for almost five years and in that time I worked with some of the rudest, most inconsiderate people I have ever come in contact with. There were a few incidents that happened to me while I worked there that literally left me in tears. I won’t go into those, but I can tell you about a few things that happened to me that I still laugh about.
One day I came to work wearing a short-sleeved summer sweater in a rust color. I was walking down the hallway when one of my lovely co-workers stopped me and said, “ I’m sorry, I just have to tell you that you look terrible in that sweater.” Needless to say I was a little shocked, and being that I was still young and a little shy, I simply smiled and walked away.
One other time there was a Board meeting in the conference room. It was one of those “We’ll have lunch, so everybody bring a dish to pass” type meetings. When the meeting ended and the Board members were cleaning up, I was on my break in the break room. One of the Board members came in and asked me if I knew were the trash bags were kept. I apologized and said I did not know. She began looking around for them. A moment later, another Board member came in and asked me the same question. Before I could answer, the first Board member replied, “Don’t ask her. She doesn’t know anything!” I exited the break room and left them to their search.
Finally, the coup de grace. One year we had our annual Christmas lunch. It was another “Bring a dish to pass” type things. Now, I am probably the world’s worst cook, however, there are a few things I can bake pretty well and one of them is a cake which, while it’s actually quite easy to make, takes quite a while to prepare. I brought this cake in for the party and was quite pleased that so many people seemed to enjoy it. When the party was over, there was still a couple of pieces of cake left. Another of my lovely co-workers asked me if she could have another piece. I said, “Of course, help yourself.” While she was busy stuffing her face full of the cake I made, she said to me, “Gee this is great cake. No wonder you’re so fat.”
 
#5
Some years ago, I was asked to be maid of honor for the wedding of my friend Natalie. Everyone was amazed and relieved that Natalie was finally getting married, as she had a) lived with or b) been engaged to half a dozen different men prior to this one. Natalie was a not a friend to whom I was particularly close, so I was really quite startled to be asked to be her maid of honor. I didn't want to do it, knowing Natalie's "my way or the highway" attitude about EVERYTHING in life, but I was counseled by friends and family that there was no way to decline without looking like a bad person. So I accepted the post. Within a few weeks of doing so, Natalie blithely informed me that she had only asked me (instead of Rose, her best friend) because Rose was sort of a scatterbrain and couldn't be depended on to do "everything required of a maid of honor." Warning bells began to go off in my head, but we were off and running.
As maid of honor, I helped to plan and pay for a large bridal shower for Natalie. To this shower, I wore a pretty dress and a strand of rose quartz beads. Natalie was peeved and snippy with me all through the shower, and I couldn't figure out why. She finally told me that she was angry because I was wearing a rose quartz bead necklace, which was apparently what she had planned to give as a gift to each of her six attendants. Like I was supposed to have divined this out of thin air. She harrumphed for weeks about the trouble she took in returning my gift necklace to be exchanged for a similar necklace of different beads. You can imagine how much I enjoyed wearing that necklace at her wedding.
The day of the wedding, I devoted myself to Natalie's every whim. I ran errands for her, held her hand when she was nervous, yelled at her fiance for not doing something she'd asked him to do (which I now can't remember), and on and on and on. At the church, I helped her with dress, told her over and over how beautiful she was, calmed the two attendants who had been drinking before the wedding, and kept the two flower girls out of trouble.
The wedding went well, and the reception was one of those boffo affairs with zillions of food courses, a 30-person swing band, major bodacious floral arrangements, tons of champagne, blah, blah, blah. We all had a wonderful time, and I was careful to check in with Natalie half a dozen times throughout the reception to make sure she wasn't lacking for anything. I thought everything was fine.
About two weeks after the wedding, I received a handwritten letter from Natalie. Silly me--I assumed, before opening it, that it was a thank-you letter regarding everything I'd done to help the wedding go smoothly. But it was not to be. No, the letter was absolutely poisonous. It was filled with such hateful, vitriolic language and such vile accusations that I burst into tears reading it. Natalie accused me of being a horrible maid of honor, about not caring about her or the groom or their feelings, or the kind of wedding they'd wanted. She listed all the things that she felt had gone wrong at her bridal shower, during the dressing-room time previous to the wedding, the wedding itself, and the reception.
She accused me of not caring about her and of not paying enough attention to her. She accused me of making her mother do "all the work" for the bridal shower (and just for the record, her mother did NONE of the work and paid for nothing at the shower). Worst of all, she accused me of having been "drunk and rambunctious"at the wedding (which many other guests, my parents ncluded, assured me was NOT the case--although I knew I hadn't been drunk and rambunctious, I was so thrown by this vengeful letter that I took it upon myself to check with others just to be certain). The letter was several pages long and tightly spaced to enable Natalie to get in every last little complaint and gripe she wanted to air. To top it all off, the postmark on the envelope showed that Natalie had written this letter ON HER HONEYMOON. It astounded me to think that anyone would take the time and energy during their honeymoon to sit down and compose a hate letter--when surely, SURELY there were better ways to be spending their time!
After a week of being upset and bewildered by this horrific blow, I decided to do absolutely nothing. I knew that I had been an exemplary maid of honor, and nothing Natalie could accuse me of could persuade me otherwise--especially when everyone I talked to about it was as horrified and mystified by the letter as I was. I am only slightly ashamed to admit that when Natalie and her husband began divorce proceedings just eight months after the wedding, I smiled smugly inside.
 
#6
I was at a wedding last month and witnessed this....After a very tearful and emotional ceremony, the best man gave a toast and then the DJ invited other guests who would like to say a few words to come up. After a brief speech by the bride's 90 yr. old grandfather, an usher stood up and said "May all your ups and down's be in bed." The entire room was silent!


At the wedding of a dear friend and former college roommate, in which I was the maid of honor, everything went off without a hitch at the wedding---it was a very large, formal affair with about 500 guests in attendence. The reception was held in a gorgeous antebellum home that had been refurbished to serve such purposes as wedding receptions, parties, etc. It was quite a grand affair, and the drinks were flowing (of course!)
After an hour or so of socializing, as guests congratulated the bride and groom, the best man stood to make the traditional toast. It was quite moving, with a bit of history of the bride & groom, as well as containing a couple of short, funny anecdotes of their courtship. He ended it with words so sweet and hopeful, that there weren't many dry eyes in the house. As soon as he finished, one of the groomsmen (who'd apparently hit the bar a *bit* too hard!) rose to give his "best wishes" also. At least, that's what everyone thought. Here's what he said (and I quote):
When God made Adam, He made him out of string.
He had a little left, so he gave him a little "thing."
When God made Eve, He made her out of lace.
He had a little left, so he left a little space.

He then topped it off by raising his glass and loudly saying, "Here's to SPACE!"
There was total silence in that huge room for a few seconds, before the laughter started spreading....that is, to everyone except the bride, who was mortified!!!




The groomsman got up to make his toast. He had no notes and was going to wing it. That's fine, I've known him a long time and he's a funny guy. Sadly, he managed to say that the bride had used her uterus in return for an engagement ring. I almost choked.
 
#7
I was Maid of Honor in a wedding three and a half years ago, and I looked forward to giving a toast because I'd known the bride, literally, since I was born. However, our lives have taken very different paths...I went off to college, and she stayed in the same town, trying out different careers and trying to find someone she liked well enough to marry. She's known since she was about nine that her goal was marriage and family; while I appreciated that, I never intended to stay in that area, and only flew home that year for her wedding and Christmas.

The best man, per tradition, stood first. He was a nice guy who'd had it rough, from what I'd heard, but I'd never met him before and we didn't interact a whole lot. I've blocked out most of his speech -- there were good bits as well, about how important love was and all of that. However, he ended by pulling a previously hidden cherry from the groom's pocket, laughing into the mike, "Take a good look, buddy, 'cause you'll never see another one of these again!" I'm not sure who was more mortified -- myself, or the bride's Mormon grandparents.




My cousin recently attended a wedding where, during the reception, the maid-of-honor stood up to toast the bride and groom and instead recited a copy of a poem the bride had written to the groom entitled, "The Best Blow Job You ever Had". Somehow this little witch had gotten a hold of this poem. My cousin said it was a really filthy ode to a certain portion of the groom's anatomy and everyone was so embarrassed and afterwards, the bride stood up, apologized to her guests and told them in no uncertain terms that that poem was not meant to have been read in public. What confuses me is why the bride would have made it known to her friends that such a poem existed. The only good thing about this story is that the priest was unable to make it to the reception, otherwise he would have heard the whole thing. Egad!!!!!









Only years later, after having attended a few other weddings as an adult, did I realize that I was (by default) the Best Man at my mother's third wedding, which happened when I was still in high school. That is, I don't recall being asked to be BM, but I was the only attendant standing next to the groom. More to the point, at the reception, I was asked to give the toast, for which I was quite unprepared. Scrambling to think of anything which might be appropriate, I seized upon Flash Thompson's toast at the wedding of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson in an issue of Spider-Man, and adapted it for their names: "To 'Jim' and 'Alice', may Lady Luck be kind; and may they never be chafed by the ties that bind." I recall this getting somewhat of a lukewarm reception, but I was just relieved to no longer be on the spot. To this day, I don't think my mother knows that my toast came from a comic book.









At good friends' wedding in the fancy hall at historic Greenfield Village, Michigan, another good friend made the Best Man's speech. The gimmick was to have 'Penny', the bride, put her hands out palms up in front of her. 'Skyler', the groom, was then instructed to put his hands, palms down over the top of hers. The Best Man then was supposed to say, "Enjoy this Skyler! It will probably be the last time you have the upper hand." Cute, right! Instead... in nervous confusion the Best Man spoke the following "Enjoy this Skyler! It might be the last time you're on top of her!" The hush over the crowd was broken by the Best Man's wife shouting "Upper Hand, Chris, Upper Hand! You dumb ass!" from her table at the back of the room.
 
#8
At the rehearsal dinner, one of the bridesmaids, who had been drinking, gave a toast. It started off just fine, but then she ended it with "sometimes you do buy the cow!"









The wedding was very non-traditional with random readings and passages from a number of publications. The thing that set the tone for the reception was the toast by the mother-of-the-bride. She began her toast by telling everyone that the bride and groom had one thing in common - that they were both breastfed! I don't remember anything else in her speech after that!




When my fiancé's brother got married, I was a bridesmaid in the wedding. The reception was so boring (very conservative religious family on the bride's side = no dancing, alcohol, or music because they are sinful). However when the bride's father got up to make a speech, it went something like this: "I remember when XXX's mother and I were driving to the hospital for her to give birth to XXX, we still had not decided on a girl's name for the new baby. There was a commercial on the radio for a fundraiser for 'XXX's School for the Retarded' so we decided then and there to name her XXX." I just sat there with my jaw open in shock, and felt so embarrassed for the bride. What a great speech at the wedding, dad! Such an inspiring toast to the newly weds.
 
#15
Oops! I'll admit that I was (kind of) the one at fault here, but I just couldn't help myself. Luckily, I think only a few people heard what was going on and, therefore, the damage contained.

My uncle and his (wonderful) girlfriend of several years decided to finally get married last year. Our family traveled several hours to the event, which turned out to be one of the best weddings I've ever been to. The location was a gorgeous country club and the meal was splendid. The faux pas occurred during the ceremony itself.

The bride, being childless herself, had appointed her new "step-daughter" (my cousin) as well as a some varied nieces and nephews for the duty of being in the wedding party. Which, normally, would have been just fine, except for the OPEN BAR that was going on for at least an hour before the actual ceremony. The only one in the wedding party (minus the bride and groom, of course) that was of legal drinking age was my cousin who was hugely pregnant at the time.

The nieces and nephews, who were probably 16-18 years of age had been sneaking drinks at the bar, in the coat room and in the parking lot for quite a while before the actual ceremony. No one seemed to notice this, or in any event, just overlooked it.

The ceremony began and before the vows, one of the nephews goes to the podium to read that bit about how "love is not selfish, love is never boastful" that is read in every wedding. Except, instead of saying, "love is not selfish" in his drunken state, he slurs, "Love is never a shellfish." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, love IS never an aquatic invertebrate. I heard that and simply burst out laughing. The nephew, bless his heart, never missed a beat and just kept plugging along.

I tried to contain my laughter, but my mother, having heard exactly what I heard began to chuckle as well. Before you knew it, the two of us were trying so hard not to laugh that tears were rolling down our cheeks. And, of course, the harder you try to stop laughing, the harder you end up laughing. Luckily, we were seated near the back and I don't think the bride and groom heard our inappropriate laughter. Every time I thought I got myself under control, I would picture lobsters in wedding attire and just start all over again.

So, although I don't think my faux pas is the worst I've ever heard, I still feel bad about it. The bottom line, however, is that some people should keep a better eye on the open bar and who, exactly, is being served. Otherwise, you may end up with an unintentional comedian.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Back