Wedding Etiquette

Wedding Etiquette

Weddings are unarguably the most exhilarating and equally stressful event in a person's life. As a celebration of yet another wonderful chapter in your life, you naturally want everything to be perfect – just as you have always dreamed it to be. From giddy feeling of getting engaged and subsequently making plans for that dream wedding, you will probably find yourself in a quagmire of questions as to how to properly go about it. The onslaught of uncertainty is all too natural and expected – after all it's not as if you get married everyday, right? As years pass, wedding traditions have inevitably evolved and so does the rules of wedding etiquette thus adding up to more confusion.

The seemingly simple task of introducing parents takes a rather difficult twist especially in view of the imminent wedding. The age-old tradition normally dictates the family of the groom to call upon and introduce themselves to the family of the bride. However, failure on the groom's side should not ensue intrigues as it had become perfectly normal nowadays for the bride's family to take the initiative of doing so. However, if the parent's are divorced, the father or whoever is closest to the groom/bride should take the first steps of reaching out and getting to know the family of the better half.

More often than not, in-laws are frequently heard complaining about feeling left out all throughout the wedding preparation process. It would be prudent to update them regularly to the progress of the wedding plans as what is only proper in any wedding etiquette.

When it comes to dishing out invitations, keep in mind that if the invited guest ha a better half, the correct thing to do is to also extend invitation to the partner as well. A single invitation that is addressed to both persons should be sufficient enough if they are living together, and separate invitations for couples engaged but are living apart. For single guests, it is actually considered a thoughtful gesture to include a date in the invite but not entirely necessary. If you prefer your guests not to bring children, the best way to do this is to carefully worded note in the invitation stating your request. Any wedding etiquette book would tell you that there is no proper way to mention gist preferences (if the couple would want monetary gifts instead) in the invitation. A more discreet option would be to spread it by word of mouth. In any case the wedding is cancelled or negated, the proper wedding etiquette would dictate you to return gifts given, even those during bridal showers. Now that you have more or less an idea on how to carefully plan your wedding, without having to resort on calling it all off because of unbearable strain and anxiety.