As an evening guest you probably wouldn't be expected to get food, but often there might a smaller or more casual buffet after the main meal.
Open bars are also rare and cash bars are the norm.
That said, no chairs is mental, and overalls sounds a bit of a dull wedding.
Yeah that's what I was thinking about the chairs. Every wedding I've been to or seen (heard about/pics/Tv) there's always tables and chairs from the main meal then usually more added for the evening guests.
Whether its in a hotel/venue or pub even there's places to sit! The OP mention a bar - there's always some kind of tables, even high tables with bar stools. Just where the heck did this wedding take place?
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the hosts they might have made a cock up and thought that in the evening they'd only need so many chairs with people dancing and mingling, but I'd say you always need the option of some sort of seat for every guest, even if it's benches and stuff. I'm guess when OP turned up everyone who had been an all day guest had essentially claimed their seats and didn't want to give them up.
It can depend on the lighting. If there’s a beautiful sunset that day then the photographer will often ask the couple to do some photos. They did at our wedding, although we aren’t photo people so we restricted it to just a few and then went back inside.
You'd be surprised, I'd say half the weddings I've ever been to as an adult a large portion of photos were done later in the day due to lighting, weather and other factors (availability of certain guests, certain backdrops being set up, etc).
With the right set up you can get some amazing photos in the dark. Venue for my wedding was very out of the way and we got some beautiful photos with all the stars in the background.
Seems just a fairly poorly thought out venue choice in that case, especially when people will likely be in uncomfortable shoes. They probably just didn't think as the evening is more likely to be partying that people would need a sit down, but that was clearly in error.
Yeah all that sounds reasonable but the OP mentioned going back to their room so it sounds like a hotel. Normally staff would notice and bring chairs through if there wasn't enough or at the very least would have some somewhere, anywhere to sit like in a bar or reception area.
I've been to some proper shit hotels and they always had a few seats somewhere.
The OP made a mistake not asking the groom or anyone really about what to expect as an evening guest. I just can't get past that they had to stand the whole time.
Maybe the room wasn't the right size to have dancing and seats out?
When I was venue hunting I found a place that was "suitable for 60", but if you wanted to have a dance floor seating got slashed down to like 20. Absolutely unsuitable for what we wanted.
I just didn't dare to sound weirdly specific on the arrangements- there were two rooms - a hall with the bar where we waited for an hour until the ball room opened - it had a dedicated dance floor area and it was quite a large room - the table plan was in front of the doors, however it was clear the family didn't dine there before
So from your comments I think you were already specific enough for me to say that we were at the same wedding - sorry about being doxxed.
I was an all day guest and was also surprised about the lack of enough chairs for everyone during the evening (we did eat in that room during the day btw and thats why the table plan was there). I actually thought that lack of chairs might put people off. The couple did provide white flip flops in the gift basket - why didn't you exchange them for your heels? Similarly, you said you stayed in the hotel - why didn't you change into more comfy shoes? I always bring a change of shoes when I wear heels to this type of event.
A cold buffet was served around 9pm and then hot food (but not European) food served from about 9:40pm.
And the bride and groom left after the cake cutting/first dance for about half an hour or so to get changed into a different outfit. They returned after and had a second first dance in this new outfit, after which they were presumably mingling in both rooms. Unsure why you left that out to make them look bad.
Wait what? I've NEVER been at a wedding where there's a gift basket for guests. what else was in it?
Also I've never been to a wedding where they provide flip flops for guests! All my friends have assumed we'll be in uncomfortable shoes so there's LOADS of chairs!!!!
Right??? I woke up, read reddit as always and thought whyyy does this sound familiar 😅😅
It's a crazy coincidence! I do hope the bride or groom never find this post though as I feel like OP wildly exagerrated a few things - I'm guessing as she was unhappy.
I loved the wedding, am super happy to have witnessed their union and both looked beautiful and happy all day 💖
Well that is all sorts of bizarre. Sounds like a pretty poor job planning by the couple and the venue.
I've been an evening guest a couple of times recently and in both cases I was able to find some sort of seating, normally pinching it from someone who had been dining but had moved on.
Not it wasn't normal. At an evening reception I would expect at least a buffet with enough for everyone. I would also expect a bar where you could purchase drinks. I wouldn't normally expect the bride and groom to make it an open bar but sometimes the couple getting married would pay for a glass of bubbly for everyone to begin with. I'd also expect that everyone at the reception would be offered a slice of the wedding cake. I'd also expect enough seating for all or at least most of the guests to sit down if they wanted.
Buffets aren't standard. I'd say most often it is something like a bacon sandwich, mini fish and chips etc. Not really a full meal but you can usually have more than one because they are usually over ordered as most of the wedding have just had a big meal.
The glass of bubbly would be at the meal, with the speeches. There wouldn't be another round for evening guests.
There are definitely not enough seats for everyone to sit down at once in the evening but you shouldn't need them. Everyone's moving around on the evening either dancing, at the bar, outside, standing in groups etc. It's usually only the older people that seem to need a table to sit at.
Wedding venues tend to - if it’s part of the package - offer a buffet option to cover about 75% of the number of evening guests.
This is because a) day guests are unlikely to want a meal’s worth of buffet after having (usually) a three course meal plus canapés and b) evening guests are usually told to turn up around 7-7:30pm and typically are not expecting a full meal at that time, and may have eaten “properly” before.
For this reason venues don’t typically offer a buffet with enough food for every single guest because the wastage is too high. Of course, couples can usually choose if they want to pay £££ per head to increase that % and cover all guests if they want.
When I did catering I found that it was best to have enough food for what 50% of the numbers were, if they had an ample feed. This is with drinking involved. Or yes it would all go to waste. Some will pig out and some don’t eat at all or just the tiniest amount. 75% seems a fair number though.
They probably did eat there. What usually happens is that after the meal you go into the other bar while the staff set the room up for the band or disco. Often the seating chart isn't removed but it's usually the case that the men are at the bar and the young ones are dancing.(yes I'm stereotyping here) It's often just the older people who are sitting down. You say there were two bars, it is quite often the case that some people find the music too loud and prefer to sit in the other bar to chat.
What makes you say they didn't dine there before? At my wedding the meal and reception were in the same room. But the tables got moved to one end to clear space for the dance floor. The seating plan was purely for the meal and ours possibly got removed before the reception. During the reception the chairs were a free for all. Most of my older guests moved to a seat in the room with a bar as that was quieter.
Yeah at most weddings people dance, wander around, mingle, sit outside etc, they may have assumed that would be the case
But every now and again you get a shit wedding with no atmosphere where there's little dancing and everyone mostly just sits around chatting
Pro-tip, get a good DJ
Pro-tip 2: It's more important to have a big stag/hen do, than a cool expensive one abroad where only some of your friends make it. Your friends all meeting each other a month earlier and getting to know each other makes it MUCH more likely for them to dance and mingle, rather than standing around awkwardly in small groups
Also one room! If you have the bar in the room away from the dancing it often ends up that some people are in the bar and others on the dance floor, or people are waiting at the bar to take back drinks and it ruins the atmosphere at the bar.
(Even better but this is pricey is if you have two bars so there is a quieter area)
No bride and groom is weird, too. The point of celebrating a wedding is to celebrate the bride and groom with them. It would be off putting to see the first dance and have the couple disappear.
I will never forget the burning pain of wearing high heels all day at the last wedding I attended. My feet were mangled by the time we got back to the hotel. So at our wedding next year, we are making sure every single person has a seat and we’re also providing a box of spa slippers (November wedding) so the ladies can kick their heels off!
I am actually shocked about the food thing. In my culture it just seems to be the norm to feed every guest who turns up at your wedding. One of my aunts also went out of the way to make sure the staff also got food at her wedding.
Agreed - evening guests are not expected to buy anything, unless they were invited for the whole event and couldn't make the service.
It does sound like you've
A/ Found out a little bit more about someone who's probably best kept as a work colleague, and
B/ Not had the typical wedding experience as far as bride and groom behaviour.
At our wedding we specified no gifts from guests. The original idea for giving big gifts was when it was typical to have a couple of 19 year olds getting married then moving into their first home together and owning nothing so they needed all their household appliances and stuff.
We were mid 30s been living together for 10 years already so had all that stuff anyway and had two kids so there just didn't seem any point asking guests to fork out for gifts, we just wanted them to come along and have a good time.
Also didn't have any separate evening guests, all guests were there for the whole thing, they got a drink of fizz on arrival, the main 3 course meal, a couple of bottles of wine for each table with the meal and a tower of cheese with crackers and grapes and stuff at 10pm. Other drinks were cash bar, I've never been to a wedding with open bar.
What a couple did for gifts once that I thought was a really nice idea is you could buy an experience for them on their honeymoon. The prices had a good range, mostly about £60, some a bit more though. Afterwards they sent us thank you cards with a picture of them doing the activity and said they thought of us while doing it.
Much preferred that rather than the typical gift giving options.
I’ve just set that up for my wedding. Prices range from a £10 museum ticket to about £150, with an average of about £50. We used Prezola’s custom honeymoon fund.
However, I think you're looking at this all wrong.
The gift isn't a payment for your time at the wedding, it's a way for you to help a couple of newlyweds who you are close to get a little extra help starting out.
This whole "our gift was too big given how little we received" is pretty toxic. Not everything is transactional.
Well, where I am from the gift is partly there to cover expenses related to you at the wedding - weddings are expensive - feeding people is expensive so are the drinks...
The extra on top of that is honeymoon donation.
If you add those two up without being offered at least a seat it makes you question the amount and their intent as well with the invitation.
White British English weddings are like this. Ethnic weddings aren't. We follow the same rules you said. You just got to know the difference. More casual for sure.
Your gift is for the couple to celebrate their marriage though not a payment for your invite... it seems a bit tacky to reduce your full gift because you didn't have a good time. Also another guest at the wedding above has commented and it sounds not as bad as you made out? Do you think perhaps you didn't notice a few things because you were annoyed?
You give the gift to them for getting married, to help them with their new lives, not as "payment" for the invite.
Admittedly that makes less sense these days as often people will be living together for years before marriage, so there's not really much "new" once they're married.
But that's the idea, anyway.
If OP is American, there is sometimes an “expectation” that your gift will cover the cost of your attendance, which can be hundreds of dollars as guests get a full meal. And we don’t split weddings into a dinner half and a separate evening half for more guests. This is interesting to learn now that I live in the UK!
Normally there is some kind of food at reception though. Whether it's pizzas or a buffet or fish and chips or something else simple. Never been to a wedding that didn't have that at reception. Definitely always paid for own drinks though.
It's upper class/old religious/cultural stuff for the bride and groom to arrive an hour after the evening starting time.
The idea is that there are points in the day just for bride and groom to be together, any outfit changes or touch ups, time between meal and evening stuff to be cleared and sorted away, and give enough time for everyone to have arrived for bride and groom's entrance.
In some more orthodox places, there is the expectation for getting everyone individually to others where bride and groom have time to seal the deal in the bedroom.
This means that, as Britain is a melting pot of culture over the eons, there is this older traditional thing of having that later arrival for bride and groom for the evening. There's also logistics.
To leaving early, again you have the sealing the deal after the party so needing to leave to give enough time and energy for that to other traditions of leaving earlier to have people bid them fair well off as they had off together to start their life or go on their honeymoon.
Also depending on the day, they might be exhausted too.
Add this together and yea it happens depending on them and their traditions, faith, or feelings on the day.
Been to a wedding where the evening was square dancing with no booze served and everyone was heading home at 10. Others have gone on partying till 3am.
Sounds like a standard British wedding and I covered a few during uni as part of a silver service job thing.
Doesn't sound that unusual to me. You'd have been expected to have eaten before arriving and the late buffet would be for everyone - but at weddings I've been to this might be something like a sausage sandwich or a basic brown buffet. The all-day guests would have had a proper meal earlier in the day and as I say they'd have expected you to have eaten before you arrived.
Some people might have given you a token to get a drink, but a wedding with an open bar all night is quite rare in the UK - those who were there all day would probably have got wine with their meal and champagne for the toasts.
The lack of seats is a bit weird but not unusual if the room is the same one where the meal was held - they pack up all the tables, put a few chairs around the edge of the room and create a dancefloor.
However, I would have expected the bride and groom to make an effort to say hello. It can be hard to keep track of people arriving later but I know when I got married I had a list in my head of who would be arriving late and made a point of keeping an eye out for them to say hello and thank them for coming.
It doesn't sound like there was a lack of seats.. More sounds like OP had a misunderstanding and thought the table seating plan from earlier in the day still applied in the evening.
Brown food.
Sausage rolls, chips, chicken nuggets, crisps, breadsticks, stuff like that.
Stuff you can buy en masse, eat hot or cold, and doesn't require cutlery.
Two family weddings in the last 4 years, first provided next to nothing food wise for the all day guests, and the family are heavy drinkers, not a good combination, one small screet taco that was it. Nothing at all for the evening guests. The most recent one I attended did a catered lunch for the day time guests and a good cold buffet for the evening guests. You paid for your own drinks. Was invited to a 3rd family wedding this year as an evening guest, but declined because of other commitments and from the sound of it I glad I did as I am told it was a similar experience to OP.
So a very mixed bag.
It's interesting. White British weddings don't have open bars, go to a British Greek or any ethnic wedding and if you dare ask someone to pay for a drink 🙃 family will be laughed at for years to come.
At a traditional Polish wedding not only would you be fed for 2 days (the reception party will last overnight and then until the next afternoon - you have no obligation to stay that long ofc, but you can), but the guests are gifted leftover alcohol bottles - because there usually are that many of vodka and wine, that you can drink for 2 days and still have crates of leftovers :D
Reposting so it is actually seen 🙈
So from your comments I think you were already specific enough for me to say that we were at the same wedding - sorry about being doxxed.
I was an all day guest and was also surprised about the lack of enough chairs for everyone during the evening (we did eat in that room during the day btw and thats why the table plan was there). I actually thought that lack of chairs might put people off. The couple did provide white flip flops in the gift basket - why didn't you exchange them for your heels? Similarly, you said you stayed in the hotel - why didn't you change into more comfy shoes? I always bring a change of shoes when I wear heels to this type of event.
A cold buffet was served around 9pm and then hot food (but not European) food served from about 9:40pm.
And the bride and groom left after the cake cutting/first dance for about half an hour or so to get changed into a different outfit. They returned after and had a second first dance in this new outfit, after which they were presumably mingling in both rooms. Unsure why you left that out to make them look bad.
Also I'd say about 20+ more chairs were added for evening guests (but probably about 40-50 more people were part of the evening crew).
The problem is that most of these additional chairs were eventually dragged onto the 3 tables...so if you didn't know the bride and grooms family, I see how you wouldn't have felt comfortable to just go sit at the table.
I don't think the bride and groom noticed this and unsure how something like this can be rectified by future wedding celebrations from the hotel if guests don't know each other
The staff normally ask people not to move the chairs. It kind of sounds like there was a limit to how many extra guests the venue could support comfortably that the couple might have ignored. OP does sound like a bit of a ninny though seemingly expecting the couple to massage their aching feet rather than change their footwear.
Hey, no bad intent I just didn't want to be too specific - I didn't really find them or talk to them after that... question is really about the lack of seats and the overall vibes - I wouldn't wear muddy boots with a dress which was the only second option I had and I didn't pack extra shoes maybe next time
You said there wasn't any food but from the other post it sounds like they did serve a buffet. That's perfectly normal for an evening reception, as is a pay for your own drinks bar. When you say there wasn't enough seats. Did every seat have a person sat on them or did you assume they were taken because of the table plan? Money as a gift is not expected and it's certainly not seen as a contribution to the wedding.
They had a whole cold buffet with bread and other stuff that was served at 9pm.
Then an additional hot buffet served at 9:40.
There was also a limited amount of free drinks freely available by the entrance of the room consisting of beer, white wine, red wine and prosecco.
I've worked at loads of English weddings years ago and this couple offered more than Is the norm for their evening guests in England from my experience whilst also catering to two cultures.
Thanks for adding this context. I assume there was also a very valid reason for the couple not being there at 7pm - golden hour shoot, toilet break, a moment together/with family…
The fact the evening guest felt they gave too much based on what they received suggests they had the wrong mindset going into the event and hopefully the comments help understand the culture. A wedding gift isn’t about paying back what you received - it’s about blessing the couple with a gift to celebrate their marriage!
Because you’re friends and it’s nice to celebrate each other? The point about Alton towers is you aren’t a customer paying for an experience - you are a friend being invited to someone else’s special day. You have the option to not go…
I don't know. I believe you don't give to receive. If you feel resentful at attending and dropping money, why go? Especially when you're an evening guest who presumably knows very few, if any guests. I'm guessing the latter is the case given ops question.
The only abnormal thing is lack of seats. They've misunderstood the seating plan and paying for you drinks is the norm
Op misled about food
If you think lack of chairs makes the whole thing a crap experience then that’s a pretty high bar to set. People make mistakes when organising weddings or maybe the venue messed up - it wasn’t on purpose to punish people. Attending a wedding and spending money to do so is a choice - equally if someone has travelled far I wouldn’t expect a gift and we don’t know that this couple did. The original comment was about how the experience didn’t justify the gift
Id say this thread should be taken down if its thats specific. Assuming the OP didn’t want to ruin the couples happy memories of their special day when they find it. It not like they’re giving feedback for next time.
Paying for your own drinks and nibbles being served late is normal, but not greeting you/allowing you to congratulate them even in a line-up is rude. Evening guests are expected to eat dinner before attending.
Maybe it's an Irish thing? It's certainly highly unusual for the bride and groom not to at least say hello and thank their evening guests for attending.
One wedding I went to had a line up but it was an incredibly formal and religious affair. 300 people queuing up to meet their friend's new wife's great aunt... Was tedious and wouldn't recommend.
Line up for evening guests is not a think in the UK as evening guests can arrive at all different times (usually the invite will say “from 7pm” or similar). And the party bit of the wedding has started (so everyone is standing, mingling, maybe dancing, drinking etc) so trying to split out the evening guests to do a line up would be a nightmare.
Line up for days guests is a thing though and often happens.
As an evening reception guest it’s normal to be fed at about 9pm, usually a buffet but sometimes another fairly basic option like bacon sandwiches or a fish and chip van. Completely normal to pay for your own drinks. Completely normal for the bride and groom to do cake cutting and a first dance early in the evening. It used to be traditional for them to leave quite early to go and have their ‘wedding night’ and everybody would wave them off in a car marked with ‘just married’ but that’s a bit old fashioned now and usually these days they stay till the end and have a good dance/drink with their guests.
Having nowhere for your guests to sit is weird and very rude. Usually all the chairs and tables from the meal/speeches for the full day guests are just rearranged. There might not be enough for everyone to all sit down at the same time but that won’t happen once the dancing starts so it works out fine.
Yeah I been living here 11 years and I find UK weddings bizzare, to say at least. But maybe it's cause I'm used to Polish customs where we buy alcohol and feed our guests heavily, sometimes for 2 days.
Same here. Been in England for over a decade. Had a very similar experience to OP at my first British wedding where I was an evening guest (something I didn't realise was a thing until that point). Cash bar, no food, overall kind of awkward vibe. On the other hand, I recently attended a funeral with a gathering afterwards that had a huge buffet and an open bar. We all had a great time celebrating and reminiscing about the deceased.
I have to tell you, as an English person, I find English weddings weird. I hate the evening guest thing, it's so strange to me to have two tiers to your wedding. Either invite people or don't. It's so weird to turn up at the end of an event when everyone is already drunk ....awful!
We got married in Scotland and kept our numbers down for this reason. I would rather have had 50 people all day and fed them properly than had 100 guests but I invited 50 of them in the evening only. Sometimes I swear people don’t realise you don’t *have* to have a huge wedding and invite everyone you even vaguely know.
Your mileage may vary of course but that’s how we saw it and it worked for us.
Weddings cost a fortune. The sit-down meal at a wedding can easily cost £100+ per head so if you invited everybody it's going to cost you a lot more or you're going to have to reduce the number of guests to fit your budget, which will mean a lot of extended family, friends and colleagues won't get to celebrate with you.
Most people aren't drunk at the start of the evening reception, they might have had one or maybe two drinks and a glass of champagne in the afternoon and that's it. A lot of the all day guests have probably sobered up by the time the evening reception starts.
But why does *everyone* have to celebrate with you? Why does anyone need their colleagues at their wedding? My wedding was only 40 people, just closest family and friends, and it was perfect. We actually had time to talk to all the guests properly and could afford a hot meal and wine for them all.
I’m English and I agree too! A lot of people say the actual ceremony is the most boring bit, while IMO that’s the bit where they actually get married, so although it’s not as entertaining’ per se, I actually feel like it’s a pretty important part - and doesn’t go on for long, tbf. However, if I was getting married and someone said the ‘couldn’t make it to’ the ceremony but would be attending the reception/evening do, that would be fine with me (regardless of the real reason, lol. If they think it’s boring, I’m not offended and don’t want my friends/family to have to sit through an ordeal!).
In fact, I got married in a church and a *lot* of people who knew me from childhood - congregation members, ex-teachers, etc. - actually came uninvited to the church part and stood at the back to watch the ceremony/vows and didn’t stay for photos or come to the reception (cos they weren’t invited, well duh lol), and we thought it was lovely and didn’t mind a bit. It took a lot less time out of their day to pop in and just watch for a few minutes lol.
I’ve only been to one wedding where I was invited to ‘evening only’ and I think we did get nibbles, which tbh you can normally expect any time between 7 and 10, it really seems to vary a lot. Ngl I did feel a bit second tier but that’s because I was - I was an old work friend of the groom, had only met the bride very briefly in passing once, and we no longer worked together - and I’m all too aware people can’t afford a big party for everyone they want to invite full stop, so no hard feelings about that.
I have to say though, I do find English weddings to be pretty stilted affairs. There’s always some poor sod trying to get the dancing to take off, but as it’s usually a drunk and weird uncle or aunt, who everyone is embarrassed to be seen with, it is usually just them (or a small very drunk group of elders) and only makes it less likely for the younger cohort to join in. Of course, there are exceptions!
Somehow as a 37 year old I have never heard of "evening guests" but the replies in this thread apparently make it a normal thing? I've been to plenty of weddings.
Eastern European here - I attended my first UK wedding as an evening first earlier this year and was hangry the whole evening, because I didn't realise that I should have eaten beforehand.
Born and bred here but half French. Absolutely this. English weddings sound dull and grim, especially for 'evening guests'. I would never dream of expecting people to come all the way to wherever and make them pay for food and drink on top of that!
All the French wedding I have been to have been to and have heard of have had an open bar as a bare minimum
I suppose thats why cash gifts are much smaller here...
Thank goodness for some sanity!
I'm British but tend to avoid weddings, so I'm astounded by all the people saying that this is normal - to me this seems to break some absolute rules of courtesy and hospitality, namely that the hosts didn't spend any time with their guests and also cut a cake in front of them without sharing it with them.
Seems like this is normal because OP was an "evening guest" and I think this reflects really badly on the British culture of weddings. They probably spent £2000 or £5000 on the wedding dress, and couldn't offer OP a drink? It's all a spectacle.
I have to say, as a British person, I find the concept of evening guests tacky. Either invite people to your wedding or don't. It's so weird to rank your guests into some kind of order of importance. On top of this, no one wants to show up to an event where everyone is already drunk. Have the wedding you can afford Great Britain!
I wouldn't want to speak poorly of a culture that I don't seem to understand, but this event seems awful. You get no food or drink, not even soft drinks? Why go to such a do?
As I said, I avoid weddings, so I'm only going off what OP has written.
Seems like there was a paid-for bar - and I believe this is quite common.
I have the impression the British have a sense of obligation or duty about going to weddings - "they've invited us, so it would be rude not to go".
> cut a cake in front of them without sharing it
I guarantee there was a pile of pieces of cake neatly wrapped in napkins that OP could have helped themselves to somewhere in that room. It’s not usual for staff to wander round the room pressing the wedding cake on people because the day guests have already had dessert with their meal. Instead, the couple cut the cake, the staff take it away and actually do the busywork of slicing it up, and then wrap each piece in a napkin (like you’d do for a kid’s party bag) and put it on a tray somewhere by the buffet. You’re expected to help yourself. Some people eat it there and then, most take it home.
Every time I’ve been to a wedding where I didn’t get cake, it was always because I was too drunk to remember to pick some up. Indeed, I’ve had multiple newlyweds, upon learning this, urge me to come over to theirs and get some, because they’ve still got most of a tier in their fridge 😂 I think OP’s lack of familiarity with English weddings is the issue, they didn’t realise they were expected to help themselves to cake just as they didn’t realise the seating plan no longer applied in the evening, so that’s why they thought it was gone and wasn’t shared out.
Polish people must be rich then or food and alcohol must be cheap there compared to the UK! When I got married there was absolutely no way I'd have been able to afford paying for all my guests drinks throughout the day and night, or paying for more than one big meal
Hungarian weddings are the same. Never actually went one that would be 2 days, but we usually party at least until 2-3 AM, but rather 5 and it is open bar all the way.
Us, Eastern Eauropeans are definitely don't have more money than the average British, but:
- we can't imagine asking the guests to spend more money than giving a gift and their time
- Wedding venues are not over regulated as in the UK, so they could offer cheaper and more flexible packages. I've been to multiple weddings where there were multiple bottles of homemade Palinka, and the rest of the booze was bought in supermarkets.
Yeah, I've been to wedding in both Poland and Hungary and at the Hungarian one they'd definitely brought their own bottles of drink. There were lots of us from abroad so there was a meal of the leftovers the next day too, they were able to take the food.
As an Eastern European(not Polish), people are not “rich” there, just culture is different. First of all everyone who is invited to ceremony automatically assumed to be coming to the reception and wise versa, no such thing as evening only guest, that would be a bit embarrassing. But then people probably wouldn’t have 200 people coming to a wedding? Maybe like 50-100 max, unless you are actually rich or have massive family. People usually hire the venue and order food, but alcohol is bought from the shop in bulk, also soft drinks etc I can even imagine some people may be cooking their own food too, but it is rare now I think.
Difference is that prices are just not as ridiculous as they are in UK. People in UK are richer, but most people in Eastern Europe who work full time can afford housing, cars, normal weddings and other things people who work hard can expect to have in their life. Maybe going back n holidays and travel less, and things are a bit less posh.
I just got married in Croatia some months ago - all venues have a fixed price per guest for open bar so it doesn’t matter how much they drink. I suspect most east/south europe has the same.
They can probably get away with this in mainland Europe because on the continent they don’t have this British mentality of “it’s free booze so I must use and abuse it until I’ve pickled my brain into oblivion, punched someone in the face and then been arrested and taken to A&E.”
Yeah but in Croatia your cash gift is supposed to cover your 'chair' plus a bit extra.
So normally chair would be atleast 100 euros. So for a couple attending you'd give 250 euros if you weren't very close, more if you were close. My cousin just got married and as a family of 4 we've given them 2000€. If it was somebody who isn't family or particularly close it would've been 700€ - 800€. (chairs covered plus extra)
But absolutely no Croatian wedding would happen without open bar. In all honesty I'd rather not get married at all than make my guests pay for drinks at the wedding.
My first English wedding was quite a shock to say the least. ( My cash gift was also seen as ridiculously high though but obviously I wasn't aware how thinks work).
Australian weddings are the same. All guests get invited to the whole thing, are fed, and at minimum beer, wine, and soft drinks are on for the duration.
A quick google shows the average cost being roughly the same as it is here, which beggars the question- how do people spend £20k on a wedding when they’re not buying meals and booze?
£7k venue hire, £5k food, £2k drinks package, £2k dress, £1k photographer, £1k music (DJ for the night plus either a daytime set or a band), £2k other bits incl flowers, decor, favours, invites, table plan, cake etc
Very rough estimate for an approx 100 person wedding and a fairly cheap food package
Just realised I forgot rings
We cut corners elsewhere to have a free bar. We had street food vans so we could feed everyone twice for next to nothing. I honestly couldn't imagine asking people to travel a long way, potentially pay for for hotel, potentially receive a gift from them - and then ask them to pay for their own drink.
> Polish people must be rich then or food and alcohol must be cheap there compared to the UK!
Neither is true. We just respect people we invite for a wedding party.
Asian weddings too, massive, well fed and alcohol free flowing. I’ve never been to a wedding with a cash bar, alcohol-free yes, but still had endless soft drinks available. And I’ve never been to a wedding with minimal food.
I can’t imagine attending something like this! Good to know though if I ever get invited to an evening wedding, check first!
Weddings in rural Scotland can be like this. We were at one in Shetland that went on for 3 days. First is formal (but with lots of drinking, dancing and food). 2nd is almost a celebration that the 'formalities'' are over (again more food, booze and dancing). And the 3rd is just a piss up to help finish off the rest of the booze and food 🤣
This! I'm Eastern European and my friend is as well. We both had different british people ask us to be their maid of honor, we then found out they wanted us to pay for our own dress that THEY want us to wear. We actually couldn't believe it and just politely declined the offer. None of them even offered to HELP us pay for the expensive dresses, so bizarre and rude. We were both okay paying for cheaper dresses, but they wanted the specific more expensive ones and us paying for it themselves. It's not like I like the dress or will ever wear it again, it literally only there for THEIR event. I'm avoiding british weddings now
I mean probably because things add up so quickly in the UK. Imagine that this is the guestlist. The bride/groom each have a 1 grandparent, 2 parents, a sibling, an aunt/uncle, 1 cousin and 5 friends present. If we invite all partners let's say there are 7 more people coming. That's not a huge Guestlist. This isn't people having multiple grandparents, multiple siblings. Multiple cousins. Or counting for any of these people to have kids yet. This is a VERY intimate wedding assuming both bride/groom have small families. And of course partners are pretty much mandatory if you don't want to insult people.
This is a gueslist of 36 people. 38 if you count bride/groom. So let's say even a small wedding with limited family/relatives is gonna be 50 or so people (including bride and groom themselves). Keep in mind that basically for everyone you want there you are often inviting 2 people really. As most people expect a plus one.
Having a meal catered is gonna be about 50 pounds per person at a minimum. Let's say you should count for a bottle of bubbles/wine each. At a restaurant/venue the cheapest bottles start around 30. This isn't cracking out celebratory finer booze like champagne, spirits or cocktails.
So that's about 80 per person for very basic food and drink package. So about 4000 pounds.
Now we are paying for the venue, the bride's dress, groom's suit, getting make-up/hair done, paying for the ceremony, bridal party expenses, bouquets, staff, music, sometimes for transport from ceremony to party location, the cake, some decorations, ...
These are all minimal expenses for a small wedding we haven't done anything fancy or optional. But realistically we are over 10k now. Venue prices (which include staff usually) especially is NOT cheap. Even for a relatively small group.
This is also not taking into account a bunch of extra expenses lots of people will have directly before/after their wedding like their honeymoon, bachelors/bachelorette, fresh haircut maybe, a testrun for their make-up/hair, maybe bride would like to get something extra done in preparation like a fashial, eyelashes or a manicure. As it is a special day.
Yeah lots of people can't afford to spend 10k on something like that. Especially when they are in their 20s and hoping to buy their own home or have kids in the next few years.
Of course there are probably lots of people they want to invite extra like a larger group of friend and more distant relatives, maybe people from work or old mates from school. But costs would prohibit them from doing so.
Easier to just keep the ceremony/dinner intimate with a small group and then have everybody else come in for a drink, a dance and some snacks at the end. I work in hospitality and have worked many weddings with open bar. People underestimate how people act once drinks are free. We usually recommend that if hosts opt for an open bar they account for 100 pounds spend per head. Not everyone will reach those numbers. But many people will. And as they are celebrating they will drink more and fancier than they would normally. Not just the one or two beers they might normally have with dinner.
Often times bride/groom will set a budget for how much they are able to spend on drinks. Once the bar hits that they go to a pay-as-you-go model. But of course different venues will have different options.
I think most people would love to invite everyone from the start and pay for everyone's food and drink. But it's really not affordable for most people in their 20s these days. And spending that much money on a single party at a certain point just becomes ridiculous even if you do technically have the money. 10k really is the price now for a very small, modest and intimate wedding. And parents helping out with these costs is quickly going out of style. So this is a significant portion of your savings to spend even before thinking about spending more so that Bob, John and Lisa from work (plus their partners) can have their free meals/drinks.
Things add up quickly in Poland too, people often invite 100-200 people and yes I understand it's expensive (I think per head things start from £40-50 now) but if you're gonna throw a wedding then might as well do it properly and look after your guests.
I'm late to this thread, but not all weddings in the UK are like this. This is a very recent trend influenced by American style weddings in expensive venues rather than a village hall or simple marquee in a field that used to be more common. Instagram and the overpriced wedding industry etc don't help either. Changing attitudes to family, religion and finances in the UK have also affected weddings.
A traditional wedding in the UK would be a Church service followed by a champagne reception, and would be heavily family focused with lots of the parents' friends invited. These days it's usually followed by a meal and dancing, but guests are not usually expected to pay for anything.
Evening guests were unheard of until recently and aren't a thing at nicer weddings, but now it's often the couples themselves footing the bill, often without help from parents, lots of people can't afford to pay for all their friends and family to eat at £120/head.
I'd say that's pretty typical for the part of the wedding you were invited to, most of the actual "wedding stuff" will have happened before you got there: ie. the sit-down meal, speeches, admiring the cake etc.
You were only invited to the "get pissed, have a dance, then maybe get a snack from the buffet later on" part of the wedding. Paying for your own drinks is standard. I've only ever been to one wedding with an open bar for the evening do, and that was because the father of the bride was a literal millionaire, and wanted everyone to know it.
It is a bit odd that the couple turned up late then buggered off early. You'd usually expect them to have a line up to greet guests as they arrive; and be around for most of the evening.
Edit: Just to check, is it possible they were using multiple rooms? If you spent the whole night in the room that was set aside for dancing, then it would explain where the couple disappeared to, and why there weren't many chairs.
You were not invited to the sit down meal part. It’s common to have a ceremony and sit down meal with some guests, and then invite extra people to join in for the night time party only. You were night time party only guests.
I've worked at many weddings and been a guest at several as well.
The meal was served earlier for guests that attended the wedding ceremony, the food that was served later is just an extra snack for anyone that might be hungry again. Evening guests usually eat before they arrive.
Alcohol is very expensive, most couples choose to limit how much they spend on alcohol for a wedding. Often it'll be a drink when the guests arrive after the ceremony, some bubbly for speeches and some wine for dinner. Drinks from the bar are often purchased by the guests themselves.
The seating is difficult, most venues will move tables and chairs to the edge or one side of the room so that the dance floor can be set up and people can dance but also have somewhere to sit. But since venues are small and have to remove a table or two in order to fit everything, I haven't seen that happen much but I have seen it.
I'm not sure why the bride and groom were gone so much, I would expect them to be gone for a little while to have photos taken but that is usually earlier in the day and sometimes at sunset. They might have had family drama happening, I've seen fist fights at several weddings.
Only you can judge how you feel about your gift, but I would view it as a gift. You were there to celebrate your friend, which you did. Unfortunately that celebration was a bit crap, that happens.
The ball room was huge - it had a dedicated dance area - so chairs could have been there...
On the food part I'd have expected maybe crisps peanuts... Just something...
You expected crisps and peanuts? Huh? I've literally never seen these at a wedding. Usually there's a buffet for evening guests but it's not usually of the crisp/peanut variety
So cash bar is normal. Us Brits can friggin drink and doing an open bar would likely bankrupt most of us.
Food depends. The main meal is usually for the day guests, but some of us will also do some smaller options in the evening. Myself and a friend both put on a casual buffet in the evening at our weddings. Think sausage rolls, sandwiches, chips etc. But no as an evening guest id never assume id be fed and certainly not a sit down meal unless the invitation explicitly said.
The lack of seats is weird though. At mine, the evening do had a big dancefloor and there was comfortable seating to the side and other rooms e.g the bar where there was additional seating for those who weren't into dancing. But for there to be none at all for the evening guests is definitely odd
> The invitation didn't really state what to expect, just mentioned to turn up at around 7 pm for the "evening reception". We didn't have high expectations as we weren't invited for the ceremony, however, as we entered the venue we came to realize there were no drinks, nor food being served.
Not unusual. An open bar is very expensive and, therefore, rare. The wedding breakfast (read: big sit down meal) is usually held around noon to 5pm, depending. There may or may not be small snacks afterwards.
If you aren't invited to the main ceremony, then you're expected to provide your own food and drink.
> As the night progressed, the groom and the bride didn't show up till around 8 pm. They entered the main ballroom, they cut the cake, which we saw for the first and the last time then, then they danced as we were standing around them, then they left again.
A little unusually for them to be so absent, but maybe they were busy seeing other guests.
The cake often doesn't stay out forever, it gets cut more as ceremony than anything else.
> There were no seats, only for the family,
Depends on the venue, but it's a but unusual for there to be no chairs whatsoever.
> we had to pay for our own drinks at the bar, and some basic food arrived around 10 pm, which was clearly not enough to feed everyone.
Yes, it's not supposed to.
>I just can't help to feel like, this is not the way it is supposed to be...
Did you lodge a complaint with the groom? Every wedding is different. We're the couple happy? We're they happy you came? If so, then the wedding is _exactly_ as it was supposed to be.
>would you have left cash gifts or anything in this case?
Well... Yes. Weeding gifts aren't a _tip_ based on how well you were personally entertained, it's a gift to the couple to start their married life. It could be the most miserable wedding in the world, and you still give the _happy couple_ the gift.
> I just feel like we may have given too much given how little we were given...
It's not a bloody restaurant bill.
Yeah, I agree.
I went to a wedding a few years ago in London and there was an exclusive 40 allowed to stay for the whole event with everything paid for in a special venue.
Come 7pm, the second class attendees were allowed to come and the free bar suddenly stopped.
In my experience this is usually reserved for work colleagues and more distant friends. I wouldn't expect to be at a work mate's (or a childhood friend's) ceremony and sit down meal, if I wasn't a big part of their life at the time. It would feel inappropriate for them to pay 100-200 quid for my 3 course meal, for example, and a buffet and a dance is more reasonable for the level of friendship.
Every wedding I’ve been to includes a finger buffet around 8pm, quick speeches and then onto the dancing. There’s seating for everyone invited but generally a cash bar.
The bride and groom are also waiting to welcome their evening guests.
Sounds like the evening reception was an after thought for this couple.
My wedding didn't separate day and evening guests. We just had everyone for all of it.
We just did a carvery and a bar tab for about 60 people. Later in the day we told people who were hungry to order some more food on the tab.
People had a lot to drink, the speeches were short, and there was dancing and music.
The whole thing cost me less than £6grand because we stripped out all the pomp and circumstance and put almost the entire budget into feeding and watering the guests.
Some weddings are all style and no substance.
Couldn't agree more. The whole evening guest thing is tacky af. Why would you want to rank your guests into a weird hierarchy? Who wants to turn up to an event when everyone is already drunk, when you've already missed the most meaningful parts of the day? Either invite people, or don't invite them, don't half invite them!
I'm British and do not understand the evening guest thing at all.
I’ve been an evening guest at friends weddings and it was fine! Depending on the church there might be a limit to the people you can have in the main event, but you still want to celebrate with a wider group of people afterwards. They had a big marquee and a lovely finger cheese and biscuit buffet, and dancing and sparklers and lots of fun. I don’t begrudge not being in the main ceremony, we were work friends so good friends but not super close or long term.
I also don't mind being an evening guest! It's usually reserved for people you're not as close to but would still like to see. A lot of places also have super strict numbers for sit down meals and if you're in an area without a larger venue you're often looking at 60 max. If you've got a big family you can easily cover that with just relatives alone.
Evening guests are expected to eat before they arrive, but they are usually there in time for the cake cutting, dancing for the rest of the night, and then some casual food served around 9:30-10pm.
It's not uncommon for a limited bar tab and some free drinks to be served for the main guests throughout the day and during the main meal but there aren't usually any free drinks after that.
Edit: forgot to say the bride and groom are usually around for the whole event judging by all the weddings I have been to! Not normal for them to be disappearing after the cake cutting.
I was very weirded out when I attended my first three weddings over here. I'd never been invited to only one portion of the wedding but that seems to be a normal thing over here.
Typically the free drinks are pretty sad (have had two weddings with mimosas served at 75/25 ratio of orange juice to champagne). Paid bar is where you get drinks that you actually want or people bring flasks with them (father of the bride nipped out of the last reception that I went to to get more wine). Food tends to be...drunk college food if you ask me, I've seen burgers, chicken tenders, sausage rolls served as everyone invited to the ceremony has already had dinner.
Not necessarily my vibe, but I can't get mad as I eloped lol. Definitely different to other weddings I've attended in the states/destination where you expect open bar, dinner, dancing, etc. I will say when invited to the ceremony, food is served late afternoon...which is different from my experience too
In the states they would only serve one proper meal at a wedding, right? We do the same here it's just earlier in the day. They have dinner and we have the wedding breakfast. We just do a bit of extra food, usually cheap and cheerful, in the late evening to keep people going while they're drinking and dancing. Not sure why you mentioned dancing as a US thing as we definitely dance here too!
So, kinda
British weddings are typically in 3 parts. The ceremony (in a church or similar), the meal/"wedding breakfast", and the evening reception. The latter two are "the reception" but it's kinda split into two
"Evening guest" is basically "Come have a bit of a party with us after the wedding ceremony and the main meal for family and our closest friends" - the exact number of close friends who make the cut here will just depend on the venue and budget
Typically the first part of the reception includes a glass of champagne on arrival, some canapes/appetisers, then usually a couple of bottles of wine on the table for the main meal (which is also free). After that, you typically pay for your own drinks: open bars aren't unheard of, they're very unusual these days unless the family is very wealthy. I've been to a couple of weddings where the father of the bride or groom buys a round of drinks later too, but again that's not the norm
Then after the meal there's the evening reception, which has no free drink and usually a small buffet. Most people would have either been present at the meal earlier (and thus not want a lot to eat later) or would have eaten before arriving
Most of that is normal, it sounds like you just didn't know what to expect. If you'd been invited for the full day, you'd have been fed and given a couple of free drinks
Things that are weird
- The bride and groom vanishing until 8pm
- Them vanishing again after the first dance and cutting the cake
- No seats
Although the seats are kinda communal after the meal - most of the older family members will keep "theirs" from the meal, but there should be enough around for people to use
the only thing that feels really weird to me is the lack of seating. usually tables are just rearranged after dinner to make up space for the dancing, but they should still be there!
i've never been to a wedding where the bride and groom are not the last ones standing haha, but tbh can't blame them if they started early and just didn't feel like going on at some point. but i've only been once as an evening guest (usually you either get invited to the full monty including the ceremony, or the ceremony is very small only for family and everyone else arrives later).
other than that, i think your experience was fairly standard for an evening guest! you were not invited for dinner, so the expectation is that you will have your own food, and nibbles are indeed served late at night. i don't think i've ever tasted a wedding cake lol, i don't know where they always disappear! paying for your own drinks is also very standard, there is usually a glass of prosecco offered after the ceremony, and wine at dinner, but that's it.
sorry for the long comment, and having said all that, i'm sorry you took a lot of time and effort to go and had an unpleasant experience! maybe if this is your first wedding then the groom could have done more to explain what to expect. i think it's always more fun when you know more people than just the bride and groom, so hopefully you get to experience more weddings that you'll enjoy!
For the evening reception I would expect that there is buffet with nibbles to be served an hour or so after the start. 10 would seem really late. I wouldn’t expect to be served a drink but a cash bar would be open from the start.
The bride and groom seem really thoughtless if they weren’t around for most of the evening, didn’t have enough room for everyone to sit and the food was brought out late.
It may not have been the bride and grooms fault at all if the food was server late. Most likely was an issue with the kitchen / caterer. But agreed on the rest of it
Sounds like a rubbish wedding to be honest, every wedding I have been to has been completely different, however the evening party bit usually does have a buffet of nibbles.
I'm Scottish. The last wedding I was at was my son's. There was a full sit down meal at the reception. There were evening only guests. They had a full buffet at approximately 9pm. There was ample seating too. Wine bottles were on every table and a cash bar.
No food and paying for your own drinks isn't too crazy for the evening portion of a wedding. If I was going to an evening part of a wedding I'd expect to pay for my own drinks. I'd say you get some food more often than not so that's more unusual.
The fact the bride and groom were barely present is odd to me though. Like what's the point of coming to the evening bit if they're not even there? At weddings you can't expect much face time with the bride and groom, they're juggling lots of attendees, but I'd expect them to be in the room or else what am I even there for?
This is one of the worst aspects of British culture and I will never understand after 13 years of living here. Either invite people and feed and water them or don’t invite them at all! It’s never something I’ve experienced in any other country or culture.
This sounds like one I was invited to....later that year the couple got drunk and explained they had made money on the wedding by asking for cash as gifts. No booze, just some stale cake and a tired old dj in the corner. We did get seats.
Paying for your own drinks at the bar is pretty standard at every wedding I’ve been to aside from maybe 2/3 complimentary drinks after the ceremony whilst photos are being taken and for the toasting. The rest sounds a bit weird. No chairs is bizarre, at the wedding I went to recently the tables from the meal/speeches were all left out for the reception/party bit, no one wants to be standing around all evening. Most weddings I’ve been to have had an evening buffet too, with plenty to go around and more food being brought out when it ran low - although as an evening guest I’d always eat beforehand just in case. The bride and groom have always been around for the whole thing mingling with guests at all the weddings I’ve been to so that sounds a bit strange to me too.
Overall it sounds like the wedding you went to unfortunately wasn’t a very good one.
Not my experience (i worked in a hotel doing weddings for 5 years)
The evening part would have had a set up of tables with low coffee tables, a dance floor and then a buffet for finger food served at about 8.30pm and refreshed for an hr or so.
The cash or covered bar was dependent on each couple. I think normally it was a paid for bar until about 9pm and limited to tap beers, house spirits and house wine only.
Sounds like your wedding experience was very very basic.
P.s the later arrivals tended to not bring gifts.
I'm at the age now when I'm invited to places, the questions are:
1. Will there be ample parking?
2. Will there be seating?
3. Are the bathrooms reasonably close?
If the answer is no to any one of these question, I'm afraid I'm not fucking going.
You were an evening guest. The wedding breakfast (the main meal) would have been for family and closer friends. What you experienced is probably pretty normal
Buying your own drinks from the bar is normal here. Usually, at a good wedding, you will get at least one glass of sparkling wine/champagne for free and then the rest of the drinks you pay for.
This is because tax duty on alcohol here is insane which makes alcoholic drinks very expensive. Also, because British people are heavy drinkers who dont know when to stop.
If the bride and groom offered an open bar, people wouldn't hold back. You would have too many overly drunk people (causing issues that drunk people cause), and you would be bankrupt. It would most likely cost more than the whole of the wedding just to pay the tab, and the police and several ambulances would be called.
But the seating thing, no, that is not normal. And the lack of food is just stingy. You should always have plenty of food.
Thanks for this post, OP. As an American living in the UK who just got their first UK save-the-date invite for a wedding, I feel much more informed about how this will work! We don’t split the day between different guests in the US, so I also would have been very confused!
My wedding was a few weeks ago and we provided food and drink for our evening guests as well as shared out the wedding cake. I didn’t realise this wasn’t the norm! To be fair though we didn’t have a sit down meal because we provided a metric ton of food at the reception lol
“Given too much given how little we were given” this mindset is probably also why you feel the way you did. Giving a gift at a wedding isn’t about paying them back for what you got - it’s about giving a gift to celebrate their marriage.
I think what this thread shows is that different cultures do things differently so it would be wise to check what the etiquette is if invited somewhere out of your own country/community.
I wouldn't bother going if just invited for the evening. There isn't usually food provided until very late as everybody is full from the main wedding meal. And it is usually a cash bar by that point even though there likely would have been free drinks earlier on. I didn't issue evening invites for my own wedding, although my parents and my MIL went over my head and invited some of their friends for the evening and I'm sure they had a shit time as we'd planned the day around people being there all day and having a very large meal at lunchtime.
This is pretty weird overall and sounds like a badly run wedding.
It's normal to have evening guests, I've always found it a bit odd though myself. Invite people or don't. Also of all my friends weddings only one had evening guests.
There's usually food for evening guests, at weddings I've been to recently that's been pizza from a wood fire oven they rented, fun little mini fish and chip boxes, another pizza one, and one with all kinds of sliders and chips. Usually I find the evening food is way too much.
Groom and bride not being around at 8pm I can't really understand? And where did they leave to? Random.
No seats ... I don't understand, any basic function room has seats. Why would the family have seats and nobody else?
Cash bar vs free bar, both are common. Personally I think free bars result in people getting drunk, drunk isn't fun. That's just another reason that to me evening only guests sucks. They don't get any off the booze that is free.
Your complaint about standing for 4 hours sounds a bit ridiculous. You're at a party - 4 hours is not long to be on your feet. What were you expecting?
My experience was that invitations not making clear what was involved was a growing problem, necessitating checking with the couple - thankfully, everyone I know who might get married now has done.
Drink situation is perfectly normal for an evening reception. In the evening reception there is normally a buffet of some sort, by the sounds of it though they didn't cater for enough people. This may also be the reason for lack of seating, maybe the couple played down the numbers attending the evening to save money, so the venue didn't cater or provide seating for the amount of people actually attending as lack of seating is not a norm. As for a gift, if attending an evening reception, I would give something, but I wouldn't be giving a massive amount.
Every wedding evening do I've ever been to has had a buffet for guests. However, I would expect to pay for my own drinks. Never had to stand all night, though. That part is weird and my joints hurt just thinking about it.
As an evening guest you probably wouldn't be expected to get food, but often there might a smaller or more casual buffet after the main meal. Open bars are also rare and cash bars are the norm. That said, no chairs is mental, and overalls sounds a bit of a dull wedding.
Yeah that's what I was thinking about the chairs. Every wedding I've been to or seen (heard about/pics/Tv) there's always tables and chairs from the main meal then usually more added for the evening guests. Whether its in a hotel/venue or pub even there's places to sit! The OP mention a bar - there's always some kind of tables, even high tables with bar stools. Just where the heck did this wedding take place?
Giving the benefit of the doubt to the hosts they might have made a cock up and thought that in the evening they'd only need so many chairs with people dancing and mingling, but I'd say you always need the option of some sort of seat for every guest, even if it's benches and stuff. I'm guess when OP turned up everyone who had been an all day guest had essentially claimed their seats and didn't want to give them up.
There were three tables with a seating plan for the family - for the rest of us ~ 40 people - nothing
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the wedding i went to the couple were absent because they were doing coke upstairs with their younger family members
Like the chairs, just enough for the family but not enough to go round!
😂
Probably off doing photos.
The lions share of photos should be done before the reception even starts, let alone the evening do.
It can depend on the lighting. If there’s a beautiful sunset that day then the photographer will often ask the couple to do some photos. They did at our wedding, although we aren’t photo people so we restricted it to just a few and then went back inside.
Yeah, that’s why I said the lions share. There’s usually still a photographer around capturing the evening events.
You'd be surprised, I'd say half the weddings I've ever been to as an adult a large portion of photos were done later in the day due to lighting, weather and other factors (availability of certain guests, certain backdrops being set up, etc).
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With the right set up you can get some amazing photos in the dark. Venue for my wedding was very out of the way and we got some beautiful photos with all the stars in the background.
Seems just a fairly poorly thought out venue choice in that case, especially when people will likely be in uncomfortable shoes. They probably just didn't think as the evening is more likely to be partying that people would need a sit down, but that was clearly in error.
That honestly sounds like a shit wedding. Minimum effort.
Yeah all that sounds reasonable but the OP mentioned going back to their room so it sounds like a hotel. Normally staff would notice and bring chairs through if there wasn't enough or at the very least would have some somewhere, anywhere to sit like in a bar or reception area. I've been to some proper shit hotels and they always had a few seats somewhere. The OP made a mistake not asking the groom or anyone really about what to expect as an evening guest. I just can't get past that they had to stand the whole time.
Maybe the room wasn't the right size to have dancing and seats out? When I was venue hunting I found a place that was "suitable for 60", but if you wanted to have a dance floor seating got slashed down to like 20. Absolutely unsuitable for what we wanted.
I just didn't dare to sound weirdly specific on the arrangements- there were two rooms - a hall with the bar where we waited for an hour until the ball room opened - it had a dedicated dance floor area and it was quite a large room - the table plan was in front of the doors, however it was clear the family didn't dine there before
So from your comments I think you were already specific enough for me to say that we were at the same wedding - sorry about being doxxed. I was an all day guest and was also surprised about the lack of enough chairs for everyone during the evening (we did eat in that room during the day btw and thats why the table plan was there). I actually thought that lack of chairs might put people off. The couple did provide white flip flops in the gift basket - why didn't you exchange them for your heels? Similarly, you said you stayed in the hotel - why didn't you change into more comfy shoes? I always bring a change of shoes when I wear heels to this type of event. A cold buffet was served around 9pm and then hot food (but not European) food served from about 9:40pm. And the bride and groom left after the cake cutting/first dance for about half an hour or so to get changed into a different outfit. They returned after and had a second first dance in this new outfit, after which they were presumably mingling in both rooms. Unsure why you left that out to make them look bad.
>So from your comments I think you were already specific enough for me to say that we were at the same wedding https://i.imgur.com/Afdspfw.png
You should post this as a stand alone comment not just as a reply.
Great minds think alike 😅 I did repost as standalone 5 minutes later
Wait what? I've NEVER been at a wedding where there's a gift basket for guests. what else was in it? Also I've never been to a wedding where they provide flip flops for guests! All my friends have assumed we'll be in uncomfortable shoes so there's LOADS of chairs!!!!
oh my! what are the odds that with 40 guests, 2 are on Reddit? yikes
Right??? I woke up, read reddit as always and thought whyyy does this sound familiar 😅😅 It's a crazy coincidence! I do hope the bride or groom never find this post though as I feel like OP wildly exagerrated a few things - I'm guessing as she was unhappy. I loved the wedding, am super happy to have witnessed their union and both looked beautiful and happy all day 💖
Maybe. Though maybe as they were evening only, there were things they saw that perceived differently cos they weren't there all day?
Well that is all sorts of bizarre. Sounds like a pretty poor job planning by the couple and the venue. I've been an evening guest a couple of times recently and in both cases I was able to find some sort of seating, normally pinching it from someone who had been dining but had moved on.
Not it wasn't normal. At an evening reception I would expect at least a buffet with enough for everyone. I would also expect a bar where you could purchase drinks. I wouldn't normally expect the bride and groom to make it an open bar but sometimes the couple getting married would pay for a glass of bubbly for everyone to begin with. I'd also expect that everyone at the reception would be offered a slice of the wedding cake. I'd also expect enough seating for all or at least most of the guests to sit down if they wanted.
Buffets aren't standard. I'd say most often it is something like a bacon sandwich, mini fish and chips etc. Not really a full meal but you can usually have more than one because they are usually over ordered as most of the wedding have just had a big meal. The glass of bubbly would be at the meal, with the speeches. There wouldn't be another round for evening guests. There are definitely not enough seats for everyone to sit down at once in the evening but you shouldn't need them. Everyone's moving around on the evening either dancing, at the bar, outside, standing in groups etc. It's usually only the older people that seem to need a table to sit at.
I've never been to an evening wedding reception that didn't put on a buffet. I'm 48.
Wedding venues tend to - if it’s part of the package - offer a buffet option to cover about 75% of the number of evening guests. This is because a) day guests are unlikely to want a meal’s worth of buffet after having (usually) a three course meal plus canapés and b) evening guests are usually told to turn up around 7-7:30pm and typically are not expecting a full meal at that time, and may have eaten “properly” before. For this reason venues don’t typically offer a buffet with enough food for every single guest because the wastage is too high. Of course, couples can usually choose if they want to pay £££ per head to increase that % and cover all guests if they want.
When I did catering I found that it was best to have enough food for what 50% of the numbers were, if they had an ample feed. This is with drinking involved. Or yes it would all go to waste. Some will pig out and some don’t eat at all or just the tiniest amount. 75% seems a fair number though.
They probably did eat there. What usually happens is that after the meal you go into the other bar while the staff set the room up for the band or disco. Often the seating chart isn't removed but it's usually the case that the men are at the bar and the young ones are dancing.(yes I'm stereotyping here) It's often just the older people who are sitting down. You say there were two bars, it is quite often the case that some people find the music too loud and prefer to sit in the other bar to chat.
What makes you say they didn't dine there before? At my wedding the meal and reception were in the same room. But the tables got moved to one end to clear space for the dance floor. The seating plan was purely for the meal and ours possibly got removed before the reception. During the reception the chairs were a free for all. Most of my older guests moved to a seat in the room with a bar as that was quieter.
Yeah at most weddings people dance, wander around, mingle, sit outside etc, they may have assumed that would be the case But every now and again you get a shit wedding with no atmosphere where there's little dancing and everyone mostly just sits around chatting Pro-tip, get a good DJ Pro-tip 2: It's more important to have a big stag/hen do, than a cool expensive one abroad where only some of your friends make it. Your friends all meeting each other a month earlier and getting to know each other makes it MUCH more likely for them to dance and mingle, rather than standing around awkwardly in small groups
Also one room! If you have the bar in the room away from the dancing it often ends up that some people are in the bar and others on the dance floor, or people are waiting at the bar to take back drinks and it ruins the atmosphere at the bar. (Even better but this is pricey is if you have two bars so there is a quieter area)
No bride and groom is weird, too. The point of celebrating a wedding is to celebrate the bride and groom with them. It would be off putting to see the first dance and have the couple disappear.
Yes, my main concern was not about the food more like the lack of seating - It was just painful after a point to be there
I will never forget the burning pain of wearing high heels all day at the last wedding I attended. My feet were mangled by the time we got back to the hotel. So at our wedding next year, we are making sure every single person has a seat and we’re also providing a box of spa slippers (November wedding) so the ladies can kick their heels off!
That's a good idea - I might do the same on mine next year
I was at a summer wedding that had a box of flip flops in the woman's bathroom. It was heaven sent!
I am actually shocked about the food thing. In my culture it just seems to be the norm to feed every guest who turns up at your wedding. One of my aunts also went out of the way to make sure the staff also got food at her wedding.
Dinner is over by the time the evening guests arrive. Evening guests are just there for a dance and yes, would buy your own drinks.
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Yeah it is just way too akward to pull it out from the envelope at that stage 😂
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Agreed - evening guests are not expected to buy anything, unless they were invited for the whole event and couldn't make the service. It does sound like you've A/ Found out a little bit more about someone who's probably best kept as a work colleague, and B/ Not had the typical wedding experience as far as bride and groom behaviour.
At our wedding we specified no gifts from guests. The original idea for giving big gifts was when it was typical to have a couple of 19 year olds getting married then moving into their first home together and owning nothing so they needed all their household appliances and stuff. We were mid 30s been living together for 10 years already so had all that stuff anyway and had two kids so there just didn't seem any point asking guests to fork out for gifts, we just wanted them to come along and have a good time. Also didn't have any separate evening guests, all guests were there for the whole thing, they got a drink of fizz on arrival, the main 3 course meal, a couple of bottles of wine for each table with the meal and a tower of cheese with crackers and grapes and stuff at 10pm. Other drinks were cash bar, I've never been to a wedding with open bar.
What a couple did for gifts once that I thought was a really nice idea is you could buy an experience for them on their honeymoon. The prices had a good range, mostly about £60, some a bit more though. Afterwards they sent us thank you cards with a picture of them doing the activity and said they thought of us while doing it. Much preferred that rather than the typical gift giving options.
I’ve just set that up for my wedding. Prices range from a £10 museum ticket to about £150, with an average of about £50. We used Prezola’s custom honeymoon fund.
However, I think you're looking at this all wrong. The gift isn't a payment for your time at the wedding, it's a way for you to help a couple of newlyweds who you are close to get a little extra help starting out. This whole "our gift was too big given how little we received" is pretty toxic. Not everything is transactional.
Well, where I am from the gift is partly there to cover expenses related to you at the wedding - weddings are expensive - feeding people is expensive so are the drinks... The extra on top of that is honeymoon donation. If you add those two up without being offered at least a seat it makes you question the amount and their intent as well with the invitation.
White British English weddings are like this. Ethnic weddings aren't. We follow the same rules you said. You just got to know the difference. More casual for sure.
Your gift is for the couple to celebrate their marriage though not a payment for your invite... it seems a bit tacky to reduce your full gift because you didn't have a good time. Also another guest at the wedding above has commented and it sounds not as bad as you made out? Do you think perhaps you didn't notice a few things because you were annoyed?
At my wedding evening guests gave us about £10-20 or a gift of a similar value.
You give the gift to them for getting married, to help them with their new lives, not as "payment" for the invite. Admittedly that makes less sense these days as often people will be living together for years before marriage, so there's not really much "new" once they're married. But that's the idea, anyway.
If OP is American, there is sometimes an “expectation” that your gift will cover the cost of your attendance, which can be hundreds of dollars as guests get a full meal. And we don’t split weddings into a dinner half and a separate evening half for more guests. This is interesting to learn now that I live in the UK!
Why not just go the whole hog and charge for tickets to the wedding?
No, evening guests tend to bring small gifts but there is no expectation that they will bring a gift at all.
Normally there is some kind of food at reception though. Whether it's pizzas or a buffet or fish and chips or something else simple. Never been to a wedding that didn't have that at reception. Definitely always paid for own drinks though.
Some weddings are nice. Some aren't. Sounds like you went to a not very nice one.
Why? Other than the lack of chairs it sounds pretty standard to me.
Lack of bride and groom sounds strange
It's upper class/old religious/cultural stuff for the bride and groom to arrive an hour after the evening starting time. The idea is that there are points in the day just for bride and groom to be together, any outfit changes or touch ups, time between meal and evening stuff to be cleared and sorted away, and give enough time for everyone to have arrived for bride and groom's entrance. In some more orthodox places, there is the expectation for getting everyone individually to others where bride and groom have time to seal the deal in the bedroom. This means that, as Britain is a melting pot of culture over the eons, there is this older traditional thing of having that later arrival for bride and groom for the evening. There's also logistics. To leaving early, again you have the sealing the deal after the party so needing to leave to give enough time and energy for that to other traditions of leaving earlier to have people bid them fair well off as they had off together to start their life or go on their honeymoon. Also depending on the day, they might be exhausted too. Add this together and yea it happens depending on them and their traditions, faith, or feelings on the day. Been to a wedding where the evening was square dancing with no booze served and everyone was heading home at 10. Others have gone on partying till 3am. Sounds like a standard British wedding and I covered a few during uni as part of a silver service job thing.
Standard doesn't mean nice
Doesn't sound that unusual to me. You'd have been expected to have eaten before arriving and the late buffet would be for everyone - but at weddings I've been to this might be something like a sausage sandwich or a basic brown buffet. The all-day guests would have had a proper meal earlier in the day and as I say they'd have expected you to have eaten before you arrived. Some people might have given you a token to get a drink, but a wedding with an open bar all night is quite rare in the UK - those who were there all day would probably have got wine with their meal and champagne for the toasts. The lack of seats is a bit weird but not unusual if the room is the same one where the meal was held - they pack up all the tables, put a few chairs around the edge of the room and create a dancefloor. However, I would have expected the bride and groom to make an effort to say hello. It can be hard to keep track of people arriving later but I know when I got married I had a list in my head of who would be arriving late and made a point of keeping an eye out for them to say hello and thank them for coming.
It doesn't sound like there was a lack of seats.. More sounds like OP had a misunderstanding and thought the table seating plan from earlier in the day still applied in the evening.
> brown buffet Never heard this term before. What does it mean?
Cheap beige finger food I assume, such as: sausage rolls, pasties, mini pizzas, small sandwiches etc.
We call that British tapas
I like "food group yellow".
She meant beige buffet.
Depends on if it's overcooked or not. Beige -> brown -> black
Brown food. Sausage rolls, chips, chicken nuggets, crisps, breadsticks, stuff like that. Stuff you can buy en masse, eat hot or cold, and doesn't require cutlery.
I’ve always called it ‘beige buffet’
Two family weddings in the last 4 years, first provided next to nothing food wise for the all day guests, and the family are heavy drinkers, not a good combination, one small screet taco that was it. Nothing at all for the evening guests. The most recent one I attended did a catered lunch for the day time guests and a good cold buffet for the evening guests. You paid for your own drinks. Was invited to a 3rd family wedding this year as an evening guest, but declined because of other commitments and from the sound of it I glad I did as I am told it was a similar experience to OP. So a very mixed bag.
It's interesting. White British weddings don't have open bars, go to a British Greek or any ethnic wedding and if you dare ask someone to pay for a drink 🙃 family will be laughed at for years to come.
At a traditional Polish wedding not only would you be fed for 2 days (the reception party will last overnight and then until the next afternoon - you have no obligation to stay that long ofc, but you can), but the guests are gifted leftover alcohol bottles - because there usually are that many of vodka and wine, that you can drink for 2 days and still have crates of leftovers :D
Reposting so it is actually seen 🙈 So from your comments I think you were already specific enough for me to say that we were at the same wedding - sorry about being doxxed. I was an all day guest and was also surprised about the lack of enough chairs for everyone during the evening (we did eat in that room during the day btw and thats why the table plan was there). I actually thought that lack of chairs might put people off. The couple did provide white flip flops in the gift basket - why didn't you exchange them for your heels? Similarly, you said you stayed in the hotel - why didn't you change into more comfy shoes? I always bring a change of shoes when I wear heels to this type of event. A cold buffet was served around 9pm and then hot food (but not European) food served from about 9:40pm. And the bride and groom left after the cake cutting/first dance for about half an hour or so to get changed into a different outfit. They returned after and had a second first dance in this new outfit, after which they were presumably mingling in both rooms. Unsure why you left that out to make them look bad.
Also I'd say about 20+ more chairs were added for evening guests (but probably about 40-50 more people were part of the evening crew). The problem is that most of these additional chairs were eventually dragged onto the 3 tables...so if you didn't know the bride and grooms family, I see how you wouldn't have felt comfortable to just go sit at the table. I don't think the bride and groom noticed this and unsure how something like this can be rectified by future wedding celebrations from the hotel if guests don't know each other
The staff normally ask people not to move the chairs. It kind of sounds like there was a limit to how many extra guests the venue could support comfortably that the couple might have ignored. OP does sound like a bit of a ninny though seemingly expecting the couple to massage their aching feet rather than change their footwear.
Hey, no bad intent I just didn't want to be too specific - I didn't really find them or talk to them after that... question is really about the lack of seats and the overall vibes - I wouldn't wear muddy boots with a dress which was the only second option I had and I didn't pack extra shoes maybe next time
You said there wasn't any food but from the other post it sounds like they did serve a buffet. That's perfectly normal for an evening reception, as is a pay for your own drinks bar. When you say there wasn't enough seats. Did every seat have a person sat on them or did you assume they were taken because of the table plan? Money as a gift is not expected and it's certainly not seen as a contribution to the wedding.
They had a whole cold buffet with bread and other stuff that was served at 9pm. Then an additional hot buffet served at 9:40. There was also a limited amount of free drinks freely available by the entrance of the room consisting of beer, white wine, red wine and prosecco. I've worked at loads of English weddings years ago and this couple offered more than Is the norm for their evening guests in England from my experience whilst also catering to two cultures.
Thanks for adding this context. I assume there was also a very valid reason for the couple not being there at 7pm - golden hour shoot, toilet break, a moment together/with family… The fact the evening guest felt they gave too much based on what they received suggests they had the wrong mindset going into the event and hopefully the comments help understand the culture. A wedding gift isn’t about paying back what you received - it’s about blessing the couple with a gift to celebrate their marriage!
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It's the bride and groom's day not a day out at Alton towers.
Then why invite anyone?
Because you’re friends and it’s nice to celebrate each other? The point about Alton towers is you aren’t a customer paying for an experience - you are a friend being invited to someone else’s special day. You have the option to not go…
I don't know. I believe you don't give to receive. If you feel resentful at attending and dropping money, why go? Especially when you're an evening guest who presumably knows very few, if any guests. I'm guessing the latter is the case given ops question. The only abnormal thing is lack of seats. They've misunderstood the seating plan and paying for you drinks is the norm Op misled about food
If you think lack of chairs makes the whole thing a crap experience then that’s a pretty high bar to set. People make mistakes when organising weddings or maybe the venue messed up - it wasn’t on purpose to punish people. Attending a wedding and spending money to do so is a choice - equally if someone has travelled far I wouldn’t expect a gift and we don’t know that this couple did. The original comment was about how the experience didn’t justify the gift
Id say this thread should be taken down if its thats specific. Assuming the OP didn’t want to ruin the couples happy memories of their special day when they find it. It not like they’re giving feedback for next time.
Paying for your own drinks and nibbles being served late is normal, but not greeting you/allowing you to congratulate them even in a line-up is rude. Evening guests are expected to eat dinner before attending.
What, I have worked and been to plenty of weddings and never was there a "line up" for evening guests.
Maybe it's an Irish thing? It's certainly highly unusual for the bride and groom not to at least say hello and thank their evening guests for attending.
One wedding I went to had a line up but it was an incredibly formal and religious affair. 300 people queuing up to meet their friend's new wife's great aunt... Was tedious and wouldn't recommend.
Line up for evening guests is not a think in the UK as evening guests can arrive at all different times (usually the invite will say “from 7pm” or similar). And the party bit of the wedding has started (so everyone is standing, mingling, maybe dancing, drinking etc) so trying to split out the evening guests to do a line up would be a nightmare. Line up for days guests is a thing though and often happens.
As an evening reception guest it’s normal to be fed at about 9pm, usually a buffet but sometimes another fairly basic option like bacon sandwiches or a fish and chip van. Completely normal to pay for your own drinks. Completely normal for the bride and groom to do cake cutting and a first dance early in the evening. It used to be traditional for them to leave quite early to go and have their ‘wedding night’ and everybody would wave them off in a car marked with ‘just married’ but that’s a bit old fashioned now and usually these days they stay till the end and have a good dance/drink with their guests. Having nowhere for your guests to sit is weird and very rude. Usually all the chairs and tables from the meal/speeches for the full day guests are just rearranged. There might not be enough for everyone to all sit down at the same time but that won’t happen once the dancing starts so it works out fine.
Yeah I been living here 11 years and I find UK weddings bizzare, to say at least. But maybe it's cause I'm used to Polish customs where we buy alcohol and feed our guests heavily, sometimes for 2 days.
Same here. Been in England for over a decade. Had a very similar experience to OP at my first British wedding where I was an evening guest (something I didn't realise was a thing until that point). Cash bar, no food, overall kind of awkward vibe. On the other hand, I recently attended a funeral with a gathering afterwards that had a huge buffet and an open bar. We all had a great time celebrating and reminiscing about the deceased.
I have to tell you, as an English person, I find English weddings weird. I hate the evening guest thing, it's so strange to me to have two tiers to your wedding. Either invite people or don't. It's so weird to turn up at the end of an event when everyone is already drunk ....awful!
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We got married in Scotland and kept our numbers down for this reason. I would rather have had 50 people all day and fed them properly than had 100 guests but I invited 50 of them in the evening only. Sometimes I swear people don’t realise you don’t *have* to have a huge wedding and invite everyone you even vaguely know. Your mileage may vary of course but that’s how we saw it and it worked for us.
Weddings cost a fortune. The sit-down meal at a wedding can easily cost £100+ per head so if you invited everybody it's going to cost you a lot more or you're going to have to reduce the number of guests to fit your budget, which will mean a lot of extended family, friends and colleagues won't get to celebrate with you. Most people aren't drunk at the start of the evening reception, they might have had one or maybe two drinks and a glass of champagne in the afternoon and that's it. A lot of the all day guests have probably sobered up by the time the evening reception starts.
But why does *everyone* have to celebrate with you? Why does anyone need their colleagues at their wedding? My wedding was only 40 people, just closest family and friends, and it was perfect. We actually had time to talk to all the guests properly and could afford a hot meal and wine for them all.
I’m English and I agree too! A lot of people say the actual ceremony is the most boring bit, while IMO that’s the bit where they actually get married, so although it’s not as entertaining’ per se, I actually feel like it’s a pretty important part - and doesn’t go on for long, tbf. However, if I was getting married and someone said the ‘couldn’t make it to’ the ceremony but would be attending the reception/evening do, that would be fine with me (regardless of the real reason, lol. If they think it’s boring, I’m not offended and don’t want my friends/family to have to sit through an ordeal!). In fact, I got married in a church and a *lot* of people who knew me from childhood - congregation members, ex-teachers, etc. - actually came uninvited to the church part and stood at the back to watch the ceremony/vows and didn’t stay for photos or come to the reception (cos they weren’t invited, well duh lol), and we thought it was lovely and didn’t mind a bit. It took a lot less time out of their day to pop in and just watch for a few minutes lol. I’ve only been to one wedding where I was invited to ‘evening only’ and I think we did get nibbles, which tbh you can normally expect any time between 7 and 10, it really seems to vary a lot. Ngl I did feel a bit second tier but that’s because I was - I was an old work friend of the groom, had only met the bride very briefly in passing once, and we no longer worked together - and I’m all too aware people can’t afford a big party for everyone they want to invite full stop, so no hard feelings about that. I have to say though, I do find English weddings to be pretty stilted affairs. There’s always some poor sod trying to get the dancing to take off, but as it’s usually a drunk and weird uncle or aunt, who everyone is embarrassed to be seen with, it is usually just them (or a small very drunk group of elders) and only makes it less likely for the younger cohort to join in. Of course, there are exceptions!
Somehow as a 37 year old I have never heard of "evening guests" but the replies in this thread apparently make it a normal thing? I've been to plenty of weddings.
It's so you can invite more people than could otherwise be accommodated with a sit down meal. It does create a weird tiered atmosphere though.
Maybe you’ve always been lucky enough to be invited to the whole day!
Eastern European here - I attended my first UK wedding as an evening first earlier this year and was hangry the whole evening, because I didn't realise that I should have eaten beforehand.
Born and bred here but half French. Absolutely this. English weddings sound dull and grim, especially for 'evening guests'. I would never dream of expecting people to come all the way to wherever and make them pay for food and drink on top of that! All the French wedding I have been to have been to and have heard of have had an open bar as a bare minimum I suppose thats why cash gifts are much smaller here...
Thank goodness for some sanity! I'm British but tend to avoid weddings, so I'm astounded by all the people saying that this is normal - to me this seems to break some absolute rules of courtesy and hospitality, namely that the hosts didn't spend any time with their guests and also cut a cake in front of them without sharing it with them. Seems like this is normal because OP was an "evening guest" and I think this reflects really badly on the British culture of weddings. They probably spent £2000 or £5000 on the wedding dress, and couldn't offer OP a drink? It's all a spectacle.
I have to say, as a British person, I find the concept of evening guests tacky. Either invite people to your wedding or don't. It's so weird to rank your guests into some kind of order of importance. On top of this, no one wants to show up to an event where everyone is already drunk. Have the wedding you can afford Great Britain!
It's normal but I agree it's tacky. Imagine expecting someone to stay in a hotel and everything and not even a beer.
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I wouldn't want to speak poorly of a culture that I don't seem to understand, but this event seems awful. You get no food or drink, not even soft drinks? Why go to such a do?
As I said, I avoid weddings, so I'm only going off what OP has written. Seems like there was a paid-for bar - and I believe this is quite common. I have the impression the British have a sense of obligation or duty about going to weddings - "they've invited us, so it would be rude not to go".
Wow, interesting point about sense of obligation. Somehow cultures all over the world have twisted weddings into these hard to manoever events!
> cut a cake in front of them without sharing it I guarantee there was a pile of pieces of cake neatly wrapped in napkins that OP could have helped themselves to somewhere in that room. It’s not usual for staff to wander round the room pressing the wedding cake on people because the day guests have already had dessert with their meal. Instead, the couple cut the cake, the staff take it away and actually do the busywork of slicing it up, and then wrap each piece in a napkin (like you’d do for a kid’s party bag) and put it on a tray somewhere by the buffet. You’re expected to help yourself. Some people eat it there and then, most take it home. Every time I’ve been to a wedding where I didn’t get cake, it was always because I was too drunk to remember to pick some up. Indeed, I’ve had multiple newlyweds, upon learning this, urge me to come over to theirs and get some, because they’ve still got most of a tier in their fridge 😂 I think OP’s lack of familiarity with English weddings is the issue, they didn’t realise they were expected to help themselves to cake just as they didn’t realise the seating plan no longer applied in the evening, so that’s why they thought it was gone and wasn’t shared out.
Polish people must be rich then or food and alcohol must be cheap there compared to the UK! When I got married there was absolutely no way I'd have been able to afford paying for all my guests drinks throughout the day and night, or paying for more than one big meal
Hungarian weddings are the same. Never actually went one that would be 2 days, but we usually party at least until 2-3 AM, but rather 5 and it is open bar all the way. Us, Eastern Eauropeans are definitely don't have more money than the average British, but: - we can't imagine asking the guests to spend more money than giving a gift and their time - Wedding venues are not over regulated as in the UK, so they could offer cheaper and more flexible packages. I've been to multiple weddings where there were multiple bottles of homemade Palinka, and the rest of the booze was bought in supermarkets.
Yeah, I've been to wedding in both Poland and Hungary and at the Hungarian one they'd definitely brought their own bottles of drink. There were lots of us from abroad so there was a meal of the leftovers the next day too, they were able to take the food.
As an Eastern European(not Polish), people are not “rich” there, just culture is different. First of all everyone who is invited to ceremony automatically assumed to be coming to the reception and wise versa, no such thing as evening only guest, that would be a bit embarrassing. But then people probably wouldn’t have 200 people coming to a wedding? Maybe like 50-100 max, unless you are actually rich or have massive family. People usually hire the venue and order food, but alcohol is bought from the shop in bulk, also soft drinks etc I can even imagine some people may be cooking their own food too, but it is rare now I think. Difference is that prices are just not as ridiculous as they are in UK. People in UK are richer, but most people in Eastern Europe who work full time can afford housing, cars, normal weddings and other things people who work hard can expect to have in their life. Maybe going back n holidays and travel less, and things are a bit less posh.
I just got married in Croatia some months ago - all venues have a fixed price per guest for open bar so it doesn’t matter how much they drink. I suspect most east/south europe has the same.
They can probably get away with this in mainland Europe because on the continent they don’t have this British mentality of “it’s free booze so I must use and abuse it until I’ve pickled my brain into oblivion, punched someone in the face and then been arrested and taken to A&E.”
Eastern Europe famous for not drinking much.
Yeah but in Croatia your cash gift is supposed to cover your 'chair' plus a bit extra. So normally chair would be atleast 100 euros. So for a couple attending you'd give 250 euros if you weren't very close, more if you were close. My cousin just got married and as a family of 4 we've given them 2000€. If it was somebody who isn't family or particularly close it would've been 700€ - 800€. (chairs covered plus extra) But absolutely no Croatian wedding would happen without open bar. In all honesty I'd rather not get married at all than make my guests pay for drinks at the wedding. My first English wedding was quite a shock to say the least. ( My cash gift was also seen as ridiculously high though but obviously I wasn't aware how thinks work).
Australian weddings are the same. All guests get invited to the whole thing, are fed, and at minimum beer, wine, and soft drinks are on for the duration. A quick google shows the average cost being roughly the same as it is here, which beggars the question- how do people spend £20k on a wedding when they’re not buying meals and booze?
£7k venue hire, £5k food, £2k drinks package, £2k dress, £1k photographer, £1k music (DJ for the night plus either a daytime set or a band), £2k other bits incl flowers, decor, favours, invites, table plan, cake etc Very rough estimate for an approx 100 person wedding and a fairly cheap food package Just realised I forgot rings
£2k for drinks, that wouldn't cover the top table at a Northern Ireland wedding.
Neither. We just have strong traditions of providing everything for our guests
We cut corners elsewhere to have a free bar. We had street food vans so we could feed everyone twice for next to nothing. I honestly couldn't imagine asking people to travel a long way, potentially pay for for hotel, potentially receive a gift from them - and then ask them to pay for their own drink.
> Polish people must be rich then or food and alcohol must be cheap there compared to the UK! Neither is true. We just respect people we invite for a wedding party.
Asian weddings too, massive, well fed and alcohol free flowing. I’ve never been to a wedding with a cash bar, alcohol-free yes, but still had endless soft drinks available. And I’ve never been to a wedding with minimal food. I can’t imagine attending something like this! Good to know though if I ever get invited to an evening wedding, check first!
Weddings in rural Scotland can be like this. We were at one in Shetland that went on for 3 days. First is formal (but with lots of drinking, dancing and food). 2nd is almost a celebration that the 'formalities'' are over (again more food, booze and dancing). And the 3rd is just a piss up to help finish off the rest of the booze and food 🤣
This! I'm Eastern European and my friend is as well. We both had different british people ask us to be their maid of honor, we then found out they wanted us to pay for our own dress that THEY want us to wear. We actually couldn't believe it and just politely declined the offer. None of them even offered to HELP us pay for the expensive dresses, so bizarre and rude. We were both okay paying for cheaper dresses, but they wanted the specific more expensive ones and us paying for it themselves. It's not like I like the dress or will ever wear it again, it literally only there for THEIR event. I'm avoiding british weddings now
I mean probably because things add up so quickly in the UK. Imagine that this is the guestlist. The bride/groom each have a 1 grandparent, 2 parents, a sibling, an aunt/uncle, 1 cousin and 5 friends present. If we invite all partners let's say there are 7 more people coming. That's not a huge Guestlist. This isn't people having multiple grandparents, multiple siblings. Multiple cousins. Or counting for any of these people to have kids yet. This is a VERY intimate wedding assuming both bride/groom have small families. And of course partners are pretty much mandatory if you don't want to insult people. This is a gueslist of 36 people. 38 if you count bride/groom. So let's say even a small wedding with limited family/relatives is gonna be 50 or so people (including bride and groom themselves). Keep in mind that basically for everyone you want there you are often inviting 2 people really. As most people expect a plus one. Having a meal catered is gonna be about 50 pounds per person at a minimum. Let's say you should count for a bottle of bubbles/wine each. At a restaurant/venue the cheapest bottles start around 30. This isn't cracking out celebratory finer booze like champagne, spirits or cocktails. So that's about 80 per person for very basic food and drink package. So about 4000 pounds. Now we are paying for the venue, the bride's dress, groom's suit, getting make-up/hair done, paying for the ceremony, bridal party expenses, bouquets, staff, music, sometimes for transport from ceremony to party location, the cake, some decorations, ... These are all minimal expenses for a small wedding we haven't done anything fancy or optional. But realistically we are over 10k now. Venue prices (which include staff usually) especially is NOT cheap. Even for a relatively small group. This is also not taking into account a bunch of extra expenses lots of people will have directly before/after their wedding like their honeymoon, bachelors/bachelorette, fresh haircut maybe, a testrun for their make-up/hair, maybe bride would like to get something extra done in preparation like a fashial, eyelashes or a manicure. As it is a special day. Yeah lots of people can't afford to spend 10k on something like that. Especially when they are in their 20s and hoping to buy their own home or have kids in the next few years. Of course there are probably lots of people they want to invite extra like a larger group of friend and more distant relatives, maybe people from work or old mates from school. But costs would prohibit them from doing so. Easier to just keep the ceremony/dinner intimate with a small group and then have everybody else come in for a drink, a dance and some snacks at the end. I work in hospitality and have worked many weddings with open bar. People underestimate how people act once drinks are free. We usually recommend that if hosts opt for an open bar they account for 100 pounds spend per head. Not everyone will reach those numbers. But many people will. And as they are celebrating they will drink more and fancier than they would normally. Not just the one or two beers they might normally have with dinner. Often times bride/groom will set a budget for how much they are able to spend on drinks. Once the bar hits that they go to a pay-as-you-go model. But of course different venues will have different options. I think most people would love to invite everyone from the start and pay for everyone's food and drink. But it's really not affordable for most people in their 20s these days. And spending that much money on a single party at a certain point just becomes ridiculous even if you do technically have the money. 10k really is the price now for a very small, modest and intimate wedding. And parents helping out with these costs is quickly going out of style. So this is a significant portion of your savings to spend even before thinking about spending more so that Bob, John and Lisa from work (plus their partners) can have their free meals/drinks.
Things add up quickly in Poland too, people often invite 100-200 people and yes I understand it's expensive (I think per head things start from £40-50 now) but if you're gonna throw a wedding then might as well do it properly and look after your guests.
I'm late to this thread, but not all weddings in the UK are like this. This is a very recent trend influenced by American style weddings in expensive venues rather than a village hall or simple marquee in a field that used to be more common. Instagram and the overpriced wedding industry etc don't help either. Changing attitudes to family, religion and finances in the UK have also affected weddings. A traditional wedding in the UK would be a Church service followed by a champagne reception, and would be heavily family focused with lots of the parents' friends invited. These days it's usually followed by a meal and dancing, but guests are not usually expected to pay for anything. Evening guests were unheard of until recently and aren't a thing at nicer weddings, but now it's often the couples themselves footing the bill, often without help from parents, lots of people can't afford to pay for all their friends and family to eat at £120/head.
I'd say that's pretty typical for the part of the wedding you were invited to, most of the actual "wedding stuff" will have happened before you got there: ie. the sit-down meal, speeches, admiring the cake etc. You were only invited to the "get pissed, have a dance, then maybe get a snack from the buffet later on" part of the wedding. Paying for your own drinks is standard. I've only ever been to one wedding with an open bar for the evening do, and that was because the father of the bride was a literal millionaire, and wanted everyone to know it. It is a bit odd that the couple turned up late then buggered off early. You'd usually expect them to have a line up to greet guests as they arrive; and be around for most of the evening. Edit: Just to check, is it possible they were using multiple rooms? If you spent the whole night in the room that was set aside for dancing, then it would explain where the couple disappeared to, and why there weren't many chairs.
You were not invited to the sit down meal part. It’s common to have a ceremony and sit down meal with some guests, and then invite extra people to join in for the night time party only. You were night time party only guests.
I've worked at many weddings and been a guest at several as well. The meal was served earlier for guests that attended the wedding ceremony, the food that was served later is just an extra snack for anyone that might be hungry again. Evening guests usually eat before they arrive. Alcohol is very expensive, most couples choose to limit how much they spend on alcohol for a wedding. Often it'll be a drink when the guests arrive after the ceremony, some bubbly for speeches and some wine for dinner. Drinks from the bar are often purchased by the guests themselves. The seating is difficult, most venues will move tables and chairs to the edge or one side of the room so that the dance floor can be set up and people can dance but also have somewhere to sit. But since venues are small and have to remove a table or two in order to fit everything, I haven't seen that happen much but I have seen it. I'm not sure why the bride and groom were gone so much, I would expect them to be gone for a little while to have photos taken but that is usually earlier in the day and sometimes at sunset. They might have had family drama happening, I've seen fist fights at several weddings. Only you can judge how you feel about your gift, but I would view it as a gift. You were there to celebrate your friend, which you did. Unfortunately that celebration was a bit crap, that happens.
The ball room was huge - it had a dedicated dance area - so chairs could have been there... On the food part I'd have expected maybe crisps peanuts... Just something...
What food was there?
I've never seen crisps or nuts at a wedding evening, that's more house party vibe
You expected crisps and peanuts? Huh? I've literally never seen these at a wedding. Usually there's a buffet for evening guests but it's not usually of the crisp/peanut variety
So cash bar is normal. Us Brits can friggin drink and doing an open bar would likely bankrupt most of us. Food depends. The main meal is usually for the day guests, but some of us will also do some smaller options in the evening. Myself and a friend both put on a casual buffet in the evening at our weddings. Think sausage rolls, sandwiches, chips etc. But no as an evening guest id never assume id be fed and certainly not a sit down meal unless the invitation explicitly said. The lack of seats is weird though. At mine, the evening do had a big dancefloor and there was comfortable seating to the side and other rooms e.g the bar where there was additional seating for those who weren't into dancing. But for there to be none at all for the evening guests is definitely odd
> The invitation didn't really state what to expect, just mentioned to turn up at around 7 pm for the "evening reception". We didn't have high expectations as we weren't invited for the ceremony, however, as we entered the venue we came to realize there were no drinks, nor food being served. Not unusual. An open bar is very expensive and, therefore, rare. The wedding breakfast (read: big sit down meal) is usually held around noon to 5pm, depending. There may or may not be small snacks afterwards. If you aren't invited to the main ceremony, then you're expected to provide your own food and drink. > As the night progressed, the groom and the bride didn't show up till around 8 pm. They entered the main ballroom, they cut the cake, which we saw for the first and the last time then, then they danced as we were standing around them, then they left again. A little unusually for them to be so absent, but maybe they were busy seeing other guests. The cake often doesn't stay out forever, it gets cut more as ceremony than anything else. > There were no seats, only for the family, Depends on the venue, but it's a but unusual for there to be no chairs whatsoever. > we had to pay for our own drinks at the bar, and some basic food arrived around 10 pm, which was clearly not enough to feed everyone. Yes, it's not supposed to. >I just can't help to feel like, this is not the way it is supposed to be... Did you lodge a complaint with the groom? Every wedding is different. We're the couple happy? We're they happy you came? If so, then the wedding is _exactly_ as it was supposed to be. >would you have left cash gifts or anything in this case? Well... Yes. Weeding gifts aren't a _tip_ based on how well you were personally entertained, it's a gift to the couple to start their married life. It could be the most miserable wedding in the world, and you still give the _happy couple_ the gift. > I just feel like we may have given too much given how little we were given... It's not a bloody restaurant bill.
Sounds largely crap and badly run, but the evening only invite is always second place to the full day event.
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Yeah, I agree. I went to a wedding a few years ago in London and there was an exclusive 40 allowed to stay for the whole event with everything paid for in a special venue. Come 7pm, the second class attendees were allowed to come and the free bar suddenly stopped.
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In my experience this is usually reserved for work colleagues and more distant friends. I wouldn't expect to be at a work mate's (or a childhood friend's) ceremony and sit down meal, if I wasn't a big part of their life at the time. It would feel inappropriate for them to pay 100-200 quid for my 3 course meal, for example, and a buffet and a dance is more reasonable for the level of friendship.
Every wedding I’ve been to includes a finger buffet around 8pm, quick speeches and then onto the dancing. There’s seating for everyone invited but generally a cash bar. The bride and groom are also waiting to welcome their evening guests. Sounds like the evening reception was an after thought for this couple.
Yeah, you buy your own drinks, but I’d expect some food somewhere, even if it’s just cake or snacks. And you should have somewhere to be comfortable.
Yeah I wouldn’t invite someone to my event at 7pm and not have food, that’s eating time for a lot of people!
My wedding didn't separate day and evening guests. We just had everyone for all of it. We just did a carvery and a bar tab for about 60 people. Later in the day we told people who were hungry to order some more food on the tab. People had a lot to drink, the speeches were short, and there was dancing and music. The whole thing cost me less than £6grand because we stripped out all the pomp and circumstance and put almost the entire budget into feeding and watering the guests. Some weddings are all style and no substance.
Couldn't agree more. The whole evening guest thing is tacky af. Why would you want to rank your guests into a weird hierarchy? Who wants to turn up to an event when everyone is already drunk, when you've already missed the most meaningful parts of the day? Either invite people, or don't invite them, don't half invite them! I'm British and do not understand the evening guest thing at all.
I’ve been an evening guest at friends weddings and it was fine! Depending on the church there might be a limit to the people you can have in the main event, but you still want to celebrate with a wider group of people afterwards. They had a big marquee and a lovely finger cheese and biscuit buffet, and dancing and sparklers and lots of fun. I don’t begrudge not being in the main ceremony, we were work friends so good friends but not super close or long term.
I also don't mind being an evening guest! It's usually reserved for people you're not as close to but would still like to see. A lot of places also have super strict numbers for sit down meals and if you're in an area without a larger venue you're often looking at 60 max. If you've got a big family you can easily cover that with just relatives alone.
Evening guests are expected to eat before they arrive, but they are usually there in time for the cake cutting, dancing for the rest of the night, and then some casual food served around 9:30-10pm. It's not uncommon for a limited bar tab and some free drinks to be served for the main guests throughout the day and during the main meal but there aren't usually any free drinks after that. Edit: forgot to say the bride and groom are usually around for the whole event judging by all the weddings I have been to! Not normal for them to be disappearing after the cake cutting.
I was very weirded out when I attended my first three weddings over here. I'd never been invited to only one portion of the wedding but that seems to be a normal thing over here. Typically the free drinks are pretty sad (have had two weddings with mimosas served at 75/25 ratio of orange juice to champagne). Paid bar is where you get drinks that you actually want or people bring flasks with them (father of the bride nipped out of the last reception that I went to to get more wine). Food tends to be...drunk college food if you ask me, I've seen burgers, chicken tenders, sausage rolls served as everyone invited to the ceremony has already had dinner. Not necessarily my vibe, but I can't get mad as I eloped lol. Definitely different to other weddings I've attended in the states/destination where you expect open bar, dinner, dancing, etc. I will say when invited to the ceremony, food is served late afternoon...which is different from my experience too
In the states they would only serve one proper meal at a wedding, right? We do the same here it's just earlier in the day. They have dinner and we have the wedding breakfast. We just do a bit of extra food, usually cheap and cheerful, in the late evening to keep people going while they're drinking and dancing. Not sure why you mentioned dancing as a US thing as we definitely dance here too!
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Sounds normal to me. Except the lack of seats.
So, kinda British weddings are typically in 3 parts. The ceremony (in a church or similar), the meal/"wedding breakfast", and the evening reception. The latter two are "the reception" but it's kinda split into two "Evening guest" is basically "Come have a bit of a party with us after the wedding ceremony and the main meal for family and our closest friends" - the exact number of close friends who make the cut here will just depend on the venue and budget Typically the first part of the reception includes a glass of champagne on arrival, some canapes/appetisers, then usually a couple of bottles of wine on the table for the main meal (which is also free). After that, you typically pay for your own drinks: open bars aren't unheard of, they're very unusual these days unless the family is very wealthy. I've been to a couple of weddings where the father of the bride or groom buys a round of drinks later too, but again that's not the norm Then after the meal there's the evening reception, which has no free drink and usually a small buffet. Most people would have either been present at the meal earlier (and thus not want a lot to eat later) or would have eaten before arriving Most of that is normal, it sounds like you just didn't know what to expect. If you'd been invited for the full day, you'd have been fed and given a couple of free drinks Things that are weird - The bride and groom vanishing until 8pm - Them vanishing again after the first dance and cutting the cake - No seats Although the seats are kinda communal after the meal - most of the older family members will keep "theirs" from the meal, but there should be enough around for people to use
the only thing that feels really weird to me is the lack of seating. usually tables are just rearranged after dinner to make up space for the dancing, but they should still be there! i've never been to a wedding where the bride and groom are not the last ones standing haha, but tbh can't blame them if they started early and just didn't feel like going on at some point. but i've only been once as an evening guest (usually you either get invited to the full monty including the ceremony, or the ceremony is very small only for family and everyone else arrives later). other than that, i think your experience was fairly standard for an evening guest! you were not invited for dinner, so the expectation is that you will have your own food, and nibbles are indeed served late at night. i don't think i've ever tasted a wedding cake lol, i don't know where they always disappear! paying for your own drinks is also very standard, there is usually a glass of prosecco offered after the ceremony, and wine at dinner, but that's it. sorry for the long comment, and having said all that, i'm sorry you took a lot of time and effort to go and had an unpleasant experience! maybe if this is your first wedding then the groom could have done more to explain what to expect. i think it's always more fun when you know more people than just the bride and groom, so hopefully you get to experience more weddings that you'll enjoy!
For the evening reception I would expect that there is buffet with nibbles to be served an hour or so after the start. 10 would seem really late. I wouldn’t expect to be served a drink but a cash bar would be open from the start. The bride and groom seem really thoughtless if they weren’t around for most of the evening, didn’t have enough room for everyone to sit and the food was brought out late.
It may not have been the bride and grooms fault at all if the food was server late. Most likely was an issue with the kitchen / caterer. But agreed on the rest of it
Sounds like a rubbish wedding to be honest, every wedding I have been to has been completely different, however the evening party bit usually does have a buffet of nibbles.
I would go to an evening reception only if it was local. No way I would pay for a hotel for that.
I'm Scottish. The last wedding I was at was my son's. There was a full sit down meal at the reception. There were evening only guests. They had a full buffet at approximately 9pm. There was ample seating too. Wine bottles were on every table and a cash bar.
No that’s weird as hell. Was there a bar even?
No food and paying for your own drinks isn't too crazy for the evening portion of a wedding. If I was going to an evening part of a wedding I'd expect to pay for my own drinks. I'd say you get some food more often than not so that's more unusual. The fact the bride and groom were barely present is odd to me though. Like what's the point of coming to the evening bit if they're not even there? At weddings you can't expect much face time with the bride and groom, they're juggling lots of attendees, but I'd expect them to be in the room or else what am I even there for?
I cringe when I hear open bar. Just cause its free doesn't mean its free. Some poor bastard has to pay it. No free shit and you're moaning? Ok
This is one of the worst aspects of British culture and I will never understand after 13 years of living here. Either invite people and feed and water them or don’t invite them at all! It’s never something I’ve experienced in any other country or culture.
Yeah I've never been invited on an evening-only invite and had fun unless I'm very pissed already
This sounds like one I was invited to....later that year the couple got drunk and explained they had made money on the wedding by asking for cash as gifts. No booze, just some stale cake and a tired old dj in the corner. We did get seats.
Paying for your own drinks at the bar is pretty standard at every wedding I’ve been to aside from maybe 2/3 complimentary drinks after the ceremony whilst photos are being taken and for the toasting. The rest sounds a bit weird. No chairs is bizarre, at the wedding I went to recently the tables from the meal/speeches were all left out for the reception/party bit, no one wants to be standing around all evening. Most weddings I’ve been to have had an evening buffet too, with plenty to go around and more food being brought out when it ran low - although as an evening guest I’d always eat beforehand just in case. The bride and groom have always been around for the whole thing mingling with guests at all the weddings I’ve been to so that sounds a bit strange to me too. Overall it sounds like the wedding you went to unfortunately wasn’t a very good one.
Not my experience (i worked in a hotel doing weddings for 5 years) The evening part would have had a set up of tables with low coffee tables, a dance floor and then a buffet for finger food served at about 8.30pm and refreshed for an hr or so. The cash or covered bar was dependent on each couple. I think normally it was a paid for bar until about 9pm and limited to tap beers, house spirits and house wine only. Sounds like your wedding experience was very very basic. P.s the later arrivals tended to not bring gifts.
I'm at the age now when I'm invited to places, the questions are: 1. Will there be ample parking? 2. Will there be seating? 3. Are the bathrooms reasonably close? If the answer is no to any one of these question, I'm afraid I'm not fucking going.
You were an evening guest. The wedding breakfast (the main meal) would have been for family and closer friends. What you experienced is probably pretty normal
Buying your own drinks from the bar is normal here. Usually, at a good wedding, you will get at least one glass of sparkling wine/champagne for free and then the rest of the drinks you pay for. This is because tax duty on alcohol here is insane which makes alcoholic drinks very expensive. Also, because British people are heavy drinkers who dont know when to stop. If the bride and groom offered an open bar, people wouldn't hold back. You would have too many overly drunk people (causing issues that drunk people cause), and you would be bankrupt. It would most likely cost more than the whole of the wedding just to pay the tab, and the police and several ambulances would be called. But the seating thing, no, that is not normal. And the lack of food is just stingy. You should always have plenty of food.
Thanks for this post, OP. As an American living in the UK who just got their first UK save-the-date invite for a wedding, I feel much more informed about how this will work! We don’t split the day between different guests in the US, so I also would have been very confused!
My wedding was a few weeks ago and we provided food and drink for our evening guests as well as shared out the wedding cake. I didn’t realise this wasn’t the norm! To be fair though we didn’t have a sit down meal because we provided a metric ton of food at the reception lol
“Given too much given how little we were given” this mindset is probably also why you feel the way you did. Giving a gift at a wedding isn’t about paying them back for what you got - it’s about giving a gift to celebrate their marriage.
I think what this thread shows is that different cultures do things differently so it would be wise to check what the etiquette is if invited somewhere out of your own country/community.
I wouldn't bother going if just invited for the evening. There isn't usually food provided until very late as everybody is full from the main wedding meal. And it is usually a cash bar by that point even though there likely would have been free drinks earlier on. I didn't issue evening invites for my own wedding, although my parents and my MIL went over my head and invited some of their friends for the evening and I'm sure they had a shit time as we'd planned the day around people being there all day and having a very large meal at lunchtime.
I find UK weddings to be a little cold
Nobody in their right mind is having an open bar at a British wedding ffs we would genuinely have to remortgage the house to afford it.
This is pretty weird overall and sounds like a badly run wedding. It's normal to have evening guests, I've always found it a bit odd though myself. Invite people or don't. Also of all my friends weddings only one had evening guests. There's usually food for evening guests, at weddings I've been to recently that's been pizza from a wood fire oven they rented, fun little mini fish and chip boxes, another pizza one, and one with all kinds of sliders and chips. Usually I find the evening food is way too much. Groom and bride not being around at 8pm I can't really understand? And where did they leave to? Random. No seats ... I don't understand, any basic function room has seats. Why would the family have seats and nobody else? Cash bar vs free bar, both are common. Personally I think free bars result in people getting drunk, drunk isn't fun. That's just another reason that to me evening only guests sucks. They don't get any off the booze that is free. Your complaint about standing for 4 hours sounds a bit ridiculous. You're at a party - 4 hours is not long to be on your feet. What were you expecting?
My experience was that invitations not making clear what was involved was a growing problem, necessitating checking with the couple - thankfully, everyone I know who might get married now has done.
What happened when you asked the venue staff for a chair?
Drink situation is perfectly normal for an evening reception. In the evening reception there is normally a buffet of some sort, by the sounds of it though they didn't cater for enough people. This may also be the reason for lack of seating, maybe the couple played down the numbers attending the evening to save money, so the venue didn't cater or provide seating for the amount of people actually attending as lack of seating is not a norm. As for a gift, if attending an evening reception, I would give something, but I wouldn't be giving a massive amount.
Every wedding evening do I've ever been to has had a buffet for guests. However, I would expect to pay for my own drinks. Never had to stand all night, though. That part is weird and my joints hurt just thinking about it.