Posted on 07/13/2005 12:16:21 AM PDT by rawhide
NEW YORK — This summer, hide your bridesmaids.
So warns the promo for this weekend's new movie, "Wedding Crashers", which is about a couple of bachelors who show up at weddings uninvited to prey on lonely bridesmaids and especially desperate female guests.
The movie cashes in on two common stereotypes about weddings: that women hate attending nuptials alone, and that men, realizing how vulnerable weddings make single women feel, use the occasions to their advantage.
But how are true are these generalizations?
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I guess it has to do with what your guest list looks like to start with. And that's a function of region, economics, taste, culture ...
We don't, in my family, general invite to weddings a lot of people who will be strangers to everyone else, so there's no reason for anyone to feel uncomfortable. However, that's not a moral principle or anything, just the way we do things.
If you don't know people well enough to be comfortable at a wedding reception, why would you want to attend their wedding at all, anyway? Just decline the invitation promptly, and go out to dinner and a movie with someone you like.
Obviously there's a wide range of opinion on this subject. Clearly, if a person gets an invitation that says they can bring another person, then they're not rude in bringing another person.
However, I also don't think it's rude to simply invite people you know to your wedding reception (or any other social event) and assume that they'll be able to socialize with your other guests. If my husband and I attend an event together, we don't stand holding hands, whispering in each others' ears. We go out and mingle. Even our kids can mingle, if they've been invited; they're capable of carrying on a conversation with an adult at the church potluck or election party.
I thought the whole point of public education was to socialize young people. How come they can't attend a wedding reception without the security blanket of a date? (/attempted thread hijack)
How did this poor hapless idiot find their own way to the wedding? LOL
I don't really care about the movie this thread started out to be about.... At every wedding I was invited to as a single person, the practice has always been to invite single people as "Friend and guest". Let the guest decide if they'd like to bring someone. Sometimes, people are invited only because it's polite to invite them, co-workers in a small office, for example, and I'm would never presume to tell them they can't bring a date, I don't know the status of their relationships. So is it possible for these guys to crash most weddings? Probably, for awhile.
For my own, we were lucky enough to be able to have our wedding on the beach.... and many came "alone", but most knew others there, and there were no formal tables, no place settings, none of the dreary uptightness that most of the guests, particularly the poor men present, really do hate. Everyone had a good time at our party, and that's really was our most important goal for the day, besides getting ourselves married.
I know some women get all caught up in the silly frap they think they ~have~ to do to have one of these perfect weddings. It never appealed to me. Most who know me would laugh their butts off if I tried to pull off something as ridiculous as some uptight princess plan wedding. It just isn't me, it isn't my husband, and the wedding should not be some artificial movie set, it should reflect the personality of the people involved.
Perhaps the problem is that many see weddings as very much like dream or movie events, some image they want to act out and be photographed at, (don't even get me started on the photographer at weddings these days) and they think they'll remember all that stuff as important, when really, they won't.
Hmmmmmmm..... you may have something there. Maybe we could start one, eh? *smile* Us gals need to meet like-minded fellas!
Believe me, there's plenty of weddings people would love to decline, but they can't, for the same reason they were invited... some duty to go, because it's a cousin, or a co-worker. Some brides let these events get so big that they have to invite whole classes of people, work acquaintances, club acquaintances, church acquaintances, etc. By keeping ours really small, only very close friends and family, we avoided most duty invitations, and I think most people who came wanted to come. But who knows... some of them probably woke up and said "oh - I wish we didn't have to go to this wedding today" "I know honey, but it'll just be a couple hours".
I met my husband here, he lived clear across the country from me, and I know several other couples who met here on FR
Personally, I think a singles forum would wreck the spontaneity of starting up conversations with posters you've noticed. Putting all the pressure of "online dating" on it from the start would have stifled me....
But that's just me :~D
Very well stated.
I guess I just live in a cultural bubble, so to speak :-). I've been married all my adult life, and the weddings I attended before that, I was a guest with my parents (Capt. and Mrs. W., and Daughter).
I expect my brother, as a single military man in his 40's, has much more experience of being invited to weddings he wishes he could skip!
Heh.... actually, I wish I could go back and fix typos and bad phrasing ;~D But I'm glad a point got through anyhow :~D
Anyone with lots of contacts... through an office, through politics, through civic involvement, ends up going to a lot of weddings of people they don't know very well, it's one of those duty things that people have to do, and while some like getting all dressed up for any reason, or like networking at these events, some would rather be doing ~anything~ else with their spare time than attending the wedding of their boss on a weekend. I guess it beats the duty funeral ;~D
The mother of the groom was like nails on a chalkboard - perfectly coifed, spoiled, and outrageously snotty. She complained loudly about the seating arrangements at the wedding events - nothing suited her.
The movie was called, "How to Deal." (as in *deal with it*) :)
You're right about the spontaneity thing, but he (the single guy) doesn't hang out here. Don't think he has the time. He's tried several online things, but to no avail.
Yes, I'm sure we largely agree. I guess my philosophical problem with a "date" for a wedding is that the person would not know the people getting married (or their parents, or whoever decided to invite the primary guest.)
The same might be true of the spouse of an invitee, of course, but it's rude not to invite a spouse ... leading Miss Manners, at least, to conclude that if two people want to be invited places together, they should get married :-).
Heh... I think I know the type!
Personally, in a formal setting with place cards, I'd feel bad placing people in some kind of pre-set order... "People who are important close to the head table, lesser folk in the back" ;~D
Wow, it's a whole 'nother world out there :-).
Well, he needs to make the time ;~D
I do know a married couple who met at a match.com kind of singles place with ads and pictures.... Gads, I never would have had that kind of guts in a million years. Too much pressure! :~D
Your wedding was one of the best I've ever attended.
No lie.
And I've been to more than my fair share of weddings being that my family is Cuban. (Even 2nd cousins twice removed require our attendance).
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