Tacky or Tasteful: Wedding Protocols ‹ Back To Story

A wedding is pretty personal so things like having your dog partake or doing the garter belt or letting your man rock clean kicks, that’s totally up to you and your personality as a couple! My strongest opinions are as follows:

Asking for cash is tacky…but wanting it more than actual gifts and letting word of mouth spread that around, and then actually receiving cash, is not bad…but asking for anything is pretty tacky!!

Also, I think visible tattoos are pretty tack at a wedding, but if you have one that it’s easily covered (like on your arm or shoulder or wrist or foot) then I don’t know what you can really do…I guess that’s why I don’t tattoo myself!

DJs are so much more fun than a band (especially a cover band) because they can play a wide variety of music you actually want to listen to/dance to!

I hate roast toasts. I’d rather not be humiliated on my big day. I know some of it is funny, but some probably isn’t that funny, and I wouldn’t want to risk it!

Finally, it has so much to do with money. I don’t think reception-only invites are bad, if it means you can’t feed all 300 of the people you want to party with! I wouldn’t find it tacky if I received one. And cash bars are pretty normal. Not everyone can afford to feed and water all my alky friends all night long!

I think a lot of these categories could have used a "it depends" button. A cover band can be really tacky, if they're bad, but a good cover band can be a lot of fun. Many of these depend entirely upon a couple's taste, personalities, and the formality of the wedding.

We were in a tricky situation with out wedding. We were married in the States, but had already set up our home in Europe. The prospect of getting a mass of wedding gifts overseas without a) breaking, b) being the wrong circuitry, and c) the expense of procuring shipping was a massive brain buster. In the end we included a slip of paper on our invites stating "Due to our move overseas and shipping concerns, we ask our friends to refrain from large, fragile, or electronic gifts." People ended up writing checks instead. It was AWKWARD, and I hated it, but the last thing I wanted was gifts being potentially ruined or useless, thus wasting our guests' money.

To boredgourdles: I don't think what you did was awkward at all, I think it's better to be honest than lie about what you really can't have. Plus people would have wasted their money, imagine a very expensive vase breaking. I agree with everything you had to say skigurl.

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Artistically done is richer reconsider than well said.