Weddings are meant to be fun, not just for the people invited but for the bride and groom as well. Let’s face it, we’ve all heard about crazy grooms and brides who want everyone to march to the tune of their drum, but there are also reasonable folks who just want their weddings to be picture-perfect.
This time, a Reddit user posted a wedding invite full of rules from one couple. Commenters were pretty divided over whether the folks were being reasonable or totally wacky. It’s up to you to decide where you stand on the issue.
More info: Reddit
Bridal couple create a list of specific rules that people who attend their wedding must follow, leave the internet divided
Image credits: Olivia Bauso (not the actual photo)
A poster who came across a wedding invite with 15 strongly worded rules stated that they’d not want to attend such a wedding
Image credits: u/VieleAud
Weddings are supposed to be a celebration of love, but they’re also a big day for the couple, so it makes sense that they’d want to have some control over it
Some people in the comments were freaked out about the “aggressive” or “nuts” rules mentioned on the list. To get more clarity on wedding invites, planning, and how bridal couples generally behave, Bored Panda reached out to Elisabeth Kramer. She’s a wedding planner who’s set to change the wedding industry.
When asked whether she’s ever come across demanding couples, Elisabeth said “Yes, I’ve had clients who have been more high-touch than others but it’s very rarely as bad as we like to think it is. In fact, I find people are too quick to demonize people planning weddings — and particularly people who identify as women.”
“Nearly always, their ‘demands’ are coming from a place of extreme stress put on them by factors outside their control (e.g. societal pressure, financial pressure, family pressure, etc.). And that’s something we can all relate to, right?” she added. A Zola survey of more than 4000 engaged couples found that 52% described planning their wedding as “stressful” while 59% said it was “overwhelming.” Only 6% mentioned that they weren’t stressed.
When asked why couples go to such extreme lengths to have such a perfect wedding, Elisabeth shared, “a lot of it has to do with money. In the U.S. the average cost of a wedding is $30K. As soon as we’re investing that much money — let alone the seven to 10 hours a week it takes to plan a wedding — the stakes get a lot higher. The pressure rises and what do people do under pressure? Sometimes they react badly. Thankfully, you don’t have to have a perfect wedding to have a good marriage.”
Image credits: Photos by Lanty (not the actual photo)
Bored Panda also reached out to Jamie Wolfer of Wolfer & Co wedding industry collective to understand more about planning weddings. She shared her take on entitled brides and grooms, saying, “it’s not about them being demanding; it’s more about me learning the art of setting boundaries. Most of the time, when a bride or groom seems demanding, it’s because I haven’t been clear about what I can and cannot do for them.”
“For example, I once had a client ask me to do a split shift during their wedding day while I was four months pregnant and four hours away from home. Talk about learning the hard way to communicate my limits! Most demands come down to high expectations for their big day, which is totally understandable. It’s a significant moment in their lives, after all. The key is clear communication from the get-go and establishing what’s feasible within their budget and what’s going to require a little wedding planning magic,” she added.
Speaking of budgets, economics educators Andrew Francis-Tan and Hugo M Mialon found that a higher wedding expenditure could lead to an increased likelihood of divorce. Their paper stated that men who spent $2k-4k on an engagement ring had a 1.3 times higher risk of divorce than compared to those who spent between $500-2k. The study also indicated that weddings with a budget of under $1k had lower chances of divorce in contrast to those exceeding $20k.
Jamie Wolfer shared that, “couples dive headfirst into the wedding planning whirlpool because, frankly, it’s billed as the blockbuster event of their lives. Imagine the Oscars, but you’re both the star and the executive producer. The pressure is real! With weddings, you’re essentially throwing the party of the decade, and the budget often balloons faster than you can say ‘I do’. It’s a delicate dance between splurging on your dream day and not spiraling into a financial abyss. After all, dropping a cool $30,000 on a single event is no small feat.”
“But here’s the kicker: despite the stress, the drama, and the budgetary gymnastics, it’s all about love at the end of the day. Couples go to extreme lengths because they’re crafting a celebration that reflects their unique story. It’s their grand opening, their debut album, their masterpiece,” she added.
Image credits: Sandy Millar (not the actual photo)
In this particular case, the couple had set 15 strict rules that their guests had to follow. From not sitting down to pacing themselves while drinking, everything was very specific. But what if someone had decided not to follow the rules? We asked both wedding planners if they had ever come across people who disobeyed the bridal couples’ rules.
Jamie Wolfer stated: “Oh, absolutely! It’s like a universal law that at every wedding, someone’s going to try and bend the rules. Take, for example, the classic case of the unplugged ceremony. You can have signs everywhere, make announcements, and even print it in the ceremony program, but there’s always that one person who thinks, ‘Oh, but they don’t mean *my* phone.’ I’ve seen guests whip out their phones faster than a cowboy in a duel at high noon, completely ignoring the couple’s wishes for no photos during the ceremony.”
“Handling guests who don’t adhere to the bride and groom’s wishes is all about balance. You want to enforce the couple’s rules while ensuring everyone still has a great time, even when it’s not always easy!” Jamie added.
Elisabeth Kramer also said, “In my experience, people very rarely listen to the people planning the wedding. They listen even less if the person talking identifies as a woman. How many times have you seen someone dismiss something because she’s ‘being a bridezilla’? That’s part of the reason people planning go to such extreme lengths: They’re not being heard so they have to start screaming.”
This interesting wedding card sure got people talking and received 4.5k upvotes. Some people could not believe how rudely the couple had put forth their requirements while others felt that the rules were quite reasonable. What is your take on this wedding list? Let us know in the comments.
Netizens shared their humorous takes on the list of wedding rules with one person being concerned about grandma not being able to sit down at all
