When two people decide to have a wedding, everyone and their grandma feel like they can chime in with their opinions. There are a lot of elements to consider: the venue, the catering, the dresses, the cakes. Guests have lots of conundrums too, including gifts, bridal parties, outfits, and many more. Out of these many elements, there are bound to be some that at least one or two people don't like.
However, they can't tell the bride and groom directly – that just wouldn't be polite, would it? Luckily, people can always come online to vent. So, when one person asked, "What is your unpopular wedding opinion?", folks could finally share their hot takes without fear. From dress codes to wedding favors and cringy rhyming signs, people had lots of controversial opinions.
To make this read more fun, Bored Panda reached out to wedding planner and the owner of Confetti & Co. Kendra Coons. She was kind enough to have a chat with us about wedding planning and why some brides turn into bridezillas. She also shared a wholesome story from her many years as a wedding planner!
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Wedding planner Kendra Coons tells Bored Panda that wedding planning is all about managing stress. "Yours and the clients," she emphasizes. "Often, we act as a buffer between the client and the other vendors – so if the other vendors drop the ball, you need to be able to act quickly to fix the problem or come up with a gentle way to break the news to your clients."
"You need to be very compassionate and flexible to ensure your clients get the best possible experience! Being extremely organized and friendly also helps!" To Kendra, wedding planning is much more than just a job. "I get to witness the best day of someone's life over and over again, and it is truly an honor to work alongside my clients and their families!"
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Perhaps the biggest stereotype about weddings is the bridezilla, the monster version of the bride. Reality shows, movies, and other media would have us believe that many women inevitably start acting like fictional reptilian monsters the closer they get to their wedding, but Kendra says that the reality is much more grounded. And the stereotype (like Godzilla, ironically) has pretty short legs.
"I don't think that most 'bridezillas' are bad people," Coons tells us. "I think that the stress of planning a large-scale, once-in-a-lifetime event can manifest in different ways for everyone!"
"For the most part, when you really dig into what the issue is, it's not the client being difficult for the sake of being difficult. There is a lot of pressure and stress, especially on brides, so it is reasonable to expect that some will have an 'inconvenient' reaction to that."
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We also asked Kendra to share a wholesome wedding story, preferably one where no unreasonable decisions ruined the vibe. And while Kendra says that every wedding is full of wholesome stories, one is still stuck in her mind. "Six weeks prior to my clients' wedding, their venue declared bankruptcy and closed. They were left scrambling and having given a significant amount of their budget to the original venue."
"Their friends, family, and vendors rallied to find a new venue for them. We ended up securing their first choice of venue, but they hadn't gone ahead with it because, at the time, they would not have been able to have an outdoor wedding. It was stressful and heartbreaking, but in the end, they had the most magical day of their lives, and everything came together perfectly," the wedding planner reminisces.
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Stretching yourself financially and having a wedding outside of your means is a terrible way to start your marriage.Speeches should be more like toasts. 60 seconds or less, done by three people or less. I can’t handle the cringe of speeches longer than that.Having a bridal party isn't worth it.
I'm going to have my best friends there on that day, but I don't need to put them through the headache of spending a lot on a dress, walking down the aisle alone, and throwing me parties (bridal and bachelorette).
I just want them to show up, chill, laugh, drink, eat, dance, and have a good time.Doing a million pre-wedding events. Engagement party, bachelorette party, bachelors party, bridal shower, rehearsal dinner… bro just get married, why are you stalling??Justifying having a wedding on a weeknight or in a remote (but cheaper to you) location as “If people love you, they’ll make the effort to come.”
Just because I don’t want to spend over $1k on flights and hotels to to attend a destination wedding don’t mean I don’t love the bride and groom. It means I’m prioritizing how I spend my money and limited vacation time.If you wouldn’t buy dinner for them any other time then don’t invite them to the wedding.Getting legally married before the wedding and not telling anyone is perfectly acceptable. I don’t understand why people are so against this here.I don’t care if guests of my wedding wear outfits that’s have white in it. Unless you are showing up in a 100% white hall gown, your floral midi dress is fine.Wedding favours aka fancy garbage.I don’t really care about pics! I want some, of course. But I don’t need 8 hours of someone following me around taking pics of everything. And I’d rather spend time with guests and have candids then spend tons of time taking pics.
I still remember a bride on here who essentially missed her entire wedding bc she was taking pics…getting ready, 1st look, cocktail hour, then left dinner to do golden hour pics, then did more bridesmaids pics…she didn’t talk to all her guests bc she was busy with pics!!!Getting ready pictures are stupid and I don't know why they became a thing. Why would I want pictures of myself and my bridesmaids in bathrobes? Why would I want pictures of the groom tying his shoes? We hired our photographer for 8 hours, and she was baffled when I told her that we're not doing getting ready photos. "But...don't you want a picture of your mom zipping up your dress?" Um, no, I prefer to get dressed in private. I'd much rather have pictures of us at the actual wedding, when we're all dressed up at the beautiful venue. We'll look much better at that point ?
Besides, hair and makeup would have to finish an hour earlier if we wanted to do getting ready pictures. As it is, we had to be ready 2 hours before the ceremony for the first look and family/bridal party photos. Now we're expected to get ready even earlier just to take bathrobe pictures in a hotel room? Those are not pictures I'm going to frame or put in an album.Mother of the bride dresses do not need to be so god damn ugly. Mature doesn’t mean bulky, over done and covered up as a nun in church. Like yeesh i see everyone selling the same ugly dress it’s almost offensive.The push for personal vows - some people just aren't comfortable sharing their raw emotions like that, or maybe they're not great with words. We umm'd and ahh'd for a long time as to whether to do personal vows or not - my husband is ASD and found it to be a very intimidating prospect. I was fine either way, and we ended up writing short little speeches for each other (he wanted to in the end), but while we were deciding, any one we told were HORRIFIED that we might just be using *gasp* generic vows written by the *gag* celebrant.I think it is unfair to put so much pressure on the bride to have her father walk her down the aisle and do a big father-daughter dance. Not every bride has a close relationship with their father.Vendors that own their business and set their own prices have no business expecting tips.I've never enjoyed a wedding favor unless it was edible. I don't want anything with your name engraved on it. Favors are almost always a waste of money.Wedding dress trains are THE WORST! It’s like lugging around a big brontosaurus tail all night.Unpopular opinions incoming:
1) if you want your bridesmaids to wear a particular outfit, you should buy it for them. Maybe it’s because I’m not from a culture that does bridesmaids, but the idea of making someone spend money to be in your wedding is silly as hell to me. Why can’t they just stand up in their own clothes?
2) wearing an outfit just once is wasteful. If it can’t be altered to wear again, then donate or sell it, why hang on to something that can’t be worn?
3) destination bachelorettes are extremely fun and I love attending them. But I don’t see why everyone pays for the bride? I would feel uncomfortable accepting that from my friends. Imo the fairest way is for everyone to split the costs, but let the itinerary be dictated by the bride’s likes and dislikes.
4) yes, a wedding is your day, but in my personal opinion, it’s also a very important day for your family and loved ones. I think their wishes/requests should be accommodated if possible, within reason, even if they aren’t paying. Guest experience is also important, IMO. For your guests, no matter how much they love you, things like - ease of getting to the venue, food quality/quantity/timing, drinks (I personally don’t like the idea of a cash bar at all, I would rather do a restricted-option open bar), availability of seating (maybe more of a problem in Indian weddings) etc. is far more important than anything else and will impact the way they remember your wedding.
5) if you invite drama fuelled, opinionated people along when you are buying a wedding dress, you will bring that unpleasantness upon yourself. It doesn’t matter how closely related they are. Also don’t bring too many people along. Having 1-3 opinions is more than enough. Too many opinions just means that you’ll be overwhelmed or pushed in a direction you don’t want to be in.Crazy amount of decorating. We didn't do it. Had the venue give some ideas of center pieces we could rent. That was it. No flowers, not elaborate center pieces, none of it. I also didn't have to store and sell it all after.Clear acrylic signs on an easel are so hard to read just get a normal sign.I love kids but from my experience they will ruin your wedding ceremony and steal the show.The chokehold that rhymes have on wedding signage kills me. No hate if you’ve done them, but they give me an ick.
“No need to pick a side, you’re all loved by the groom and bride.”
“A little treat for your dancing feet. Take some shoes and bust a move.”
“Blow bubbles of good wishes as we exit as Mr. and Mrs.”
And just… most signage being entirely unnecessary. We don’t need 800 signs giving us instructions in a hard to read cursive font on clear acrylic sheets.If family doesn't reach out to the couple (or at least their related half) at least once a year (some folks require more im just putting somethingout there), they don't get an invitation. You aren't entitled to an invite just bc you're the aunt or the grandpa. Act like you care.I've never had a wedding cake that I felt tasted even remotely good - and it blows my mind the amount people spend on those things.I don’t really like kids as ring bearers/flower girls, especially way-too-young ring bearers and flower girls. If they can’t make it down the aisle to do the thing on their own, what’s the point? I also don’t think it’s cute when they cry/have a meltdown because they can’t handle it, like why are they being put a situation they clearly can’t emotionally handle? It just makes me feel bad for them!! I thought about having my dogs do those jobs for me, but decided against it because I didn’t think it was a good situation for them, and I genuinely wonder if some of these small kids have ever gotten the same consideration.I don't like veils. It feels antiquated.I’m not sure if any of these are genuinely unpopular, but I think these are my wedding opinions that are the most controversial/I know not everyone agrees:
1. When you invite people to a wedding you should see yourself as hosting guests and behave accordingly. Yes it’s your day! But you are also hosts.
2. I feel like it’s become very trendy to criticize certain aspects of wedding planning as being excessive because it’s “only one day,” and my opinion is that a wedding is for many people a once in a lifetime cultural and social milestone worthy of celebrating, and no one should feel bad about planning an expensive event just because the event is one day long.I hope I don’t get murdered for this lol but I 100% believe in reciprocation of time/effort/money I put into someone else’s wedding.
You asked me to drop $500 on a hotel for your bachelorette weekend? Get ready to shell out for my air bnb. You had your wedding in some rural town that I had to drive 3 hours from the closest airport to get to? Yeah I expect you to travel to my wedding. Nothing less than $200 on your registry? I’m gonna judge when you buy the cheapest thing off mine for like $40.
Totally doesn’t apply to people where I haven’t done it for them first, but if you expect something from other people you better be prepared to reciprocate it.Summer is the worst season to attend a wedding.I see nothing wrong with a destination bachelorette. In fact, I wish I was invited to more! I work hard to afford girls trips, why wouldn't I love one with a THEME that I didn't need to pick and someone else puts together the location and itinerary? So exciting and always fun.
