Wedding Planning Stuff

[snow1868]

Originally Posted by mandy18

We had two couples no show.
One was a relative; another was a co-worker.
On my end, it was just the food we paid for. We had to pay bar by consumption (they didn't do package. It was either we pay by consumption or cash bar, which I would never do), so at least we didn't pay for alcohol for them.
Was super annoyed that I added a guest 2 days earlier. I should have just not bothered adding the guest and at least we would have just been negative 3.



Do people really do that?
Like, as an invited guest, I don't even like going to a Catholic ceremony. I couldn't imagine going to a random one.

Yeah, did this in May with our kiddo. Luckily she wasn't having any of it and it let me get out of it.

[mandy18]

Originally Posted by YouNeverKnow25

there are a lot of people that have been going to the saturday 2 pm mass every saturday for their entire lives. they don't care if there also happens to be a wedding going on.

I'm confused by this.
I'm not Catholic, though I now attend a Catholic church (and my sons were baptized). My husband grew up Catholic and since my son goes to a Catholic school, we just attend it (but we were not married in a Catholic church).
Our church only does masses 1 Saturday evening and 2 Sunday morning.
So, if they had a 2pm Saturday wedding ceremony, literally anybody else could come in and partake in communion?

I mean, I guess (for example) anybody could have strolled into the baptism; the church was open, but why would anybody ....

[YouNeverKnow25]

Originally Posted by mandy18

I mean, I guess (for example) anybody could have strolled into the baptism; the church was open, but why would anybody ....

it's because

Originally Posted by YouNeverKnow25

there are a lot of people that have been going to the saturday 2 pm mass every saturday for their entire lives. they don't care if there also happens to be a wedding going on.

I also think, from my general impression of things, that your church only doing 1 saturday mass puts it in the very very small minority

[mandy18]

Originally Posted by YouNeverKnow25

it's because


I also think, from my general impression of things, that your church only doing 1 saturday mass puts it in the very very small minority

Admittedly, I'm new to everything Catholic.
We went to a one in Oakmont (that was associated with his now closed kindergarten) and the new one (associated with his elementary school) in Aspinwall and both only had 1 Saturday mass, so that's all I know.
I guess I just assumed you could only book the church for your ceremony when there wasn't a mass already scheduled. Not that instead your ceremony could take over a mass ...

[YouNeverKnow25]

I'm just going on assumption there...I know that for baptism you can have it at the time of a regularly scheduled mass

we got married at 2 and were out by 3:30 but there were plenty of people filing in for the 4pm mass; our church told us to expect that

[mandy18]

Originally Posted by YouNeverKnow25

I'm just going on assumption there...I know that for baptism you can have it at the time of a regularly scheduled mass

we got married at 2 and were out by 3:30 but there were plenty of people filing in for the 4pm mass; our church told us to expect that

We had to have ours (baptism) after the last Sunday morning mass (so noonish). Maybe it's just up to what the priest wants to do.

[ExistenceNow]

Last Baptism I went to was just a regular mass that anyone could (and did) attend. Priest had us all come up after the mass for the Baptism while everyone was still there. It was kinda awkward holding my god daughter up there in front of a couple hundred strangers.

[BeyondKnight]

Originally Posted by mandy18

Admittedly, I'm new to everything Catholic.
We went to a one in Oakmont (that was associated with his now closed kindergarten) and the new one (associated with his elementary school) in Aspinwall and both only had 1 Saturday mass, so that's all I know.
I guess I just assumed you could only book the church for your ceremony when there wasn't a mass already scheduled. Not that instead your ceremony could take over a mass ...

I think it varies parish by parish, but I believe there are only certain mass times they are willing to "convert" into a wedding ceremony on Saturday afternoons.

I know for a fact that we had at least 30 uninvited guests at our mass, they came up and greeted us while we were doing pictures.

[mandy18]

Originally Posted by ExistenceNow

Last Baptism I went to was just a regular mass that anyone could (and did) attend. Priest had us all come up after the mass for the Baptism while everyone was still there. It was kinda awkward holding my god daughter up there in front of a couple hundred strangers.

The priest did ours at the same time as another family and I thought they were going to kill us when they saw us walk in. I could only imagine if a full church had been there for it!

Originally Posted by BeyondKnight

I think it varies parish by parish, but I believe there are only certain mass times they are willing to "convert" into a wedding ceremony on Saturday afternoons.

I know for a fact that we had at least 30 uninvited guests at our mass, they came up and greeted us while we were doing pictures.

The bolded is kind of awesome (and annoying if you were trying to do pictures). But, if they went through your receiving line - love it!
If I crashed someone's ceremony, I probably would have exited out a side door.

[YouNeverKnow25]

yeah but you are crashing their mass time, they aren't crashing your ceremony

[MOWJO8185]

Typically, a 2 pm wedding mass on a Saturday does not fulfill a Sunday obligation. Which isn't to say that parishioners can't still go to whatever Mass they want that may be going on there, but if they are doing it to fulfill a Sunday Mass obligation, that's not supposed to fly.

[sheldonlevene]

Wait - some Catholic weddings a) take place during a traditional mass time and b) are attended by people that aren't invited?

I'm Catholic and this is the first I've ever heard of this phenomenon.

[MOWJO8185]

Originally Posted by sheldonlevene

Wait - some Catholic weddings a) take place during a traditional mass time and b) are attended by people that aren't invited?

I'm Catholic and this is the first I've ever heard of this phenomenon.

I've never heard of this either. I've heard of weddings on Saturday evenings or Sundays that fulfill the Sunday obligation, but never one that just happened during that church's usual Mass time. Maybe in smaller towns?

[BeyondKnight]

Most of the time it doesn't fulfill the weekly obligation, but that doesn't mean its not a legitimate mass that's open for everyone to attend. I know most of our local parishes will have a wedding at the same scheduled intervals of the regularly scheduled Saturday morning / early afternoon mass times.

My original point was that any celebration of mass, regardless of a wedding ceremony or regularly scheduled worship is open for all to attend. The couple getting married would have absolutely no authority in telling someone they weren't welcome to attend.

[M. Steng]

I mean, you're right in that there's no actual authority from God to tell someone to not attend, but just as a person-to-person matter you can do whatever you want. The Church isn't going to have bouncers with a guest list

[sheldonlevene]

Well yeah - agree with both those points, but why would you wander in, realize it's a wedding and then stay?

Normally they're relatively personal - personal homily, personal readings, personal songs. I can only imagine staying if you're old and went through the trouble to getting to church and don't want to shuffle back to the towncar.

[MOWJO8185]

Originally Posted by BeyondKnight

Most of the time it doesn't fulfill the weekly obligation, but that doesn't mean its not a legitimate mass that's open for everyone to attend. I know most of our local parishes will have a wedding at the same scheduled intervals of the regularly scheduled Saturday morning / early afternoon mass times.

My original point was that any celebration of mass, regardless of a wedding ceremony or regularly scheduled worship is open for all to attend. The couple getting married would have absolutely no authority in telling someone they weren't welcome to attend.

Right, I get that anyone could attend it if they wished. I had just never heard of a parish actually converting an existing weekly Mass time into a wedding.

[mr. testaverde]

hey so what are everyone's thoughts on open bar vs cash bar?






just trying to incite a riot

[BeyondKnight]

Originally Posted by M. Steng

I mean, you're right in that there's no actual authority from God to tell someone to not attend, but just as a person-to-person matter you can do whatever you want. The Church isn't going to have bouncers with a guest list

Ask the priest who is officiating your wedding his opinion on the righteous of you asking one of your invited guests not to attend the ceremony because you don't like him. If you get his sign-off on the matter, I won't say another contrary word about it.

Originally Posted by sheldonlevene

Well yeah - agree with both those points, but why would you wander in, realize it's a wedding and then stay?

Normally they're relatively personal - personal homily, personal readings, personal songs. I can only imagine staying if you're old and went through the trouble to getting to church and don't want to shuffle back to the towncar.

Why wouldn't you? It's still a scripture reading. The homily might be personalized to the couple, but I believe it would still be inspired by The Holy Spirit. Its a specific celebration of a Catholic sacrament. Its a couple personally and publicly inviting Christ into their union. I can't imagine why anyone that would attend a mass NOT wanting to a be witness to that.

[sheldonlevene]

Originally Posted by BeyondKnight

Ask the priest who is officiating your wedding his opinion on the righteous of you asking one of your invited guests not to attend the ceremony because you don't like him. If you get his sign-off on the matter, I won't say another contrary word about it.



Why wouldn't you? It's still a scripture reading. The homily might be personalized to the couple, but I believe it would still be inspired by The Holy Spirit. Its a specific celebration of a Catholic sacrament. Its a couple personally and publicly inviting Christ into their union. I can't imagine why anyone that would attend a mass NOT wanting to a be witness to that.

I get your point - definitely do, I just think some (maybe even most) people would feel like they're imposing on a personal/familial gathering. Which apostolic church - we're all family - as you point out, shouldn't matter. It's being a party to a sacrament. I guess maybe my thought would be, if I had forewarning I would just go at a different time probably.

[UNC41]

Every single Catholic wedding I have attended has been outside of regular mass hours, with readings chosen by the couple and a sermon written specifically about the couple. None of my friends or family have ever mentioned randoms crashing their ceremony either.

[Klize17]

Originally Posted by mr. testaverde

hey so what are everyone's thoughts on open bar vs cash bar?






just trying to incite a riot

We are doing open beer/wine and a signature cocktail

[Tiduwho]

Getting ready to send out Save the Dates. Wedding invite politics suck...there are people on my fringe invite list that I definitely would have invited before...but we weren't invited to their wedding. Really makes you feel like you should return the favor.

But then...our wedding may be 200 or so, while theirs may have been less than 100. Hmm, what to do.

[cazzie34]

They were on your fringe. Don't send them a save the date and if there is room send them an invite once you start getting some #s back and seeing where you are with accepts/declines. That'll show 'em.

[M. Steng]

Originally Posted by cazzie34

They were on your fringe. Don't send them a save the date and if there is room send them an invite once you start getting some #s back and seeing where you are with accepts/declines. That'll show 'em.

Exactly what I was going to say. If they're fringe then they probably realize they're fringe and probably viewed you the same way for their wedding. We've got a few B-list people who we may send invites out to like a month in advance just so we can say we invited them so they're not offended.

I've heard of people doing the reverse, as in sending out save the dates to people who they don't end up inviting to the wedding. That seems particularly cruel

[mandy18]

Originally Posted by Tiduwho

Getting ready to send out Save the Dates. Wedding invite politics suck...there are people on my fringe invite list that I definitely would have invited before...but we weren't invited to their wedding. Really makes you feel like you should return the favor.

But then...our wedding may be 200 or so, while theirs may have been less than 100. Hmm, what to do.

If they're fringe, I say just don't send a save the date and play it by ear.

If they didn't invite you to theirs because they had a smaller wedding, then I don't think you should view it as "why invite them to ours, I wasn't at theirs." However, if you don't really care about them, they had a huge wedding and you didn't make their list, then why bother inviting them to yours.

Or basically the first part of my sentence: if you don't care if they're at yours. Don't invite them. If you want them to be at yours, don't worry that you didn't get invited to theirs and invite them anyway.

Originally Posted by M. Steng

Exactly what I was going to say. If they're fringe then they probably realize they're fringe and probably viewed you the same way for their wedding. We've got a few B-list people who we may send invites out to like a month in advance just so we can say we invited them so they're not offended.

I've heard of people doing the reverse, as in sending out save the dates to people who they don't end up inviting to the wedding. That seems particularly cruel

That's just incredibly rude and tacky (sending a save the date and then not inviting them). Unless your circumstance way changed (either with the relationship or with your actual reception), you don't do that.

And, realize if you invite someone a month out, they'll know they were the b list. So, if it's a matter of saying you invited them so they're "not offended," realize they may still be b/c they'll know.

[M. Steng]

Originally Posted by mandy18

If they're fringe, I say just don't send a save the date and play it by ear.

If they didn't invite you to theirs because they had a smaller wedding, then I don't think you should view it as "why invite them to ours, I wasn't at theirs." However, if you don't really care about them, they had a huge wedding and you didn't make their list, then why bother inviting them to yours.

Or basically the first part of my sentence: if you don't care if they're at yours. Don't invite them. If you want them to be at yours, don't worry that you didn't get invited to theirs and invite them anyway.



That's just incredibly rude and tacky (sending a save the date and then not inviting them). Unless your circumstance way changed (either with the relationship or with your actual reception), you don't do that.

And, realize if you invite someone a month out, they'll know they were the b list. So, if it's a matter of saying you invited them so they're "not offended," realize they may still be b/c they'll know.

I think it's better to be invited to the wedding late and know you're on the B-list than to never get invited and know you were never on the list at all!

[snow1868]

Originally Posted by M. Steng

I think it's better to be invited to the wedding late and know you're on the B-list than to never get invited and know you were never on the list at all!

Would 100% rather not be invited than get a pity invite.

[mandy18]

Originally Posted by M. Steng

I think it's better to be invited to the wedding late and know you're on the B-list than to never get invited and know you were never on the list at all!

Not everybody shares that attitude.
Some can be offended that they weren't always invited b/c they think they should have. Others may view it that you're just trying to fill a seat and get a gift. Others may understand that you want them there, but due to space or budget constraints, you had to wait and see.

But don't think all your late invites are going to jump up and down saying "sweet! at least we were on some list. Who cares if it was the d list?!"

Originally Posted by snow1868

Would 100% rather not be invited than get a pity invite.

Case in point.

[TheLastPig]

Anyone have any idea how much a string quartet would be to just play during our ceremony?