I completely agree with what Munchkin said, especially on stressing about a reception before you actually engaged. THat's putting the cart before the horse, in my opinion :)

My cousin married a woman who is Hispanic....(They even speak Spanish at home so you can imagine how different that would be to an English speaking southern man.!!)

They had a very nice buffet type setting and on one table they had lots of american goodies and on the other table there was lots of spanish food. Then there was a third table with all the cakes and "regular" wedding food. What was so interesting was we got to not only enjoy their wedding but we got to really experience her culture and her background as well. Not only did we meet her family but we met her family's culture also....


-MLK

My Yankee Italian heathen brother (who everybody was convinced MUST be in the mafia) married a native Southern Belle from North Carolina in North Carolina. They faced similar issues. They had an outdoor wedding with a pastor. The reception was at a country club and there was no alcohol until after dinner. Those who objected to alcohol and dancing were able to enjoy the dinner and left when the D.J. started playing his music. They had a champagne fountain, wine, and beer, no hard liquor. I think it worked out fine for all of us.

My brother couldn't have NOT had wine at his wedding because my Italian grandfather made us each a vat of wine for our wedding day when we were born. We had to have our nonno's wine at our weddings.

Dee

I love your post! Especially the term "Yankee Italian heathen brother".

Re: Separate Situation
 

The friend who got married 2 weeks ago is Polish. Her husband is Portugese.
All night the 2 families were bitching about the music. There wasn't enough Polish music, yadda, yadda, yadda...there wasn't enough Portugese music, yadda, yadda, yadda. And since there was only one bridesmaid, she couldn't stop all the bitching. It eventually got back to the bride and she was so upset.
Which is why I say have enough bridemaids ao they can be an adequate buffer between you and your bitchy guests (because there definitely will be some)

Oh thank you! That really needed to be said.

I've never understood the whole hang up with trying to make everyone happy at a wedding. You know what? It's your wedding and it's your decision, and everyone can either like it or shut up -- seriously. The purpose of a wedding isn't to kiss everyone's butt -- it's supposed to be a day for and about the couple getting married.

Totally agreed. It is your day. Make it what you want. End of story.

"bitchy guests" should be taken right off the guest list. that stuff annoys me, like everyone else was saying, is it their wedding or the bride and groom's? with my sarcastic personality i would probably go out of my way to do outrageous stuff to piss these people off if i was faced with this situation heh heh heh;)

One other thing that you might want to look into, if your reception isn't at a hotel--

Some hotels have agreements with local reception halls where you can get a hotel van to do one hour of drop-off service at the beginning of the reception, and one hour of pick-up service at the end of the reception.

We had a lot of out-of-town guests who were younger and were sharing cars and didn't know the area well. So it was really nice for them to be able to have something to drink (most of them didn't get blasted, but they definitely had alcohol), and didn't have to worry about being too drunk or too lost to find their way back to the hotel, or trying to drive in 3" heels.

All of the guests who were ~22-26 who took advantage of the van really were appreciative of it. You may have some who would take advantage of the van service and would get totally blasted if you had an open bar all night, but if you have just wine with dinner or a wine/beer/champagne bar you can limit the extent to which they get plastered.