Anything goes, from the planning, to the showers/stags/Jack and Jills, to the reception.
It could be anything from the way they treated their future spouse, family, friends, guests, caterer, officiant, etc...
I had been expecting a thank you note for the gift I had sent, and instead received a letter complaining that I had sent something not on the registry, and berating my "rudeness" in putting the bride to the trouble of returning something she didn't like and didn't want.
The most selfish things I see here on Y!A are:
Having your wedding at some distant "destination" and expecting people to use their vacation time and money to go to your wedding instead.
Expecting your bridesmaids to be available for you on short notice for weeks on end, as if they have no life of their own.
Wanting to invite "guests" but have the "guests" pay for their own refreshments and entertainment.
Giving a shower for someone in your own family, or even for yourself.
Demanding a shower and having someone "mine" the wedding guest list to create one, instead of accepting that your circle of acquaintance isn't going to organize a shower for you.
Treating bridesmaids as "cash cows" and ordering them to do this and buy that for the bride, when there was no previous agreement to do and buy these things but they have already paid for the dress and shoes.
But the list could go on and on. The Wedding Industry, with its magazines and web sites, does a great deal to encourage brides to set aside courtesy and consideration for the sake of wallowing in an orgy of self indulgence. The stress of a wedding already brings out the worst in most young ladies, and this sort of encouragement makes the worst even worse.
This is more of a funny thing but selfish. The wedding I was maid of honor in, for my best friend. She and her fiance and his parents paid for everything. He and his mother did all the food and the grunt work. I don't think the groom or his mom slept for 3 days before the wedding.
My friend the bride called me 2 days before the wedding day, PO'd because the groom's mom wanted her to be at their house at 7am the day before the wedding to help with the final preparations for the wedding. The bride didn't think she should have to get up that early.
We were throwing their Jack and Jill, and it was getting super, super, suuuuper expensive, they knew that the wedding party was having a really hard time for all of us to come up with the money to pay for it, mind you..they are VERY well off, and their siblings (brother and his girlfriend, and brother) refused to throw in, because they said it was too much money.
The bride and groom knew all of that, and they didnt even offer to throw in any money at all, not even to buy a 30 pack or a bottle for the night..NOTHING.
My husband and I got roped into essentially putting on the whole wedding for his brother and his fiance. They planned to have a small wedding and reception. However, when we got to the location, they hadn't done anything. So we had to help them clean, get food, organize everything, and head to the reception hall early to prepare the food. They just thought things would magically come together at the last minute....And I guess they did - because we were there and did it all for them.
I went to a wedding that started at 5, the ceremony lasted 30 minutes. The wedding party left for their pictures and returned 2 hours later. In the meantime, we were left with one plate of cheese between 120 guests. Then, they made us sit through a video, their first dance, and three speeches before dinner was served. We finally ate at 8:45.
The bride requested we bring our daughter so her stepdaughter would have a friend to play with. Try keeping a child quiet for 3 hours while they are hungry.
Then, the bride never even came to our table to say hello and sent her step daughter home early because she was tired.
There was another wedding that the events leading up to the wedding made it so I didn't even attend! I was invited (by myspace invitation lol) to a college friend's wedding. Apparently, his fiance didn't really even want to invite me, but he insisted.
The wedding was on a Monday and when I called her and said, "Monday? I'm sorry, I won't be able to come." Which, she pretty much already knew because as a business owner, I can't just shut down for a day.
She responded, "Well, after you close the boutique, you could swing by to drop off your gift, we'll still be there." I haven't spoken to them since.
My best friend, (I love her to death, don't get me wrong!), had the BMs in her wedding get shoes that were dyed to match the dresses. This would not be a big deal for most people but for me, it was an issue. I have medical reasons for wearing flats, I am not allowed to wear heels due to my knees. In addition, I wear a size 6 2A (narrow) shoes. I normally special-order all of my shoes. However, dyeables don't come in flat and narrow. I petitioned for shoes of a "similar" color but she INSISTED I get heels dyed to match. I relented, bought and dyed the shoes and wore them. By the time I was done walking down the aisle, my feet were bleeding and continued to do so. And then she yelled at me for getting blood on the church floor. I threw my shoes in the trash at the reception because they were saturated with blood. Hopefully next time she will let me wear my own shoes...
In an attempt to co-host a shower for a long time family friend, I was given contact information for her future sister-in-law, who had already started planning a shower. This gal was spending a huge amount of money for things that weren't important. $4 each for professionally printed invitations that would be thrown in the trash. (BTW, my invitations printed on my own computer turned out prettier and cost 45 cents each.) Because the gals I was working with rebelled and wouldn't spend the "high dollar" dollar amounts we ended up having 2 showers. And that was fine. More people could be included, more ladies invited and all worked out well. But the one who was spending so much made everyone mad with her demands that people donate huge amounts of money for the other shower. It was over the top!
I've been blessed to always be a part of wonderful weddings where the couples have been warm and loving. I'm glad I don't have any horror stories to gossip about!
Edit: One of the other answers jogged my memory as to one occasion that I thought was selfish. We went to an out-of-town wedding for my husband's Uncle. The wedding took place in the country (a 1-hour drive from civilization), it was at 5:00 (so we had to leave by 4pm), it was over around 5:40, they took pictures while we waited drinking punch, then they came in to do the cake cutting. After the cake-cutting was over, it was about 6:30 and we all had small children who hadn't eaten since lunch. Nobody realized there wasn't going to be real food, and everyone left to hurry back to town for an 8:00pm dinner with starving, tired, worn-out kids. It was sweet misery.
I don't have one, but just wanted to say that the answer by "Ask Me" is crazy to me. You can't spend ONE night eating vegetarian food? It is not as if it is some foreign dish that you have never tried. The couple probably felt that killing animals in factory farms is wrong, and didn't want to buy meat of 15 cows just to serve their guests for one friggin meal. Get over yourself!! And have some respect for people who have views different than yours and who are planning their event. When you have your party, make it a BBQ- and I'll bet they won't be saying that you are being selfish, as long as you have something there for them to eat. The nerve!
The most selfish thing I have ever heard is right here- a bride who rather a guest not go to her wedding because they need to wear special diabetic footwear and not the sandals she wants for her beach style wedding...mind you they are a guest, NOT a member of the wedding party. Unbelievable.
I was a BM and at the rehearsal I got demoted. I have no idea how but instead of being third in line I became last. I don't touch on the subject with her I just accepted it and moved on.
I think its selfish for the bride & groom to only serve vegan/vegetarian food at their reception, especially when they are well aware that 95% of their guests are meat eaters.
Ask for the guest to donate to their honeymoon, They passed a jar at the reception! Very Rude and Tacky.
The last wedding I was at the bride didn't greet us or acknowledge my family and I once. Not that bad, but it's all I got.
On the rehearsal dinner, she gave all of her brothers and sisters (9 of them) a present, but she did NOT gift her inlaw's. The MIL was so humilliated as she gifted the bride with a tifanny bracelet and an album of the groom as a child AND she paid for part of the wedding, but the bride gifted all of her relatives and friends and the MIL got nothing. It was really awkward and rude.
Same wedding, the bride requested her 16 (8GM, 8BM)attendants to make a speech about the couple... after the first 3, people were sleeping on the tables.
Also, the bride had 2 dresses, but she only wore one, she doesn't work and her family didn't have the means to pay for the wedding, so the groom and the mother in law footed the bill and she just kept on spending left and right. The groom and his family paid 37k, and the bride and her family contributed nothing.
The guests were forced to watch and endless slide show of the bride and there were hardly any pictures of the groom...it was mostly her posing.
Same wedding, there was 3k spent on flowers (groom griped about it) but there was hardly any food for the guests.There were rolls, bowtie pasta, tossed salad and a miniscule paper thin roast beef slice, the catering service was serving you, so you got a meal fit for a toddler!!! That's all we got for 12 hours (the bride reuqested for people to be the at 9 am, reception ended at 11 pm). Everyone was hungry and mad! Not to count, no water in the middle of the summer in Cali outdoors. I wish i could eat the flowers and drink the water of the fountain after 12 hours of torture!
To top it off, they sent they thank you cards 1 year later with again, pictures of the bride posing *no groom in sight*. The TY card was *I kid you not* I collage of pictures of the bride!
She was classless, selfish and inconsiderate. She had a list of "duties" for the wedding party to do. Sure, you can help, but I wasn't even in the WP and got tasked with delivering flowers, booze, candles etc. My husband was soo exhausted after 2 days of labor setting up stuff for the couple and driving around town to pick up her centerpieces and other crap. Not to count the bride fighting with the groom and barking orders to the WP as if they were slaves.
And the gem; We gave them $250 cash for their gift, plus tuxedo rental, airfare, hotel, car rental etc. We spend nearly $3000 to attend. On our wedding that cheap, tacky woman gave us $100.
Good luck
That honor would have to go to my older sister. She definitely showed her true colors on her wedding day.
We were very close growing up and when she decided to get married I assumed (wrongly assumed) that she would pick me as Maid of Honor. I mean after all we played hide-and-seek together, made mud pies, cried on each other's shoulder over jerk boyfriends, had each other's backs when mom caught us doing something naughty, etc. We were sisters in every sense of the word.
But recently she had joined a church (where she met the man she was marrying). And she turned into a completely different person. It was actually kind of scary.
Well, I got the shock of my life when she announced that her Maid of Honor was going to be a church friend of hers and I was simply a Bridesmaid! Furthermore, she acted like I should consider it a great honor to even be IN her wedding party!
My mother went ballistic when she heard this and tried to force my sister to make me Maid of Honor. My sister would not back down completely though and in the end she ended up making both the church friend and I Maids of Honor. Of course this made me feel awkward standing up there beside her because if it was her choice, I would not have been in that position. It really hurt me.
Also my mother did everything for my sister to make her wedding something special and she did not appreciate any of it. My mother rented a helium machine to blow up balloons and the plan was to have the balloons in the reception room just floating on the ceiling. It was a classy looking idea.
Well my sister's church friend (the other Maid of Honor) had the idea to take the balloons and tie them to the pews of the adjoining church. It looked awful. More like a children's birthday party, instead of a wedding.
I could go on and on, but these are just a few of the awful things that happened. My mother and father spent thousands of dollars making her day beautiful and she was divorced 9 months later and never talked to her other Maid of Honor again.
I learned a lot of lessons though through one wedding.
The last wedding I've been to was actually one of the most tiring, over the top and cringe-worthy - that is - about everything except the bride and groom themselves.
First, the wedding is held on a Friday, the venue for ceremony and reception was out-of-town, about 2 hours travel from where I live- it took me about 3 hours because of horrible traffic. Most of the guest and the couple's relatives live almost 3 hours away.
The ceremony was supposed to start at 3:30, but it started almost an hour late because most of the wedding party (including the grooms mother) thinks it's "okay" to be late.
Really no respect for time other people's time.
It was an outdoor wedding in December, so you expect it to be cold, the ceremony was done by sundown. Aside from that, guest weren't informed that it's going to be an outdoor ceremony on an uneven, sloping grass, and the attire was supposed to be formal, so most of us women are teetering on our heels.
There were plenty of details like bubbles, confetti, and this horse carriage wherein you can take pictures but the food was abysmal. There really wasn't a lot of choices on the food and the whole reception program was too long.
The one and only nice thing about it though is that the groom and bride themselves look really in-love and very happy w/ each other,and despite the odds - and the grooms mother being against their wedding - the bride and groom are the one's that made that whole brouhaha worth coming for.
Take ownership of another human being by getting married.
