Mind Your Manners

So, you are a guest at the reception and it looks like you don't have a place card. It's too hot in the room. The buffet is empty. As a guest, and if any or all of these thing occur - who should you tell? Please tell me it's not the bride, groom or their parents. Obviously, at this moment, the bride would not be changing the thermostat, refreshing the buffet or making you a little card with your name on it. But, so many guests feel that it is OK to point out the flaws during a reception that it makes a couple feel that their guests are not enjoying themselves. If you do decide to complain to any of the people mentioned above about any of these situations, I can put it perspective of what will be the result. So for example, your place card. A bride is coming into the reception lobby fresh from rushing through photos, you tell her there isn't a card for you. She is going to look at you with a horrified look because she knows you are supposed to have one but can't believe she missed your card. She will feel terrible and guilty for not making YOU feel special. She will be trying to think of who she put you with and wondering if you even know the other guests to find them. So, you've now created a task for her to accomplish before she can proceed to what she needs to do - which is get ready for introductions. On to the A/C. Unless they have booked an historic venue with no chance of A/C you're out of luck. But, I can assure you, the A/C is on in a venue throughout the summer and the winter. Venue personnel know that each body that enters the room increases the temperature by one degree. Add alcohol and dancing and you've got a heat wave. Event staff do not try to torture guests, but, the temp can only go down so far. So, you find the groom who is rolling through his college antics, with friends he hasn't seen in years, to tell him it's too hot. He will now leave his friends, go find a waitress (who is trying to get meals out to other guests), to go with him to check the thermostat himself. He will see that it is as low as it can go, shrug his shoulders and tell you "hey, it's on". Again, he's checking the temp when he should be enjoying his reception. And now, The Buffet. You arrive at the buffet after your table number is called - the fourteenth table. There are a couple stream trays that are empty and you are starving. So you take what you can and head back to your table. The bride and groom come to your table to thank you for coming and ask if you are enjoying your meal. "Yes, everything is fantastic" should be your answer but instead it's "yeah, the buffet had nothing in it. The food was gone by the time they called our table". Picture the groom zooming in on the buffet and looking to see who he can strangle over this. He will want to find staff but, he see's the father of the bride first. He tells him to check the food situation and the result is Dad finds the event manager and reams them out because he spent thousands of dollars on this wedding and it's his only daughter and they are ruining it for her and that he wants a credit, etc., etc.. I agree that the buffet should be stocked, and the new, fresh tray may be coming through the door right when you walked back to your table but the Bride and Groom are not the people to discuss this issue with. So, if you are ever attending a wedding - mind your manners. The bride and groom can absolutely accomodate your issues - but it's not their problem. As a planner, producing hundreds of weddings, I can honestly say that these situations come up frequently. I am sure that the A/C issue comes up at every event and the buffet is a timing issue but the place card situation will happen with a harried bride. Each issue is resolvable and not something to get the whole room in an uproar over. But, really, ask the staff and give the couple what they really want - a chance to say YES, we did it and now lets enjoy it.