Some people say weddings are the best days of their lives and I can see why. It’s the one time in your life where all the friends you’ve made from all walks come together to celebrate the union of you and your partner. It’s also a joy to attend weddings that of your best friends, to celebrate that they have finally found love.
They’re the happiest occasions! Having been to my fair share of weddings and one for myself though I do feel there are little things that spoil a wedding in its small ways and heck some of them even happened during my wedding.
I hope after listing this here, people would be more aware of it and think twice before doing it.
1) Calling a “Yum Seng” when someone is giving a speech
I’ve seen this before. It happens less common when the bride and groom are giving a speech but more common when it’s the maid of honor or best man talking.
The slightly sad thing about asian weddings is that 80% of the seats go to friends of the parents and relatives (close and distant) of the bride and groom. Now this is all fine if they’re all there to sincerely celebrate the union of the bride and groom but often that’s not the case.
If they were, they would sincerely want to listen out to the stories about the bride and groom when they were dating or learn more about them, instead some of them go to the very extreme of calling a yum seng just when a speech is taking place. If that’s not disrespectful then what is.
I find this happens more commonly for big weddings. Because the bigger the weddings the more people you’re not closed to get invited. Small weddings have the best intimate environment where everyone is there for the sole and only purpose to celebrate the union of the bride and groom.
2) Not Showing Up After You’ve RSVP’ed
I am admittedly guilty of these on more than one occasion. Often because of work or many other silly reasons which are never good enough. Whenever this happens to me I do whatever I can to make it up to the bride and groom. I don’t take it lightly… but still, whatever I do… it’s still wrong to not show up for a wedding once you RSVP.
To be invited for a wedding is an honor. There are only a limited number of seats and a whole lot of people who want to invited or at least attend. So to RSVP and then not show up… that’s just bad. It not only takes the place of someone else who could have gone in your place but it also leaves empty seats on a table. i’ve been to a wedding once where there were only 4 people on my table of 10.
3) Saying “When your wife is right she’s right. When she’s wrong she’s still right”.
Jokes like this one is fairly common and often happen during the speeches about the bride and groom. It happens so much it’s not funny anymore ( not sure if it ever was) but we often give out an obligatory laugh.
Think about what it implies. It implies that the marriage should only be about the groom listening to his bride all the time and not about the groom having a mind of his own. That’s not what marriages are about. Marriages are about a partnership between a man and a woman to live life and start a family together for the rest of their lives.
There are many other jokes that I’ve heard at weddings that don’t bang on this. Use those instead if you want to get a laugh from the crowd.
4) Saying to the groom “Her money is her money, your money is her money”.
This is again another common bad joke that is often met by an awkward obligatory laugh. Think about what this means. Not only does it say that marriage is not an equal partnership or shouldn’t even set out to be, but it’s that money is an important enough reason for this marriage that it must be mentioned in a wedding speech. It also implies that the bride is this unreasonable person who cares all about the money.
Most brides don’t. So don’t make jokes that imply they do.
5) Extreme Bridesmaids Games
You know the games that the bridesmaids and the groomsmen play when the groom goes to pick up the bride?
These games were meant to be fun and meaningful. Fun meaning fun for both the bridesmaids and the groomsmen and meaningful as in whatever games they play have a certain meaning to the bride and groom’s relationship e.g. quizzing the groom about relationship history questions.
These games have been getting really out of hand these days so much that having your leg hair waxed off publicly is a given. I’m not sure which part of fun that brings to the groomsmen or how it relates to anything meaningful to the relationship.
But i’ve seen worse. I’ve seen a wedding where they got all the groomsmen to strip down to their underwear and get into a hot tub together. They then had to pick up mahjong tiles with their feet in the hot tub before they could come out. All this happening while cameras snapped away.
That’s not just painful and not fun.. that’s humiliating to the groomsmen who actually happen to be the groom’s best friends. This reflects terribly not on the bride or the groom, but on the bridesmaids.
So keep these games fun and meaningful. The best ones I’ve seen have the groom do tests or challenges that prove his love to her either by singing a song, answering questions about their relationship or more.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space