Bad Manners and Brimstone

Aunt did not know that she had the closest guess. I'm not sure what she would have done if told or asked if the prize be awarded to the next closest guess. She is rather competitive . . . for the Memory Game, she was one item off. She asked to see her list and compare it to the master list just to see what she missed.

If she did receive a second prize? She would have gloated.

"YOU" didn't fudge the winner of the clothespin game.  The players did.

Good point! Thanks for that validation.

Hi all -- just wanted to let you know how the party went . . . it was awesome!

The party planner at the venue we chose was excellent. She helped me with menu selections, seating/table arrangements, thoughts for games and answered all of my questions in a timely manner.

The guests made comments like "How did you find this place?", "This is an awesome venue!" and oh, so many comments on how delicious the food was.

I do think that having a buffet appetizer table (instead of a sit-down meal) helped in the mingling process of the event.

We had a couple of activities like building blocks that people could decorate (blocks and markers spread across the tables) and "Advice for the new parents" cards. We also had a "Guess how many" jar filled with small pacifiers. All of which people could do whenever during the party.

We planned five games, only played four (including the "Guess how many" game).

I do have an etiquette question following the descriptions, which I'm really curious as to your thoughts.

1 -- Memory Game. Father-to-be wore an apron decorated with baby items. He walked around the room, chatted with guests (he was in his glory ) and showed off the items. After he took off the apron, guests were given a form to fill out. The person (or team) with the most correct items on the form won. Niece and her family won.

2 -- Stick the Binky on the Baby's Mouth. Just like Pin the Tail on the donkey. The very first person (Aunt) who played the game got it spot-on. I was surprised to see the line form of lots of other guests who still wanted to play! They all had fun, but Aunt was the clear winner.

3 -- Don't Say Baby. Wear a clothespin. If someone says the word Baby, take their pin. The person who has the most clothespins at the end of the day wins. Niece had a whole lot of clothes pins. (see below)

4 -- Guess How Many. Aunt was the closest. The next closest guess was one away. (see below)


Etiquette Question -- were we wrong to "fudge" the winners?

Judges being me, DD#1, DHsam and DD#2.

For the Don't Say Baby game -- someone noticed that Niece had a lot of clothespins, so they investigated. Turns out that a lot of guests were just giving Niece their clothespins so that she could win (again). That someone got a bunch of other guests to give their pins to a friend so that Niece wouldn't win again. Sigh. Friend won.

For the Guess How Many -- We gave the prize to the second closest guess.


Etiquette question -- Were we wrong for fudging the prize awards? Giving prizes to four guests instead of the actual winners, which would have been two guests receiving two prizes each? Instead of four different winners?

What do you think?

I'm curious as to how you know about this, assuming that you are not either Sam, Jazz, or one of the other four people in attendance at the ceremony.

If you are not, then the secret's out anyway, right?

If you are, then I'm guessing that you are not comfortable with keeping this secret.
If this IS the case, I'm not sure how obligated you are to comply, but on the other hand, I'm not sure what good would come if you didn't.

One of the sisters that was in attendance is my granddaughter-in-law.  I don't know why she told us (her DH's family), but we know both Sam and Jazz to varying extents as Jazz lived with sis while my grandson was deployed and Sam eventually moved in, too.  I"ve spent time with them all, including a week where everyone was ill and they needed help with the kids (my great-grandchildren).

I guess the secret IS out.  I don't know who all might know, but someone in Sam's family asked a question about it, and she lied to them. 

I am completely comfortable keeping the secret because it doesn't matter one way or another to me and I get it with the military aspect.  I know that revealing the truth would cause upheaval and hard feelings and, as an in-law, I wouldn't want to do that.

And in many countries, including, I believe, the UK, you must have a civil marriage at a government office in addition to any other kind of wedding you have.

Not quite true in the UK. Here in England and Wales, clergy of several major religions - eg Church of Engkand, Judaism, Quakerism - who perform marriages in a registered place of worship are also licensed to complete the civil marriage forms, so the religious ceremony is also a civil ceremony. And for weddings of some other faiths - e.g. Sikh, Muslim - provided the wedding takes place in a building registered for marriages a registrar can attend and do the civil marriage paperwork. 

And even if you do need an actual civil marriage ceremony in addition to whatever religious rite you are having (either because your religion is not something recognised by the civil authorities, or it isn’t taking place in an authorised building), you can arrange for a registrar to perform it in any place licensed for marriages.

I know this kind of thing bothers many people, but not me.  There is a big range of situations where there is more than one wedding, and they are just so different.

- Couple can't decide whether to get married in her town or his, so they have two big "public" (not in the sense that all are invited, just as opposed to private and unannounced) weddings, but they hold themselves out as married after the first one.
- Couple had a "public" wedding of some kind with guests and then decides that due to circumstances they were unable to have as big or as nice a wedding as they'd dreamed, so just a year or two later, they have another one (even if they call it a "vow renewal"). 

These and like situations strike me as way off.  At best, another ceremony would seem silly, as if the first vows were meaningless.  And that's whether or not the first or the second ceremony was the "official" one (i.e., recognized by the government).  But they seem very different to me from situations like these:

- Wedding is planned for later, but one or both are about to be deployed and in case of tragedy, they want to be sure the survivor gets rights (this is what my aunt and uncle did during WWII: secretly married before he was deployed and had the modest wedding they had planned anyway after he returned).
- Wedding is planned for later, but a medical crisis suddenly arose, and for reasons such as insurance, survivor benefits, and establishment as status as Family for hospital visitation, etc., they marry privately immediately.
- Wedding is planned for later, but a parent is about to die, so they have a private bedside ceremony and then continue with the wedding as planned later.  (We have friends who did this; it was very touching.  It was not a secret, and the dying mother did manage to make it to the BWW a couple of months later after all, and died shortly after.  Everyone was very happy for them to have done it this way.)
- There are still countries where same-sex (or sometimes different-religion couples) cannot officially marry, although their marriages performed elsewhere are recognized as valid.  This was the case in the various US states for a few years, I'm sure you recall.  So couples go to a jurisdiction where they can marry officially, either before or after a wedding with their family and friends back in their community, rather than dragging everyone to the other location.  Surely no one begrudges them or their families that.

And then there are situations such as my husband has run into several times as a clergyman.  Say you want to get married in a state where the officiant you want is not licensed.  You can pay a few hundred dollars for a one-time permit, or you can just go to City Hall a few days before or after the wedding and do a private civil ceremony.  Or if you want to get married in some other country where it's complicated.  This happens a LOT, believe me.  We almost did it ourselves, when we learned that Wisconsin, where our wedding was to be, required both people showing up in person for the license three weeks in advance; we were all set to have a City Hall marriage in Boston, where we lived, first until we learned that for $30 Wisconsin would waive the three week requirement (WTF?  Then why require it?  But I digress).  If you've been to many weddings, I bet you have been to at least one such, and you never knew it.  And why would you care?

We have seen several people saying that what makes the difference to them is whether the couple is open about it or keeps it a secret; they feel like it's fraudulent not to tell and that they don't like that they are not seeing the moment when the couple is actually wed.  I'm not sure why that seems so important or why it's anyone else's business, but then, previous generations felt the same way about public display of a bloody sheet after the wedding night!  And at least in the US, you aren't seeing The Moment anyway -- the marriage becomes official for legal purposes not when they say "I do,' but when the officiant signs and files the license.  If The Moment for you is the "I do" before community and/or God, then you're seeing it anyway, no matter when the couple did the legal bona fides.

And in many countries, including, I believe, the UK, you must have a civil marriage at a government office in addition to any other kind of wedding you have.  I don't think that makes the wedding a sham or a lie or anything else.

So for me, I roll my eyes at people who just want to have things more than one way -- like both destination wedding and BWW at home, or any kind of multiple "public" weddings for more attention.  But for situations like the ones above, I honestly don't think it's anyone else's business whether the government requirements were met at the same time as The Wedding.