'I saw a woman I didn't know in our wedding photos months after the wedding.'
"I saw a woman I didn't know in our wedding photos months after the wedding."
Hi everyone! My husband and I had 100 guests for our wedding. Everyone invited were people dear to us and we really had to think of the guest list to be able to stick to the 100 headcount. The invitations were also very clear on how many seats were reserved for you.
So imagine my surprise when, two months later, we got our photos back and I saw a woman we both didn't know. I figured maybe a relative randomly brought someone else (wouldn't be surprising as they've done it to previous events) but my parents had no idea either. I brought up my confusion with a bridesmaid later on and she knew who it was.
Turns out one of our high school friends brought her mom! I truly don't understand what goes on in people's head when they decide things like this. Our catering and the seats were only for 100 people. Do they not realize food won't just magically appear to feed the extra person?
That an extra chair won't just turn up out of nowhere? Someone wasn't able to go at the last minute because he got a fever the night before so there was thankfully one extra seat, but it was literally just that one person that couldn't make it. Imagine if he was able to. Where would the mom go?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Cryptographer_Away said :
Bahahaha. I had a VERY similar experience. There’s an additional 10 folks in our ceremony photos who were clients of my workplace. All elderly ladies, not invited, but very interested in the whole planning process etc.
They apparently bullied my parent into disclosing the details (which I’m genuinely impressed by, as we shifted time/location 3 days out due to weather impacts at our OG spot).
They didn’t stick around for the reception, so remain as a funny background visual relic of that era of our lives. I’ve since sent flowers to several of their funerals.
As a caterer, I can tell you that the food and chair will magically appear. I always order about 2-3% more chairs/rentals than I need and there’s always plenty of food, or, at least one extra potion.
Yeah in the end there were extras so people were able to go for seconds but no one, except of course people in the business, can know that 100% of the time.
How weird she would even want to go to a wedding of someone she didn't even know.
True! She must know me by name as her daughter's old friend but other than that? 🤷🏻♀️
Is it possible the friend told mom that they got a +1? Maybe mom is innocent in all this
Ooh we didn't think about that but it is possible
She probably travelled to the wedding location with her daughter as a holiday. And then didn’t want to wait around in the hotel for her
Nope, the wedding was in our city. We've lived here our whole lives. It isn't a big city either, we have literally nothing for tourists except maybe one old church 😆 They live probably around 3km away from the venue.
I had no idea who the person was that caught my bouquet. Later she was ID’d as the date of a friend of my husband’s who wasn’t given a plus one. Not even his girlfriend, just a date. Of course she was all over the pictures too.
🤦🏻♀️ I know how you feel entirely. I had a big event a few years ago where one guest and her plus one brought their siblings and niblings. 8 extra people in entirety! What's worse was they let the kids run around so all the photos of the stage had a bunch of kids just standing next to it.
mouldymolly13 said:
How weird she would even want to go to a wedding of someone she didn't even know.
jbarinsd said:
I had no idea who the person was that caught my bouquet. Later she was ID’d as the date of a friend of my husband’s who wasn’t given a plus one. Not even his girlfriend, just a date. Of course she was all over the pictures too.
Lower_Alternative770 said:
It's still rude and ignorant. I don't care if food and chairs suddenly appear. That's not the point.
Cautious_Lucious said:
Tbh if someone snuck their mum into my wedding and I found out after the fact, I’d think it’s kinda cute.
My husband has a huge family on his mom’s side. She’s one of 12 siblings and she’s very close to her 7 sisters. She requested we invite them all. Of course we had space limitations. We said we could invite them but made it clear all of the dozens and dozens of cousins weren’t invited.
My husband didn’t even know most of them and wasn’t close to any. My MIL said no problem, she’d let them know the invite was for only the aunt (and uncle for the couple of them who were married) only.
My future SIL warned me that a couple of the aunts will straight up ignore our request and bring their kids. Sure enough two of them brought their older kids. There were 8 extra people we didn’t expect, including the bouquet catcher. Fortunately we had at least a dozen no RSVPs so we kept our original count just in case.
My MIL said in their culture (Mexican American) you invite the entire family to weddings, but the events are much more casual. She understood the need for guest counts when you’re having it catered and apologized on behalf of her sisters. I wasn’t super upset about it but I could tell my mom was pretty irritated.
I'm Asian, I know exactly what you're talking about. After the wedding, distant relatives I don't even know actually came to my aunt to complain to her about me and my mom for not inviting them. Ma'am I literally don't know you or your kids! And it's the same thing your MIL said. But how is that even feasible?
Weddings are very expensive! And not all venues can handle that many people anyway. Anyway, I hope they didn't cause you and your spouse problems on your special day! Hopefully all your future events will be more smooth sailing 🫶
A3593 said:
Frustrating, selfish and inconsiderate.