Comments on: Integrating lopsided family guestlists

By: Hannah

Hannah — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:06:32 +0000

Buffalo Polish, fuck yeah!

By: channamasala

channamasala — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 03:12:29 +0000

We had this issue – no language barrier, but 60 people from my side, and 9 from his (not including 3 or 4 family friends on his side). It was amazingly lopsided. I can see how the language barrier would make it that much harder!

We ditched the bride/groom's side, seated my husband's two aunts and uncles with my grandmother, aunt and some of my family, sat his cousin who is our age with friends our age that he already knows (he moved for grad school to where we used to live), and filled in the wide gap between the families with lots and lots of friends. We had that same cousin do a reading as he's a mutual friend, and each made our younger sibling an honor attendant so they processed together, which gave a nice veneer of evenness to the whole thing.

With a huge number of friends in attendance, and seating people not just by family but by general age/interest, we turned it into a HUGE PARTY instead of a lopsided family event.

By: ~Aria~

~*Aria*~ — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 03:57:19 +0000

We had a majorly lopsided guest list, and decided not to worry about it. We took care of things with the seating chart. People form my side seated with people from his side who had common interests. After the reception, some of our combined guests went off and had after-parties together and have been friends since! No party the night before needed.

Things will work out fine.

By: Lirabobeera

Lirabobeera — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:37:10 +0000

This is great! My fiance's family is Italian, and now I am definitely going to include Italian phrases in our invitations! Grazie mille!

By: Karen S

Karen S — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:40:55 +0000

A neat way to let them show their culture is to welcome them to perform an oczepiny ceremony for you – it's a tradition where the bride's veil is removed and replaced with a cap while the family sings songs. If you don't mind sitting in front of the family for a few minutes it's a lot of fun. My family usually puts a funny hat on the groom then and you have to do a dance together. But we are strictly third generation Buffalo Polish so this may vary from place to place.

By: Ellen P

Ellen P — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:01:53 +0000

I'm in a similar boat- I have a huge southern family while my fiance is part of a small Swedish family. Since we are having the wedding in Georgia, there won't be a whole lot of Swedes who can travel that far, which cuts his side of the guest list even more.
The language issue, though, is all on my side of the family. The Swedes speak excellent English, very proper. I am going to have to make them cards with all the Southernisms that come out of my family's mouths so they can understand what in the world my dad means when he says, "Tryin to jerry rig that tater cannon on tahm made me more nervous than a long tailed cat in a room fulla rockin chars."
Good luck Swedes!

By: The Real Dr. Dre

The Real Dr. Dre — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 12:48:03 +0000

First off, Felicidades and Moje Gratulacje!!!

I think these ideas are awesome! I'm having a Slovak-Pittsburgh/Irish-Newfoundland wedding in a mere six weeks and although everyone speaks English, they can hardly understand each other with the accents!

We're incorporating things from both traditions and hoping it all blends together well, including the Redovy (bridal dance) with some modifications (no money, just dancing, waving hankies, singing, and forcing the groom to fight through my female friends and family to steal me away!)

And OMG, those veils are cute! Best of luck and have a wonderful time!!! I know it's going to be awesome!

By: Offbeat Bride | What to do when you have 500 family members, and your fiance has 10

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:50:03 +0000

[...] Tips for dealing with lopsided families at weddings [...]

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 03:22:35 +0000

There are tons of great Polish wedding customs, though many of them are specific to certain regions, so having him check with his mom makes sense.

Two things: consider serving a Polish cocktail such as Å¼Ã³brÃ³wka (an awesome vodka with bison grass) and apple juice. The cocktail is either called a "tatonka" (as in "Dances with Wolves"…seriously), or szarlotka (because it tastes like Polish apple cake). Or you could serve some krupnik if you want everyone HAMMERED, or make your own lemon vodka. Sounds like the perfect favor to me .

You might also want to play Chopin at some point and announce or include in the program that Chopin is Poland's most famous composer. I think that little touches like this really make a difference to family.

Polish weddings are generally pretty crazy affairs that traditionally last for days, so it might go more easily than you expect.

Gratulacje!

"The three most astonishing things in the past half-century were the blues, cubism, and Polish vodka."
~Pablo Picasso

By: Luke+Veronica

Luke+Veronica — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:44:47 +0000

Thanks super lots for getting back to us so quickly and with such great advice. We were thinking we wouldn't have a rehearsal dinner because 1. we don't know what the point is of rehearsing, I guess and 2. We heard they're expensive. However, a nice informal dinner with just the closest of my relatives and with his relatives should be fine. I love the idea of including cards with phrases on them. I'll have to ask about any Polish traditions that maybe we could incorporate.

Luke says he doesn't think he'll be wearing a veil to the wedding… (but I'll be sure to snap shots of him in mine at some point, just wait~!)

Thanks for the fun times at the event. Yay love!