Wedding Wednesday: Smashing Tradition - Mazel Tov!

Okay, dear readers, let's head back to our conversation on the differences between English and American weddings!  Part One is here, if you missed it before, where we talked about the ceremony, and then here's the post about the rules for civil weddings in the UK.  Now, on to the reception!

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Now, I'm going to start by touching on a subject that I've seen raise a few hackles online, so I'll keep it brief.  In the UK, it is common to have separate guest lists for the ceremony and the reception.  In fact, it's totally acceptable to have three: one for the ceremony, one slightly larger for cocktails and dinner afterwards, and finally a third for the party at the end of the night.  Jon and I are only having one because we feel that if someone is important enough to spend our wedding day with us s/he should be there for the ceremony as well as the reception.  Additionally, since there's no break between our ceremony and the reception, as there often is when English weddings are scheduled earlier in the day, we feel it would be awkward to introduce new guests mid-celebration.

As I mentioned before, we're not going to do a first look before the ceremony; Jon and I, along with our families and attendants, will disappear for a little bit for photos while the guests start enjoying the cocktail hour.  (Actually, I think we've agreed with our wonderful caterer that it's going to be a cocktail hour-and-a-half, but discretion is the better part of valor, don't you think?)  We have a grand and brilliant plan to announce our arrival to the cocktail hour - it's got to be a secret for our guests so I can't tell you what it is, but I will give you this hint: it's very loud and it's a nod to Jon's Scottish roots.  And then, because we won't have been able to incorporate any Jewish traditions into the wedding ceremony, Jon's going to stomp on a glass and everyone will yell mazel tov!

For the reception itself, I don't actually think we'll be doing anything wildly different than the American or English guests will expect.  (This might be a shorter post than I thought... Oops!)  Similar to Nicola, I think that many of our guests imagine weddings by way of Hollywood rather than any one country these days - plus, we're amongst the first in our group of friends to get married, so most won't have much to compare our wedding to!  The two things I can think of that really do stand out are the cake and the toasts.  The tradition in the UK is for the wedding cake to be a fruit cake, but we'll be having a classic tiered vanilla sponge with buttercream instead.  Honestly, I did try to convince Jon that we should serve a proper Victoria sponge cake but he balked at that, so we compromised with something simple and fresh but still traditional - at least in the American sense!  And then there's a formal order to who gives which toast when and to whom at a wedding; it's technically only the father of the bride, the groom, and the best man.  Of course, these days it's okay to break the tradition and women can certainly give toasts if they want to, but I don't think my sister is desperate to stand up in front of the crowd and neither am I.  But we could if we wanted to, and that's what counts!

Otherwise, I think most of the pieces we're electing to include (or not include) are personal choices and have very little to do with cultural traditions in this global age: we won't have a receiving line, we will not feed each other cake, I will throw my bouquet to the girls, Jon will not go searching for the garter I will not be wearing, we will have a first dance but we won't have a father/daughter dance or a mother/son dance, etc.  But I know I've forgotten some differences, so help me out, dear readers!  What am I missing - what do you want to know?  My favorite part of the Sunday Times style section is the Well-Mannered Weddings column with all the awkward etiquette questions, so please do ask away!

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By the way, I can neither confirm nor deny the possibility that Jon and I may be hoisted up on chairs during the wedding reception.  All I can tell you is that I'm afraid of heights.  Do with that information what you will.