differences in UK/US weddings??

i've just had my fiance Visa approved and i'm moving in a few weeks... i'm finally at the point where i can really start to plan my wedding but i'm a bit apprehensive.

i am an American and have only been to American style weddings and my British man is essentially clueless when it comes to UK weddings.

does anyone know of any real differences between US and UK ceremonies and receptions? we're having a small civil ceremony and the reception will be at a hotel...

the only thing that's different that i know of is that women wear hats. my mother is very excited about this.

anyway, any input would help!!

thanks!

At the reception the father of the bride, groom and best man make speeches (or exceptionally long toasts, if you want to look at it that way).  I know there are toasts in US wedding receptions, but I don't remember it being as structured there with regard to who speaks and in what order.

Congrats on the visa!

You're lucky, there's less to be spent on at UK weddings - no rehearsal dinner and no grooms cake (shudder!) just off the top of my head!

If you have a civil ceremony, you HAVE to have the registrar from the local council officiate the ceremony, you don't get a choice in who marries you, and the wording for the ceremony itself is quite controlled. And you must give notice at your local council in advance of the wedding (so if you're getting married outside your local area, you have to give notice at home, but arrange the actual ceremony with the council where your ceremony is taking place).

And in my experience, there's a whole lot more drinking involved with UK weddings! 

Traditional wedding cake is a heavy fruitcake with that hard white icing stuff on it.  

I think the point was to have a cake that kept a long time, whereby you would post off a piece (in little boxes) to people who couldn't make it to the wedding.

I got married over here, and like your situation - my English husband had no clue about UK weddings, so he just left it all up to me.  I didn't think to ask anyone & just went about things in the way I knew.  

People were a bit surprised (in a good way!) about our wedding cake which was chocolate sponge with vanilla buttercream icing, and rather than a cake topper, it just had (edible) summer fruits decorating it all over...with some flowers around it on the cake table.  Everyone (majority was English folks at our wedding) said how much they loved the cake so much more than traditional English wedding cake (i.e., the indestructable fruit cake).

We also did the (very American) thing of stuffing cake in each other's gobs - and people here were surprised about that too, but thought it was funny (and fun) all the same.

Initially, we weren't going to register anywhere (for gifts) because DH didn't want to & I wasn't sure.  However, pretty much everyone kept asking where we were registered (especially his mum), so we ended up doing it - bonus!    It seemed to be expected among the guests & nobody thought anything (like oh you're being cheeky/greedy/etc) about it - just liked that buying us a gift was easy.

We had a small do (only 20 people in all, including us), and I don't think anyone wore a hat!  Lol!

If you're short on funds, it's not uncommon here to have a reception after the ceremony at a pub!  I've known several folks who have done this.  The Leeds register office is in our lovely Victorian-era architecture Town Hall, and one of my favourite pubs (also from the Victorian era) is across the street from the back of Town Hall - I often see wedding parties in there!

I'm excited because we're off to a wedding reception/party next Friday (Friday the 13th - on purpose!) for one of my work colleagues.  He & his wife-to-be are bit on the alternative/wild side, so they have rented out an empty building shell/hall, which is going to be decorated, and the live entertainment is going to be cabaret and burlesque dancers.  It's BYOB with an offie just up the street!

Traditional wedding cake is a heavy fruitcake with that hard white icing stuff on it.  [smiley=bleck.gif]quote]

  That's just what I was going to say!

thank you all for the replies so far!!

sadly my father has passed so he wont be there to make a speech but the GROOM has to make a speech too!? ohhh dear... the fiance isn't going to be happy about that, lol.

i've also read about the registrar thing. to be honest, at this point i don't care who marries us or what we say or don't say. as long as we're married, i'll be happy!!


i did know the thing about the cake... just from looking online at stuff. there is NO way that i'm having that kind of cake at my wedding. eeew. we've already looked at a few cakes and they're all sponge. mmm...

oooh, speaking of registering, where are some good places? here in the states (where i live at least) everyone goes to Bed Bath and Beyond and Target.

this is so exciting!

At ours, our best man & bridesmaid (maid of honour) made speeches, and also DH and I both made speeches.  (My dad is deceased too.)  The best man & bridesmaid sort of told funny stories about us & stuff like that.  DH and I just essentially got up & thanked everyone (from near & far) for coming, etc.

We registered at Debenhams, because they are a nationwide dept store, and also they had an online registry site/system that people from both the US and the UK could use.  I'm sure there are other choices that some folks will be along to point out.    (I also liked that they gave us a little scanner gun, and let us run wild in the store scanning the bar codes of the items that we wanted to put on the register - maybe that's normal?  But I thought it was way cool.)

We had our wedding gift list at John Lewis - we had a scanner gun too and you can top it up online. I would say that Debenhams and John Lewis are the most popular.

Other differences in the reception might be the inclusion of a toastmaster (if your venue provides that as part of the package?) And a receiving line where the bridal party line up to welcome everyone in to the meal - this is quite formal and we chose not to have this. Basically your venue should cater to whatever you want for your day! We dont really throw the garter over here either (mine was my mums and there was no way i was tossing it into the crowd!) Um not sure what else, i've only been to one wedding in the US and the main difference i found was the speeches

My husband also found it very strange that we had a fruitcake for our wedding lol - i had no idea that they were far from popular in the USA. 

We picked and chose what we wanted from both countries for ours.  Had a yummy choc cake with white choc icing. mmmmm.

Hitched.co.uk is  a good resource for info on traditions etc.  If you do want a sixpence for your shoe, go to a jeweler that sells coins for much less than you'll pay through a bridal shop or high street store (think I paid £2 versus £10 for mine in 2005).

And a receiving line where the bridal party line up to welcome everyone in to the meal...

I have been to quite a few weddings in the US where that is done too.  Usually much like what you said - post-wedding as guests are walking into the reception.  I forgot all about that!  We didn't have one here, but then there were so few people at ours - we had plenty of opportunities to speak & chat with everyone.

I forgot about the throwing of the bouquet & the garter, etc.  We didn't do that - pretty much everyone in attendance at ours was already married anyway, so it would have been kind of silly for us to do, I think.  

Yeah, the famous US fruitcake joke (about those fruitcakes that you see in the round tin at Christmas-time):  There really is only one fruitcake in the world.  Everybody regifts it (the same fruitcake in the tin) to someone else...  

ETA:  I know there are good fruitcakes, and that people do like fruitcakes.  I like Christmas cake over here myself, especially with Wensleydale cheese.  Yadda yadda yadda.    (but I still like the old, overused joke too)

I have a UK wedding to attend next month and I've been told the format is ceremony, meal served only to very close family and friends with cake cutting done then, a few hours break in the afternoon, and then a larger evening reception (with snacks, but no meal) that everyone is invited to, including some people who weren't invited to the ceremony!  Is this how others have found UK weddings to be?  I was a bit surprised that some people are told to come to the ceremony and then told to entertain themselves for 5 or 6 hours while some of the guests were given a meal, and then expected to come back for the evening party later on. 

I have a UK wedding to attend next month and I've been told the format is ceremony, meal served only to very close family and friends with cake cutting done then, a few hours break in the afternoon, and then a larger evening reception (with snacks, but no meal) that everyone is invited to, including some people who weren't invited to the ceremony!  Is this how others have found UK weddings to be?  I was a bit surprised that some people are told to come to the ceremony and then told to entertain themselves for 5 or 6 hours while some of the guests were given a meal, and then expected to come back for the evening party later on.  

We've attended one before where we weren't actually invited to the ceremony & formal meal following (there were limited numbers only for those), but we were invited to an evening reception/party - there were drinks, a buffet & a disco for it.  Similarly, the wedding we are going to next Friday, we aren't actually going to the ceremony - just to the party in the evening.  I think that is fairly normal?

Not sure about the - come to the ceremony, ok now b*gger off for awhile while we feed & entertain these people (but not you), then come back again & party with us in the evening.  (IMHO, that's kind of rude.  I mean I know they're doing it to keep costs down & hoping everyone to understand, but still...)  If it were me, I'd be inclined to give the ceremony a miss & just turn up for the party in the evening (if I wanted to go).    Probably depends on how close you feel to the people, about going to the ceremony or not.  Then again, if you were that close, wouldn't you have been invited to the whole lot?  (Just my 2p)

We picked and chose what we wanted from both countries for ours. 

So did we. I think it's more fun that way!

Our cake was lemon with buttercream icing and fresh raspberries. Don't feel you HAVE to have a British-style cake if that's not your thing.

I also don't like the British custom of inviting some people just to the reception and not to the service and meal. To me, if someone is important enough to come to my wedding, they're important enough to come to the whole thing. So that's what we did.

I do, however, love the speeches and all that, so we included those.

And no hideous US-style garter thing. (shudder)

Basically, my advice is that you should do exactly as you want on your day. Choose your customs from the US, UK or any other country that strikes your fancy! 

I also don't like the British custom of inviting some people just to the reception and not to the service and meal. To me, if someone is important enough to come to my wedding, they're important enough to come to the whole thing. So that's what we did.

Agreed!  We kept our costs down by keeping our guest list very, very short.  Didn't even have to deal with the hassle of who sits at what table - because we were only 20 people & the venue was able to accommodate that we all sat around one long table.  Lol!

ETA:  I know there are good fruitcakes, and that people do like fruitcakes.  I like Christmas cake over here myself, especially with Wensleydale cheese.  Yadda yadda yadda.    (but I still like the old, overused joke too)

Our wedding cake was a lot like xmas cake - it was very moist and had a layer of marzipan and icing - yummy we still have the top tier to keep for christening/anniversary and the second tier my mum has to use for xmas cake this year! (shes moving house and having a new kitchen lol)

With the ceremony/evening thing i know that some people invite people to the evening reception and then add that they are more than welcome to attend to the church ceremony if they wish to. For us it we had 78 max for our sit down meal due to space restraint within the venue (and money at £99 per head!) But our church was big and we had a big room for the evening reception (space for 150). I was able to invite all my work friends and my parents friends to the evening. I guess being British I am just used to how that works!

ETA - evening receptions with extra guests and buffet are the norm here! Also we saved our cake cutting until all of our evening guests had arrived