It’s official: Wedding season is upon us. If you’re like me, you have approximately 800,000 nuptials to witness over the course of the next four months. Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than happy to attend; weddings at their best are beautiful occasions to celebrate the union of two individuals. But there are certain awful guests who lurk at the fringes of every wedding and threaten to turn a joyful event into American Horror Story: Wedding Edition.
If you’re going to survive wedding season, you’re going to have to learn how to handle these annoying guests. Not to worry, though, we’ve come up with a list of the nine worst guests you’ll find at every wedding, and how to deal with each.
Unlimited cake and alcohol are reason enough to attend any event, and it’s part of why I love weddings so much. But unfortunately, there are some individuals out there who simply can’t handle an open bar. At every wedding, there’s that special someone who gets way too drunk. This person is often a distant cousin, or someone else who is not going to let the fact that they barely know the couple stop them from making a barely intelligible 20-minute speech while the entire wedding watches in horror. The Way-Too-Drunk Distant Cousin only gets worse as the night goes on — trapping guests in incoherent conversations, falling on the dance floor, and bullying innocent bystanders into doing the Nae Nae.
How To Deal: If possible, encourage the WTD Cousin to take advantage of unlimited cake. If the WTD Cousin builds up a strong foundation of wedding food in his or her stomach, there is hope that this food will absorb the copious alcohol the WTD Cousin consumes, thereby preventing him or her from unleashing the inner drunken beast.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
“When are you two getting married?” This is the question that every unmarried couple faces at a wedding. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been dating two months or two years — if you haven’t put a ring on it, you will be subjected to this line of interrogation by every Nosy Aunt within a five-table radius. Even if you’ve never met the Nosy Aunt before, she’ll still offer her opinion on your relationship. The Nosy Aunt has an uncanny instinct for sniffing out unmarried couples, and zero tact when it comes to pressuring complete strangers into making the biggest commitment of their lives.
How To Deal: The Nosy Aunt does not respond to subtle social cues, and she is unafraid to hold obviously uncomfortable couples hostage until they agree to get engaged within the year. The best way to diffuse a Nosy Aunt interrogation is to simply humor her, agree to get married ASAP, and watch her target the next unmarried duo.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
The Bitter Single Person can be a total Debbie Downer at any wedding. This is the dateless guest who latches onto you for social support, and then just offers a string of depressing statements like, “Weddings make me want to kill myself,” or “Did you know the majority of marriages end in divorce?” The Bitter Single Person is an insufferable guest who doesn’t realize that being unattached at a wedding can actually be a great thing. Love is in the air and booze is flowing freely, which means that weddings are ideal settings to get laid in a drunken one-night stand with another guest. But The Bitter Single Person is often blind to these opportunities, and much prefers to saddle you with the brunt of their Debbie Downer-isms.
How To Deal: If you are stuck with a Bitter Single Person, encourage that person to see their singledom as an asset — and to get out on that dance floor and grind with a stranger. As someone who has been single at plenty of weddings, I can attest to this truth: Weddings are great opportunities to find love (or at least someone to hook up with)!
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
It's wonderful to have grandparents at a wedding ceremony, but pray that they brought their hearing aids. It can be quite a chore to chat with a hard-of-hearing octogenarian, especially when Whitney Houston is blaring on the dance floor. Small talk can be painful enough to endure without having to scream at the top of your lungs. The Grandpa Who Can’t Hear Anything may be sweet as pie, but you’re gonna bust your vocal chords if you get stuck talking to him.
How To Deal: The elderly are deserving of our respect, so let’s take grandpa out into the hallway (or a quieter place) to chat. That way, you’ll save your voice (and your sanity).
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
If you’re a single wedding guest, hopefully there will be some other unattached wedding attendees on whom to set your romantic sights. But if not, you might find your gaze wandering in the direction of the waitstaff. When I was single, I once went to a wedding where I was TORTURED by a Super-Hot Cater Waiter (Who I REALLY Hoped Was Single). I not-so-subtly checked him out all night long, fantasizing about our own eventual wedding. Unfortunately, I never managed to summon the courage to approach him and bring our romance to life. So while The Super-Hot Cater Waiter initially seems like a great addition to any wedding, he or she can ultimately torture you with their hotness.
How To Deal: Don’t be like me. If you’re confronted with a Super-Hot Cater Waiter, just approach them and strike up a conversation. How else will you know if they’re interested in marrying you, having three kids, and buying a summer home in the Hamptons?
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Weddings are occasions for reuniting with people you haven’t seen in years. This sometimes means reuniting with people you haven’t seen for very good reasons. We’ve all had falling-outs with a BFF or two, and nothing sucks more than seeing that former BFF at a wedding. The presence of your ex-bestie can be a cloud over the event, and keep you living in fear that you’ll run into him or her in the bathroom, or on the dance floor. It’s enough to send you ducking for cover under the bar (and staying there all night).
How To Deal: There’s no better occasion to bury the frenemy hatchet than at a celebration of someone’s love. Weddings can bring out the best (and most forgiving) sides of people. You don’t have to rekindle a BFFship with your former friend, but you might consider tossing out those old grudges. At the very least, it will clear the air and allow you both to enjoy the night.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
There’s a reason Hollywood executives have never greenlit a Step Up: Wedding Dance Floor. It’s because wedding dance floors are the sites of some of the worst dancing on the planet. But hey — it’s a wedding, so everyone gets a free pass to look a little goofy. Everyone, that is, except The “Amazing” (a.k.a. Horrific) Dancer. This is usually an overconfident (and overly drunk) bro who insists that he has “totally baller dance moves,” and is willing to dance-splain his techniques to anyone within earshot. When it comes time to dance, he is proven to be an epic failure whose main achievement is bumping into everyone on the dance floor.
How To Deal: When The “Amazing” Dancer is dominating the dance floor, run for cover or a second slice of cake. The only thing more excruciating than watching him dance like a maniac is getting elbowed by him while he does it.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
The "Macarena" is a scourge on the history of music, and it is almost guaranteed that someone will gain drunken confidence and request it at a wedding reception. The Wannabe DJ is a frightening wedding species, one that has the power to derail everyone’s fun with an ill-timed Meghan Trainor song. If you see this type bellied up to the DJ booth, it is likely that they are pressuring the DJ to play a dance-floor-clearing “banger.”
How To Deal: The only way to deal with this guest is to pray to the DJ Gods that the actual wedding DJ has the good sense to ignore the Wannabe DJ. If not, you’ll be doomed to a night of Black Eyed Peas' “I Gotta Feeling” and Nelly’s “Hot in Herre.”
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Pinterest may be helpful for some parts of wedding-planning, but it may also be the worst thing to happen to weddings since the Chicken Dance. It has created a wedding landscape of endlessly recycled ideas and aesthetics. And now, at almost every wedding, we encounter a member of the Pinterest Police Force — a.k.a. a person who is painstakingly aware of the latest Pinterest trends. The Pinterest Police will judge the bride if she doesn’t measure up to the latest in Pinterest wedding style. It’s a superficial way to evaluate a day that is supposed to be a celebration of love, not a celebration of someone’s ability to mimic what trends they've seen on social media.
How To Deal: Do not engage the Pinterest Police and their shallow bitching about a wedding’s lack of style. If they continue to badger you, suggest that perhaps they should be less concerned with trends and more concerned with what really counts at a wedding: love. Something tells me the success of a marriage is not determined by where the couple purchased the centerpieces.
Illustrated by Paola Delucca.
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