Wedding don't: putting guests to work

Woah. That’s wildly inappropriate. Maybe ask your in town friends! Are you and FH involved in the wedding in anyway?

Been that guest; hate it. Please please please don't voluntell your friends and families to work your wedding. That's what vendors are for!

Whoaaa! PP said with the perfect choice of words… That is definitely wildly inappropriate. We aren’t even asking the people in our bridal party for help with anything at all, let alone guests! Our bridal party is literally showing up in the attire that they chose and just walking down the aisle. I would feel so embarrassed and mortified if I ever had to ask any of my guests for help with anything! “help setting up the venue”!??!?!?!?! If that was the case I wouldn’t even go. If I was ever in your situation, I would straight up tell the person ‘we are absolutely not helping set up’. But That’s just me. Sorry you have to deal with that.

I‘ve never understood how couples will hire every other vendor, but leave a wedding planner off the list. It’s crazy to me because the wedding planner coordinates all of the vendors’ duties, sets up, runs the rehearsal as well as organizing the wedding day and more. But instead, couples will ask family, friends and wedding party members to do the work of a wedding planner, for free. The idea of asking any guest to work is a huge no for me.

Yeah, that's nuts. By any chance, is this the same couple whose bride had the strict black tie dress code for the outdoor wedding and porta-potties? Cuz if so, u can't say I'm surprised. But you don't owe them any excuse. Honestly, they should accept "no" and be done with it. You are not hired help. You do have no obligation to set up.

View Quoted Comment It is! Good guess haha

That is what paid vendors (florist and day of coordinator) are for. I have been that guest many times who is voluntold to work at the wedding in a random capacity so that you are completely unable to enjoy the wedding as a guest. If you love your guests, please do not do this.

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Wait. They had an outdoor wedding . . . with porta potties . . . that was *black tie*?! And then asked *guests* (and out of town guests to boot) to help set up?! Seriously.

View Quoted Comment Ugh, yeah, this couple needs a solid reality check. Seriously, just tell them "no." Getting married doesn't mean you become supreme ruler and can dictate what your guests wear and do. People are allowed to say no when the request is unreasonable. This request (or demand, rather) is unreasonable.

In my small town family and close friends traditionally help setup, decorate and cleanup after the wedding. This was something I did NOT want to ask my family and friends to do as honestly, it sucks. We were able to find an all inclusive vendor that will do it all for us and it will be the first time ever that my family hasn’t had to help.


Long story short, they may not realize that it’s inappropriate as it may be what they’re used to. You shouldn’t be obligated to help, but for some it is traditional to do it that way. I’d be honest and tell them that you can’t as you have work to do since you’d taken time off.

View Quoted Comment I've been askex/told to help with setup before for a friend who lived in a pretty small town. I figured it was more common in some places. Where I'm from, it's definitely off limits (though parents and siblings often offer to do little things). I think the thing that rubbed me wrong the most was that we had just gotten off long and pricey flights to attend and already felt like we had done a lot for the couple

View Quoted Comment That’s understandable. You would think they would’ve asked In advance if they were going to need the help. But you’re right, y’all made a significant investment to come - you should get to enjoy your time in town.

I think it's one thing if someone volunteers or if it's a small favor but setting up their wedding for them is crazy. For our wedding, my SIL who was a bridesmaid asked her husband to run to Dunkin Donuts to grab our order for breakfast. I felt bad because I didn't want to make him work on our wedding day, but she insisted that he wouldn't mind plus he was pretty much the only person free that early in the morning. My husband"s friend who wasn't a groomsman also ran an errand for him the morning of the wedding, but he offered.

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I agree with this. I grew up going to lots of weddings that were set up and torn down by family and friends of the bride and groom. My problem with this is that the couple never even asked these friends for their help! They just sprung it on them once they had spent a ton of money to be there, and made it a demand, not a request. RUDE!

I'm getting married in 8 days. I'm having a micro wedding in Las Vegas. My FMIL is in charge of getting the centerpieces set up at the reception. She volunteered for this post. Even though it's common in my world, I never wanted to ask any of my family for help. Especially not my future in-laws! But they are such awesome and genuinely nice people, they have supported and helped me through this whole planning process. I love them so much. So, yes, what this couple did was incredibly rude, but I don't think help from family/friends in general is a bad thing. It's the expectation without communication that makes it bad.

Sorry, but I gotta know: is the the evening gowns with port-a-potties wedding?

View Quoted Comment Lol the very same

If they ask again, "Sorry, we have plans."

View Quoted Comment I feel HORRIBLE for saying this....but please give us an update on how that goes!

I understand where you are coming from and would have been upset, too, being in your situation. With all the money you are spending to get there plus voluntelling you instead of asking before, it sounds very rude. Adding the black-tie thing ... it just seemed they wanted a wedding they couldn't afford and they are not thinking about guest experience.


Anyway, I am a bit tired to read all these blanket statements here on weddingwire like NEVER ask friends for help for setup, never use 'friendors' etc. Situations are different, circumstances are different, budgets are different.
I did pretty much every thing that is frowned upon on weddindwire and still had an amazing wedding, tons of help, and guests loved it. We had friendors, self-catered, didn't hire a DJ and asked friends to help with set up and take down.

But our friends loved to do that for us and were so happy for us that we could have a wedding at all. And that's because they know us and love us and know our story. We didn't have random guests who didn't know. I don't want to share a lot of personal details of our story here but we're both missionaries and that's why we have not much money. We met later in life, that's one reason why we didn't have a long engagement and we were not living together before marriage. We're both not from America but got married here. My friends and family couldn't come because of covid travel restrictions. My husband is from a country that is much poorer and has a civil war going on - no one could come from his side and that'salso why he had no savings andhis family was not able to help. But we still wanted more than a courthouse wedding and lots of people wanted to witness our wedding and celebrate with us. We went for simple and affordable but after starting to look at venue prices we knew we needed help..The church we attend and partner with allowed us graciously to have our wedding at their church and we had the reception outside in their backyard. Everything was simple but very beautiful.
We had friends make the cake, be emcee, man the audiosystem (spotify list), serve the food, help make the food, make an arch, make the bouquet, set up tables and decorations, play violin, take down everything, do hair and make-up. The church's staff helped with the live stream, cleaning, audiosystem.

This was not the wedding of my dreams - if I had had the money I always said I want an all-inclusive venue and DOC. I also would have wanted an evening wedding but we couldn't do that. But it was still very beautiful and amazing. I recognize it's different from most weddingwire-brides but in the end this was perfect for us and what we could afford (we still somehow spent lots of money on our outfits, stationary, food, decorations, photographer, rings, all the little details ... but not more than we could afford).

Back to the topic. We did not ask out-of-town-guests to help. We asked well ahead and very nicely and thanked them. The people who did most and were just amazing amazing amazing got a gift from us to thank them though we'll never able to thank them enough but they just really wanted to do that for us and went above and beyond. It was also a casual wedding with no official dress code. We fed them very well and hope entertained well, too.

We did not take that help for granted and if anything our wedding makes me incredible grateful and proud of the community I am a part of. They were amazing and without them we could not have had our wedding. I don't know what we would have done without the help of our guests. I guess smaller guest count (we had 90 guests and they all really wanted to be there to witness our day), a 100-Dollar-Dress instead of 700 Dollar and cake and punch instead of full meal. But I am glad we were able to have what we had and do what was important to us and our friends made that possible.

I could have added this to numerous other discussions here on weddingwire. And I understand where everyone is coming from and I agree it sounds like some couples are pretty rude. But in my opinion it really depends on your story, circumstances, wedding and crowd and I think it is okay to ask for help (ask not demand or expect it). And I am sure at our wedding the people who did help loved to help and still had a great day.

I guess a lot of weddings I have been to have been inappropriate that way lol. I was MOH, did the three tier cake, 60+ cupcakes, set it all up, bride’s aunt did our hair, my FH helped set up decorations, my mom brought all the bridal party food, bride’s family did the burgers and cooked for 70+ people. It was kind of tiring but we are close, I love her and knew there was a tight budget. I wanted to support in any way I could. One wedding FH and I helped direct traffic for a small wedding.. I never felt like I was being taken advantage of or never offended by it. I hope my family won’t be offended by helping or overseeing some things for the wedding. Kinda worried about that now lol don’t want anyone to feel like a pack mule or like hired help.