A wedding breakfast is a significant part of a wedding day, serving as the main eating event after the ceremony. It is a three-course meal, consisting of a classic starter, main, dessert, followed by tea or coffee. In the UK, most weddings include a wedding breakfast as part of their packages, and reception venues often include it as part of their packages.
In English wedding breakfasts, entertainment is provided by opera singers performing arias during the meal and serenades for the groom’s mother. The tradition of serving a wedding breakfast originated in England, where couples enjoyed a light breakfast before going on their honeymoon. Over time, wedding breakfasts evolved into elaborate affairs featuring a seated luncheon called a wedding breakfast.
The first recorded mention of a wedding breakfast in print is in the London Times on January 15, 1838, when John Harley and his bride returned to a coffee house. The breakfast consisted of bread, hot rolls, buttered toast, tongue or ham and eggs, chocolate drinking chocolate, and wedding cake.
When organizing a wedding breakfast, it is important to consider guests’ dietary requirements, so it is recommended to include vegetarian and vegan food in the menu. A wedding breakfast is largely a British wedding tradition, serving as the main eating event after the ceremony. In British culture, a wedding breakfast is a customary term used to describe the meal enjoyed by the couple and their guests after the ceremony.
📹 NO ONE tells you these 5 things about the UK! // Wedding breakfast?! // American Expat in the UK
These 5 things are things that seriously, no one tells you before you move to the UK! From using the post office to bagging your …
What will the wedding breakfast be?
What’s included at a wedding breakfast? You can customize your wedding breakfast, but it will follow a traditional pattern. There will be a starter, main, and dessert, plus drinks. Speeches are often given during this meal, which is why champagne is usually served. Discuss special requests with the wedding venue to ensure the wedding breakfast goes as planned. You can make it completely bespoke or let the venue plan it.
Do people have music during wedding breakfast?
The music at your afternoon reception and wedding breakfast is background music. It’s there, but at a volume that lets you and your guests relax, talk, and enjoy the atmosphere. It’s not ignored!
What did the queen eat at her wedding breakfast?
The country was still rationing in 1947, but the wedding menu was still fancy. The meal started with fish and then salad, green beans, and potatoes.
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What is tradition British breakfast?
A full English breakfast includes bacon, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, bread, and sausages. Black pudding, baked beans, and bubble and squeak are also often included.
What do guests do after wedding breakfast?
After the wedding breakfast, guests can go to the bars. The staff will clear the tables for the evening entertainment. The DJ or band will be setting up. You’ll need to decide when your evening entertainment starts. It should start at 8 pm. This should be at least three to four hours after the wedding breakfast. Sometimes the wedding breakfast goes on longer than expected. Your guests will be full from the wedding breakfast. The minimum time between breakfast and the buffet should be two and a half hours. The evening will finish late anyway. If your wedding breakfast ends at 6 pm, the buffet should start at 9 pm. This is less of a problem if you have two sets of guests, with a larger, hungry group arriving in the evening. Your evening guests should arrive between 7 and 8 pm. The evening buffet can go out between 8 pm and 9:30 pm, depending on when the wedding breakfast ends. Coaches.
Is a wedding breakfast the same as a reception?
What’s the difference between the wedding breakfast and the reception? The reception is the party after the ceremony. The wedding breakfast is the main meal of the wedding day. In addition to the wedding breakfast, consider foodie treats like:
Canapés – served during the drinks reception to stop guests getting hungry before the wedding breakfast. Evening food – to keep guests energized as they dance the night away, and/or as a way to welcome evening-only guests. This can be anything from a buffet to food trucks. A grazing table is a table filled with charcuterie, breads, dips, and cheeses. It’s a modern alternative to the buffet. You can use it instead of canapés at the drinks reception or as a buffet at the evening reception. Doughnut walls are walls of doughnuts. You can ask your caterer to make them or you can make them yourself.The wedding cake is a must-have for anyone with a sweet tooth. Food wedding favors can be anything from homemade jam to infused olive oil. A wedding sweet table is easy and inexpensive to DIY.
Why do they call it wedding breakfast?
Why is it called a wedding breakfast? The term “wedding breakfast” comes from the old English tradition of breaking the fast. They were traditionally held in the morning in the early 1800s when people would have the ceremony very early on and wouldn’t eat beforehand. In those days, it was your breakfast! We don’t know why this term is still used today when the meaning has been forgotten. So don’t expect bacon and eggs at a wedding! What should I wear to a wedding breakfast? The wedding breakfast follows the ceremony and reception. The ladies wear their best dresses, and the men wear suits. Sometimes the bride wears a different dress for the ceremony and wedding breakfast. Most brides wear the same dress for the whole wedding day. Most wedding breakfasts can happen at any time during the day. A wedding breakfast is the first meal after the wedding ceremony for the newly married couple. The wedding party would celebrate the bride and groom’s first meal together and share stories about the couple.
Who comes to the wedding breakfast?
Make a day and evening list. The number of guests affects expenses, especially catering and bar. The wedding breakfast is for close family and friends, while the evening do is for wider family, friends, and colleagues. The wedding breakfast is for fewer people than the evening meal or buffet. However, the Special Castle Weekend Package encourages you to have the same number for the day as for the evening. The Castle Wedding Venue offer costs £17 per head for the evening buffet. How many can you afford?
Can you skip a wedding breakfast?
You and your partner get to decide if you want a wedding breakfast. For us, it wasn’t important, but it’s a tradition for some couples.
What is the most popular breakfast in the UK?
The UK’s most famous breakfast is the fry-up. It includes eggs, bacon, sausages, and black pudding, with many regional variations. But there’s more. From Turkish eggs to French toast, there’s never been a bigger choice for breakfast. Here are the best ways to start your day. 1. Fjarå, Lerwick. Shetland star Alison ODonnell says she left a bit of her heart in this cafe overlooking Bressay Sound. Breakfast is easy to see why. The islands’ distance from mainland Scotland is reflected in the food. Instead of the usual Lorne sausage, the local fry features sassermaet, a juicy beef patty. It’s one of the few British products in Slow Food’s Ark of Taste collection of culturally important foodstuffs. Small breakfast, £8.75.
2. Harbour House, Flushing, Falmouth. Hogs pudding is a white pudding with bold spices. It’s a West Country specialty that’s rarely seen these days. Order it if you do find it on the menu. You won’t find it done better than at Jeffrey Robinson’s new restaurant, a short ferry ride from Falmouth. It’s served with Cornish new potatoes, homemade sourdough toast, and the usual sausage, eggs, and bacon. Full Cornish, £12.
How long is a wedding breakfast?
Wedding Breakfast – 2 hours. Check with your caterers, but a traditional 3-course meal takes about 2 hours. Barbecues and afternoon teas take less time. Speeches: 30-60 minutes. Speeches vary by wedding. Some speeches are short, while others last hours! Think about how much time you have after your meal for speeches. Tell speakers when they have to be done. Ask them to practice so the speeches don’t delay the evening. Room turnaround: 30-60 minutes. This depends on your venue and plans. If your wedding breakfast is in the same room as your evening plans, the venue staff will need to change the room. Do this after the speeches. The tables will need to be cleared and moved. Your DJ will also need to set up. If you have a live band for your evening reception, they may need up to an hour to set up.
What time should wedding breakfast be UK?
Wedding Breakfast – 2 hours. Check with your caterers, but a traditional 3-course meal takes about 2 hours. Barbecues and afternoon teas take less time. Speeches: 30-60 minutes. Speeches vary by wedding. Some speeches are short, while others last hours! Think about how much time you have after your meal for speeches. Tell speakers when they have to be done. Ask them to practice so the speeches don’t delay the evening. Room turnaround: 30-60 minutes. This depends on your venue and plans. If your wedding breakfast is in the same room as your evening plans, the venue staff will need to change the room. Do this after the speeches. The tables will need to be cleared and moved. Your DJ will also need to set up. If you have a live band for your evening reception, they may need up to an hour to set up.
📹 3 Royal Wedding Menus
Pin on your most fascinating fascination and don your most debonair mourning jacket, hop in your carriage to Buckingham Palace …
When I was in America and someone else was packing my bags in walmart or wherever it was I felt soooooooooooooooo awkward, I was like do I pay them or do I just say thank you and walk away? It made me feel bad just standing there perusal them putting all my food in bags. Also I noticed people who work in universal studios tend to smile but also look sad at the same time.
The whole tax thing in America has always puzzled me, it always sounded like a complicated way of going about it. Now I am hearing that the IRS usually knows how much tax you owe them (other than self employed etc.) and could just send you a bill, but they keep the old system because it keeps accountants and auditors in work.
Can’t stand having my bags packed for me. I want to know what I put in each bag. Frozen stuff together in a bag. Chilled raw together in their own bag. Chilled cooked or dairy together in another bag. Fruit in a bag. Veg in a bag. Cleaning stuff on their own. Crisps on their own. Personal care on their own. Crisps on their own. Simples.
Bagging in the US… the first time I ever went to a supermarket and picked up the bagged stuff, as I started to walk out with the groceries, the girl bagging my stuff said, “Come back now!” I immediately thought, “What’s the problem?” and turned back only to see she was not taking any notice of me. Then I realised it was an invitation to return to that shop some time in the future. Bagging in Germany… the cashier takes absolutely no notice of you whatsoever, says nothing, and literally throw the goods over his/her shoulder for you to bag. Payment is also conducted in complete silence by the cashier.
An important tip for folks from the US who are relocating to London concerns the underground trains (The “Tube”). I’s very handy way of getting around, but please be aware that if you wish to avoid offending your fellow passengers, it is customary to shake hands and introduce yourself to those nearest you before taking your own seat on the train.
There are actually three classes of postage stamp in the UK. Red stamps are first class, blue are second and then there are brown stamps for ‘standard’ class postage. Brown stamps are not used on letters though as they don’t cover the minimum cost of postage. They are most commonly used as additional stamps on things like parcels to increase the price of the postage to cover the cost of the extra weight.
Interesting as ever. With regards to the maniac cashiers, if I use a trolley (cart) I leave it at the end and when the shrapnel of my shopping is lobbed at me, I just drop it straight back in the trolley and bag it when paid for away from the till. This saves on the dagger looks from the Karens waiting to kill you if you take too long.
I enjoyed your comment about first and second class post. Yes, we even manage to bring class into the mail system, and I can understand why you were confused. Second class post is not much slower than first class in my opinion, but does one want to send a card or letter to a friend or relative by ‘second class’? They might be offended. Going off on a tangent, there are still ‘first class’ seats on mainline railways (waste of money generally, I think). Before 1965, there used to be ‘third class’ as well, but no ‘second class’. This was because Victorian statute law required railway companies to run minimum third class services at a limited fare, and then companies competed by improving third class services and so a distinct second class fell out of use. Legend has it that, during the war, German spies inserted into the UK sometimes gave themselves away by trying to buy a second class railway ticket.
I don’t know if many people do this, but I have not used a plastic bag for my groceries for many years. I have a banana box (big cardboard box the bananas are kept in at the supermarket) with another large cardboard rectangular shape cut to fit inside the base of the banana box so it’s very sturdy with no holes at the bottom and I keep at least one in the car at all times with me to use for groceries. Also another tip for bagging your groceries is that the things you want to go at the bottom of the box, e.g canned foods or heavy large items, you always put those at the front on the conveyor belt so those will get scanned first and go in the bag/box first and things that are delicate like crisps or eggs that you don’t want to get crushed go at the very end of the conveyor belt so they end up on the top of your groceries. Just about one minutes worth of planning at the beginning saves you 5 minutes of messing about at the end and with no plastic bags, which will probably end up in a landfill site or worse, around some poor dolphins head.
Wedding breakfast and the official venue are not the only differences in US vs UK weddings. In the UK, if the wedding is formal, it will be deemed a “morning affair”, (even if it is held in the afternoon). Therefore the groom and his party will wear morning dress, consisting of grey pinstriped trousers, a tail coat, a grey tie or cravat, a waistcoat and, possibly, a grey top hat. In the USA it appears to be more of an evening event with the men wearing black tie and dinner jackets.
I’m a 63-year-old from southern England, and I was definitely familiar with the term “wedding breakfast” but I think it’s quite an old-fashioned phrase. I don’t recalling hearing anyone actually use it in conversation since I was a kid. I remember it occurs in the lyrics of the children’s song “Froggy Went A-Courtin” which we had on a Wally Whyton LP.
I hope you have got loading the checkout conveyor belt sorted, it helps enormously with packing your bags. frozen produce all together so you can fill your thermal bag easily. heavy items first for the bottom of the bags and eggs last. Or you could just put your stuff in the trolley and bag up at your car.
Great article! Has made me miss a few things from uk, especially as it’s US tax season 😫 As a Brit in the US I had the exact opposite revelation at the supermarket. I turned up with my reusable bag and insisted that I was capable of packing it myself, I realised later that I must have come across pretty rude, the poor bloke was just trying to do his job!
It’s far easier to just put everything straight back in your trolley as it’s scanned. Take it to the bagging area, you can then separate and pack your items as needed without holding up the queue. We sometimes have charity groups in a store fundraising, they will ask and help you pack for a small donation. Uk post is more complicated than just first or second class now. Each class also has size or weight limits to determine cost. You may have seen a test board with slots to check which envelope or package size you need pay for. Then you also have Recorded Delivery, Tracked Delivery, Insured Amount post etc, for sending small but valuable items.
Weddings, a Church of England, Church of Scotland, Church of Wales and Church of Ireland (in Northern Ireland) are registered for weddings and the clergy who conducts the wedding are licensed. However other denominations may have official arrangements or may need an Registrar to do the legal bit. Hotels and wedding venues will need a Registrar there to officiate.
As a brit, who has been to multiple weddings, I had no idea what a wedding breakfast was until it came to looking in to start planning my own wedding and was getting really confused as to why on earth we would have a breakfast at a wedding. However, thinking about it, I would not complain about an actual breakfast, wedding and a fry up sounds pretty decent.
First and Second class stamps are a bit like getting a taxi or a bus. Getting a taxi is faster and costs more. It takes you to exactly where you want to go, directly. But sometimes you may have to wait for a taxi if they are all busy. Getting a bus is dependent on when it will come. You may get on one straight away, or you may have to wait half an hour. You may need to change bus routes halfway through to get to where you want to go, and you may need to walk a couple of blocks when you get off to get to your destination.
I always put my things in order I want them to be scanned and bagged – and watch how the cashier goes through an extra mail to grab something from the furthest point she can reach, thus ruining the whole thing. Self-scanning is even worse if you do a big shop because you cannot take anything off the end and put it into the bag until you have finished shopping. That’s because there are sensors that alert the supervisor and lock the system until you have proved you didn’t steal anything. There’s also the pressure of other shoppers judging me if I am too slow, so in the end, I’ll just throw everything in any which way. I do try to put heavy things into my rucksack and frozen things into their own bag, but organising them while the queue is growing and everyone is perusal you…
If you want to literally have a letter fly, an airmail etiquette, often shortened to just etiquette, a label used to indicate that a letter is to be sent by airmail maybe required. The term is from French étiquette “label, sticker” (cognate to stick), from which also comes the English word etiquette “rules of behaviour”.
We don’t say groceries in England we say going to the supermarket to do the shopping. Grocery is a department in a supermarket. You pack your own shopping in Britain only the elderly and disabled receive assistance with bagging their shopping. National Insurance etc is taken out of your wages it will show on your wage slip. You get a p60 at the end of each financial year.
ah that first point, lol. I’m just imagining someone fresh from the US taking on someone at Aldi that’s on their A-game. I don’t personally have an issue and I actually am not fond on someone bagging for me. I plan how I bag, especially on a bigger shop and I unload onto the belt in the order of stuff I want to pack. It makes me laugh when someone is going for gold on the checkout and I’m bagging as fast as they can scan.
Just to clarify regarding taxes. It’s not so much that the government themselves takes money out of your paycheck, it’s more that if you’re an employee then your employer does your taxes for you and pays them on your behalf. (If you have additional income outside of your main job you have to fill in a form telling the government how much you’ve earned that’s already been taxed and how much extra you’ve earned so they can calculate how much extra tax you need to pay). If you’re the employer then you do the taxes for your all employees (even if the only employee is yourself).
It’s your employer that is responsible for PAYE, Pay As You Earn taxes and National Insurance. They calculate the ongoing deductions and are given your tax code and national insurance number when you start employment to do this… The only time you do your own taxes is self employed or if you are claiming additional deductions which can modify your tax code and be deal with by your employer the following year.
When shopping` we just grab a few bags and then dump everything in the trolly to pack them later. The most annoying thing is when you can not get a bag to seperate or open. You can also buy AIR MAIL stamps and you can ask for Registered Mail .. if you want someone to sign for the mail at the other end od it`s journey.
Like other people commenting, I have never heard the term Wedding Breakfast before, let alone been to one. I would guess I have been to 30 or 40 weddings all over the Uk and Ireland in my 50 years of life, and i genuinely have never heard that term. ( also just sent a whatsapp message to all the groups i am in, and not one single person has heard of that term…)….EDIT : Other than that great vid and very interesting, thanks.
In the Victorian era (where most modern wedding customs come from), weddings could only be held in the mornings, by law. The celebration afterwards would therefore be held in the late morning, or early afternoon at latest. The name “wedding breakfast” comes from the idea that the couple would be too nervous to eat anything before the ceremony, so it was their first meal of the day.
the wedding breakfast is carried over from the tradition that normally a wedding would take place after mass in a church, and it is also traditional to not eat before mass. so the meal after the mass is breaking the fast ie breakfast. And that applies to our normal daily breakfast as well. you fast after you last meal the day before so the first meal the next day is breaking that fast. Born and bred in the UK and still find it strange they call it a wedding breakfast myself.
Supermarkets now use scan & go. I use the Asda app on my phone to scan everything and bag it as I go. Then just pay and walk out. It takes the packing rush away and you can better decide what items go in what bag ie all frozen items in the same bag. You can also use the app to search for items so you know the aisle number. I do wonder why people buy expensive phones and just use them for Twitter as I see other shoppers waiting in a checkout queue and looking at their phone out of boredom…
In France, we have also two types of stamp, for usual letters (not special ones) : the green, slower and more ecologic transports, in two working days. The red, faster, in 1 working days. But there’s others stamps for foreign countries, that may be you didn’t noticed in the US (who write abroad, isn’t it ? 🙂 )… LOL
Lived in the UK all my life and I still get that game show adrenaline kick in at the checkout not panic exactly but my heart rate definitely goes up. I even place my shopping on the checkout in a particular order so hopefully the frozen goods come together and the soft things come last etc. But if its a super fast lady/gentleman I still end up in a tizz with everything coming at me at once.
I’ve worked for the Royal Mail, 1st class and 2nd class are priorities, in heavy mail periods 1st class are always dealt with first for next day delivery then 2nd class is delivered a few days later, in light mail periods all 1st class are delivered next day and any capacity that 1st class hasn’t used up is filled with some 2nd class and delivered next day as well, the remaining 2nd class post is then delivered like normal 2nd class post a few days later.
The only place I have heard the term ‘wedding breakfast’ is from Jane Austen period like stories.. Iceland (if you dare) will pack your bags if you get delivery from shop.. (Aldi is superfast..)but i like the control of what goes where and for balance etc as Im not a driver so got to carry everything home..Yes the self assessment is quite easy tho i still worry if i have done it correctly.. Tho If you go to a hotel wedding and stay breakfast next day with the bride and groom is a nice wedding breakfast..
If you pay higher rate income tax, then you might need to fill in a tax return (online these days). I used to do a small amount of self-employment work in addition to my regular job, and I had to fill in a tax return as a result. For a while I was only filling in the few relevant parts of a substantial booklet, but then they introduced a simplified short version of the form for people with few complications in their income, which was a lot easier. Concerning wedding venues, before 1994, you could only get married in a church or at the local Register Office. There were no licensed wedding venues. As atheists getting married before then, for us it was the Register Office or nothing.
Before cars, travelling anywhere took hours and hours, often days. The bride would be leaving her family home and moving to her husband’s home. This could be miles and miles away. Travelling in the dark was very difficult and dangerous and so the wedding would typically be held early in the day to maximise travelling time. Therefore if the family was rich enough to hold a post ceremony celebration it would be a breakfast so that the couple could get going with plenty on daylight to travel in. That’s all it was about. There’s no big hidden meaning.
I must say I dislike someone grabbing my food to put it in bags. Sometimes it’s tried out for kids / charity but I don’t want a tin of beans on top of a load of bread unless it’s beans on toast (obviously). I pack similar things together so that I can get frozen foods put away PDQ. All bread-like products together so I know not to put any bags on top. I’m not a weirdo, just eccentric.
A bit of a correction regarding who has to fill in UK tax returns. It’s not just Self Employed people. ANYBODY who has a source of income that isn’t taxed properly at source needs to complete a tax return. Whilst that includes those who are self employed, it also includes – landlords with rental income, people with substantial dividend income, people who have made voluntary pension contributions and need to claim additional tax relief, people who have claimed too much Child Benefit and need to pay some or all of it back people with overseas income people with complicated tax affairs – such as many people ho have multiple pensions people who live overseas but who have income from UK sources
To me it doesn`t make a lot of sense to have someone else `bag your groceries` whilst shopping – unless they are doing it voluntarily or you are not on a limited budget. Ps, on a seperate note I hate grocery shopping here ( in England ) especially at Tesco. Tesco will have one person serving at the till with a queue of a dozen customers whilst 3 other Tesco employees will be stacking / re-filling the shelves.
Travelling the USA was mind boggling. I worked in Maine and then did a coast to coast and back by Greyhound. Item. You can spend days on buses. (You get a bit ripe!) 🙁 Item. Tax is added to the price because of state + federal tax. Aaaargh!! Item. You can lose or gain an hour when you cross a state line. ‘What? We’re an hour late already?’ Item. Some places (Like OKC) go into shock at having a British visitor. And yes, having shopping bagged is awkward, but worst of all is that… You have to tip how much!?? And add some more? But I loved it. Nice to have you living here. Stay well.
The thing about being chased by the US Government to pay taxes seems crazy. Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, was born in New York because his parents temporarily moved there. He left the US when aged 4 but I believe he still gets chased for taxes even though he was never old enough living in the US to pay taxes! (On the plus side, he could always return to the US and if he lived there long enough he’d qualify to run for President. Now there’s a scary thought).
You put the groceries back into the trolley and then bag them away from the checkout. Not just Lidl and Aldi but other supermarkets as well. As for taxes, I’ve never filed my taxes in forty years and three different countries. Didn’t know any country made you, unless self employed. Always called a wedding breakfast, and I didn’t grow upon the UK. And I didn’t know you could get married at the same venue as the reception.
In the old days of the CAtholic church you could only go to holy communion if you had fasted since midnight.and therefore you had mass early in the morning and so was your wedding and then you and your guests had a wedding BREAKFAST. Whatever else you discovered this is the reason for the term Breakfast. The latest a wedding could be in the catholic church was 11 am because of this reason the fasting from midnight.
Not sure if this is still a thing, but for a while, I was encountering US tourists in Belfast who found paying by card a little unnerving as Europe has almost totally switched to chip and pin and tap and go. The tourists were used to being asked to sign when making a payment back in the States and were worried when not being asked to sign for payments in shops.
Hi Kalyn, I’m also from Florida; Tampa Bay. I grew up in both St. Pete and Tampa. I’m currently residing in Southern Illinois. I’m also considering the idea of becoming an ex-pat. I am 1/2 Russian, I want to see and experience St. Petersburg, Russia. I’m curious about what you have to do and your process regarding filing American Taxes. I would love for you to do a article about it. I agree that the American tax system is totally absurd! Michael
2 other things: stamps.- first class means it gets through by the next working day, but since most postboxes have a final collection at 9am that means 2 days’ time in practice; secondly, weddings: British people never ever say ‘I do’ at an English wedding. They always say, without exception, ‘I will’.
When I first came to the UK there were no self serving cashiers. A few times the cashier offered to bag it but not often. I do self service only now. Used to select a human to do it to preserve jobs but it is so annoying when the cashiers go slowly for the person in front of you then basically throw your things at you while you bag them. The tax thing is one of the best things about the UK that no-one mentions. In Australia the yearly tax return is painful. It has become easier in the last couple of years but axing it would rob so many people of their “tax deduction” entitlements and ‘tax return’.
When I was in Florida I went into a clothing warehouse and saw a sign which said queue here for service so, naturally, I stood at the sign waiting for my turn. When the cashier finished serving the person she was with I was about to move forward and someone dived in from the side to be served. The cashier pointed out that I was next and I duly came forward. All I said to her was that I was sorry, I read the sign and sort of assumed that I was supposed to queue there as it said. Apparently this was the funniest thing she’d ever heard in her life. I think she laughed for a full thirty seconds. It does make me wonder how bad the stand up comedians must be in Florida. I also genuinely had a guy I was chatting with at JFK with the most stunning wife tell me that his wife loved my accent. I told him not to worry because in seven hours I wouldn’t have an accent, he would, because we’d be at Heathrow. It made me think I should have gone to the US years ago in my teens when British women wouldn’t give me the time of day.
You should see supermarket checkouts in Germany then. Firstly, they wouldn’t even think of asking if you would like help packing your groceries. Secondly, the cashier races every item through the till at the speed of a bullet. You soon learn to pack groceries very efficiently though, but feel put under pressure to rush the process. Also, good, friendly customer-service is a rarity in Germany. Different culture.
You can get married almost anywhere in England, but the difficulty is that you need to have a Registrar of Marriages present at the ceremony, which is a legal requirement. Almost all church clergy are trained and qualified as Registrars and nowadays popular wedding venues have a senior member of staff qualified. If you want to be married elsewhere is involves persuading a registrar to go to that place and paying a considerable amount of money for them to be there. Many people have a ceremony and then attend a registrar’s office for the legal part. Any ceremony MUST include 4 questions/statements … 1. Does any person know any reason why this wedding cannot take place? 2. and 3. (separately to each person
if there are self checkouts free I use them, so I self pack anyway, I’m not bothered about interaction with staff, particularly if they are wearing a face covering, do American shops have self checkouts? The German discounters Aldi/Lidl have less choice but good prices, they want you away and onto the next customer, keeps the queue down.
If you think checkouts in the UK are fast… go to Germany. In the US, companies that calculate taxes for citizens successfully lobbied to not make the process simpler. Wedding breakfast… almost. In the olden days, weddings were consummated straight after the service (often with the bride and groom being carried to the nuptial bed a’la GOT Red Wedding). Thus, when they left the bed… breakfast. Stamps… What are these ‘let-ters’ you speak of?
You can choose to have a wedding in a venue without a license but you need to go to the registry office and do the legal paperwork. It’s the privilege of the legal book that comes from the license. So bride and groom do paperwork for ten mins in an office with two witnesses I think and you’re legally married no service required lol. But then have the white dress and everything after, maybe even before lol.
I was in a store once where they had some staff hanging around with nothing to do so they got them to do bagging, which was unusual. They put the bread at the bottom of the bag so it was all flattened and squashed when I got home. The eggs were on their side and fell out of the box into the bag and broke, with runny egg going all over the other goods.
Your partially right about that Wedding Breakfast thing but you missed the important point. In ages of old the banquet after the alter ceremony was not the most important meal that was the Wedding Breakfast. The reason for this is “sex” yes that word or act or both. So a marriage is not a marriage until it is consummated, before that its simply a contract and affirmation of that in front of a priest. The marriage had to be consummated. After the banquet the couple would be ushered to the bedchamber where they would consummate the marriage; in the case of the King the act would be observed by selected witnesses which is the origin for witnesses to sign the register today. After the act of consummation those witnesses would sign documents to attest that the marriage was consummated. In the case of common people the witnesses were treated to the showing of the sheet which was literally the bed sheet with the blood being presented to them as proof the act had taken place. The couple would then rest after which a Wedding Breakfast would be prepared to welcome the couple into the state of Matrimony. This was the most important meal as it was post marriage whilst the banquet was during the wedding nuptials and the couple were not completely married in the eyes of God.
Just to let you know, there is a man sawing from (M25) Epping due East to the sea. There is another sawing from (M25) Chertsey due South to the sea. They will connect by following the M25, West & North respectively. Once finished we can release the South East into the English website and watch it float away. The rest of the country can then get back to producing things and selling them to survive and from my point of view, we will be in a much better place. You live in the ‘UK Lite’, not the UK proper. Have a nice day. 😉
I never knew that it was called a Wedding Breakfast 🙈 do you have to put a coin in the Trolley as well in the US? I know most supermarkets have phased this out now here but in Lidl and Aldi you still have to put £1 into the Trolley to access it… Been caught out by that many a time and had to either go and get some money out from the bank and get them to change Notes into Coins or just go somewhere else 😂 shopping in the US definitely sounds far less stressful and something that should be implemented here 😊
Some UK supermarkets will ask you if your are OK packing your groceries and will do it for you if your ask. Nobody ever does unless they really need help because they know it holds up the q and and yourself. Some will even take it to the car for you if you ask, nobody ever does, it would be embarrassing unless you were incapable, their time is not free, extra manpower adds to prices. Venues can apply to be able to marry people for a specific wedding. Never heard of a wedding breakfast, what kind of strange people do you know?
Before this pandemic and I actually went to the supermarket, I liked the ones where one places the trolley against the cashier’s cubicle and they put the groceries back into the trolley, giving one time to dig the card out of the wallet. Probably never visit a supermarket again, too used to deliveries now. It seems very cruel that the US requires its citizens to pay US tax when living and working abroad, taxed twice on one’s earnings. Does one get arrested on returning and not having filed for a few years, how is non payment enforced if one does not go back? The PAYE system for employees has been introduced in many countries since pioneered in the UK.
We have first class and second class mail in the U.S. and we have had it my entire life (I’m 64 years old). You must have led a very sheltered life here. I have my taxes taken out of my paychecks in the US as well, but the government does NOT automatically deduct investment income, income from sales of assets, income from other secondary sources.Since we do not pay a ‘flat tax’ (in other words, the more money you make, the greater percentage of tax you owe), even income from a second job may not be taxed correctly. Example: you make $20,000 per year each of two jobs you working. The tax rate at $20,000 is 15% of your income or $3000. You have paid $6000 in taxes as you work 2 jobs. However, the tax rate at $40,000 a year (which is your actual income) is 20%. which is $8000. Uncle Sam wants that $2000, so you have to file.
I was born in Britain. I got married in Britain over a decade ago. I’m getting divorced in Britain as we speak, and am engaged to another British lady. It was only 6 months ago that I heard the term “Wedding breakfast” and I was left wondering “Who on earth is getting up at that time of the day just for breakfast before their wedding?!”
The government do not take out tax from your paycheck, you employer does. If you are self employed and vat registered, you become a unpaid tax collector for the government, in fact if you employ an accountant, you have to pay for the privilege of collecting VAT on behalf of the government. So in a way the US system has its merits.
UK here, WTF is a wedding breakfast!?? I expect some sort of food and then unlimited access to alcohol, free for a short while, maybe. Then I’m getting smashed on my own cash. F**k it. I’m wearing a suit I barely fit into, I want to dad dance with family I haven’t seen in years and those I know well and drink until the bar closes. Standard stuff!
May I ask a question? In USA say you worked for an international company, teaching Russians English or anything online and they paid you onto ‘pay pal’ and then onto a cash card…..not into a bank……would you tell the IRS?? would the Russians tell the IRS (doubtful)?? would pay pal tell the IRS??? Just asking for a friend!!!
Enjoy your articles. During lockdown I have come across a number of articles from Americans in UK – Wandering Ravens, NotQuiteBritish18, Travelling Family of Five etc- they vary tremendously but yours are very good. Only you and NotQuiteBritish18 have gone beyond snack food, tourist attractions etc to discuss something serious like Health Care and the NHS. It would be interesting to know if you feel safer in US or UK. This might be too political as it gets into guns. Personally I am always nervous in the US – when I visited Miami for work my hosts told me to come inside if my taxi did not come by 6 pm and not to have an airline tags on my bags as thy said it can be “a bummy area”. I have lived in UK and Australia – I actually felt safer in UK. Though Australia has strict gun laws and I do not know a community member who owns a gun, the cops all carry guns unlike the UK. Unfortunately we have had a number of police shootings that would not have happened in the UK involving mentally disturbed people – in one case the cop said they were reaching for their Taser but took their gun by mistake and shot dead the person rather than Tasering them. In another the cops shot dead a small female teenager outside a fast food restaurant within seconds of arriving as she had a kitchen knife. I think in the UK both victims would still be alive. Understand if this is too much controversy. Thanks again.
the fact that there was no-one there to bag your purchases wasn’t a clue? The fact that everyone in all the queues (including your own) was bagging their own stuff wasn’t a clue?? You could have gone to a self-check-out till or even (if you go to Sainsbury’s) self-scan your goods as you put them in your bags then just pay at the right till and walk out the door without ever needing to have any help/assistance from anyone…though I suspect the last might well be beyond you.
I wonder if it’s a regional or a class thing…? I’m a Brit in my fifties. I’ve been to many, many weddings throughout my life, and never once heard the meal at the reception referred to as the “wedding breakfast””. My first thought on hearing you talk about it was that it sounds like something that only very pretentious people would do, and most of the people whose weddings I’ve attended haven’t been pretentious.
why do you need to bag your cart of groceries just after the cashier scanned them? that’s very inefficient and wasting other people’s time if there is a long queue. bring your full shopping cart near your car boot and bag them there. I hate people bagging their groceries specially when they have large cart full of groceries. I can understand if you don’t bring shopping cart and you only have few groceries to bag which in that case you might as well use the self service chech out.
I didn’t know you had to pay for bags. I was super sick while I was there on vacation, and went to Superdrug for some meds. She rung me up and was like byeeee… I said, can I have a bag? She got all pissy and was like you didnt ask for one. Now I have to charge you 10 pence… Of course I had no cash on me, so she legit charged my credit card 10 pence. LOL
It’s worth checking you’ve been put on the right employment tax code. It’s not that unusual for employers/the government to put you on a temporary or incorrect tax code, especially if you’ve changed jobs, been unemployed, changed your hours, etc. And the vast majority of times that it’s wrong you’ll find you’ve been paying too much. If so you can put in a claim for a tax rebate. litrg.org.uk/tax-guides/employment/how-do-i-check-my-coding-notice gov.uk/tax-codes gov.uk/tax-codes/updating-tax-code Wedding breakfast. Don’t worry loads of British people are equally confused by the term. It’s a bit old fashioned and mostly used by posh/pretentious people. Everyone else just calls it the reception these days.
In some supermarkets, if the cashier is not busy they will ask if you would like help bagging your shopping, but not Aldi as they are on a timer and throw your shopping at you at an incredible rate, even if there is no-one behind you, they claim it’s helping you to keep prices down but it’s just annoying. With the mail, if your letter doesn’t fit through the gauge you have to pay more, if you just post it, the person receiving has to pay the extra and a surcharge to get the mail.
A Frenchman who’s mother returned to France soon after his birth, neither went back, was unable to open a Bank account in France. The USA insists it’s citizens file tax returns if living abroad. To get trade agreements the USA insists trade partners stop USA citizens opening bank accounts for those that haven’t. The poor guy would have to pay US taxes on all income he ever earned in France and also renounce his US citizenship before he could open a French Bank account.
There’s alot about the US I admire and there are also alot of things I find confusing, but in the context of this article I find I am extremely confused by why US citizens abroad have to continue to pay US taxes. During the period you are abroad and earning money In another country you don’t have access to any of the resources your Tax pays for so in my view the government doesn’t have any claim on the money you earned.
For any business to employ someone to bag shopping is madness and a waste of money Still can’t believe a developed country like the US still does tax returns Number 3 I will give you….states is better this makes more sense Never ever heard of a wedding breakfast…is this new? Stamps too expensive don’t bother anymore 🤣 Edit wedding breakfast reading comments looks catholic, that’s why I’ve never heard of it
1) shouldn’t this be assumptions Americans make that turn out to be different outside of the US? 2) same as above, I’m going to guess than many of these will be “same as number 1 / same as above” yes we have a payee system, anyone who does any research before coming to the UK should know this. 3) weddings, see point 1. 4) ahem see point 1 again, it is called a wedding breakfast because it is the very first meal after the wedding, much like no matter what time you eat, the very first time you eat in a day is your breakfast. 5) yeah.. see point 1 again, we have various different stamps for DIFFERENT SERVICES there is first class for the different services and there is a second class for the various services. the amount you pay depends on the weight and size of the thing you are sending and you can send it 1st or 2nd class. oh and a stamp has a value, while you might have a stamp that says 1st or 2nd it has an actual value equal to the cost of sending a 1st/2nd class letter, you also have the same for large letter that also comes as a single stamp and has a different value to the normal letter.