Read Gentlemanual's 13 rules for weddings | Oscar Jacobson

Just the fact that you are on this website indicates that you are genuinely interested in being well-dressed in your interactions with other people. In everyday life and at parties. But unfortunately, clothes are not everything when it comes to making a good impression. With this article, we want to minimize your risks of making a faux pas during one of those occasions where the risks of embarrassing oneself are actually higher than at many other times. Of course, we are referring to weddings and all the challenges you as a guest face when the bonds of matrimony are being tied between two people close to you.

We start with the most important thing: Respect. Two people have invited you to their probably most important and personal party of their lives for some reason. They want to share these charged hours with you. They have planned, put in a lot of time and money to make the moment as successful as possible for you and the other guests. It's a big deal.

To show your appreciation for this honorable fact, and not risk becoming unfriendly with the bridal couple, it is wise to show both them and the other guests respect. You do this by being attentive to a number of details where the common thread is to signal that you care about them and value the hours together and the fact that it is actually their party and not yours. With these starting values, you have a good opportunity to actually have a great time and maybe even become the best guest at the party.

Hopefully, well in advance of the wedding, you will receive an invitation with all the essential and necessary information about the event. Please mark it in your calendar, thank and respond to the couple.

RSVP is an abbreviation for Respond, if you please, the letters are stated on the invitation and roughly mean "Deadline to respond if you are coming or not". Never respond later than that date, preferably several weeks before, and respond in the way the hosts want you to respond. If it says that you should respond via a form on a specially created website for the event, then do so. Not via SMS or WhatsApp. It is nice and proper to call and thank for the invitation when it arrives and on the same day respond formally in the requested manner.

The invitation should, hopefully, specify the dress code that the bridal couple wishes to see you in. Follow the dress code and prepare yourself well in advance with any necessary shopping and inventorying in your wardrobe. You can read more about dress codes by following the link.

For some bridal couples, the gifts are more important than the actual celebration, for others they are more secondary or perhaps completely unimportant. If no wishes are written on the invitation, inquire if there is a wish list. Regardless, do not come empty-handed to the wedding, a really good bottle of champagne is rarely wrong if it is stated "no gifts".

If the stag party is most successful with or without a touch of good style, the learned ones argue. Regardless of what you prefer, try to make the days or hours positively memorable for the groom.

A close friend or perhaps brother of the groom who serves as support and assistance before, during, and after the wedding. This can involve anything from driving a pickup truck with 200 tables and chairs for as many miles as being responsible for a ring in the church. What is expected of you depends entirely on the bridal couple, so do not hesitate to ask to avoid irritation or misunderstandings. Organizing the bachelor party and giving at least one speech during the dinner is usually the responsibility of the best man. If there are multiple best men, they are usually called marshals.

Like the best man's role, the role of the toastmaster also involves a lot of responsibility in addition to the honor itself. In the role as leader of the evening's speeches, as well as the conductor of the dinner's atmosphere, both hours of preparation and a sense of rhythm, diplomacy, organizational skills, determination, humor, seriousness, vocal capacity, and preferably a balanced abstention from alcohol until the dinner is over and the dancing begins are required. Only then, the toastmaster's party begins.

In the wake of secularization, it is often the case that the wedding is one of the church's only points of contact outside of baptism and burial. If you are unsure about what is expected, ask the possible marshals and bridesmaids where you are expected to sit, when you are expected to sing, stand, and walk. Otherwise, it always works to listen extra carefully to the priest or glance at the others in the pews. For God's (the bridal couple's and the other guests') sake, make sure to arrive on time. The bridal couple should be the last ones to enter the church - not you, out of breath and making noise at the church door.

Okay, listen up: your table partner sits to your right. You give her the most attention during the evening. She is the person you toast with first after the general welcome toast, and you converse with her the most. You neither sit down nor start eating before the bridal couple, and you don't smoke except at the designated time and place. If you feel lost and stressed by all the glasses and cutlery, follow the rule that you drink from right to left and eat with the utensils from the sides towards the center of the plate. Don't forget to handle alcohol with care and preferably consume according to the principle of "every other water".

When the toastmaster or possibly the bridal couple declares the dinner over, it is often time for a waltz. This adult acrobatic exercise you dedicate to your table lady. Yes, that's how it is. Regardless of how much or little you have waltzed before.

The bridal couple leaves the party first. If the bridal couple parties until dawn, you do it too.

Don't forget to thank for the last time. Preferably both through a conversation and in the way you were invited, most commonly with a thank you note.