wedding etiquette

Rude is an understatement, it' s as if all they wanted was you to show up with a gift and have a meal. 

Over 26 years ago my wife and I made it a very big conscious effort to greet and talk with everyone at the reception.

I'm in agreement with you, trigal38, there appears to be a selfish thing lately where, maybe, you have to be on social media at the wedding in order to hang out or associate with people???

Times have changed.

Well, GET OFF MY LAWN!!!

Context can be important.  

If it's a relatively small affair, the bride and groom *should* be able to greet everyone personally at some time during the day.  

But...it doesn't take much growth for that to become unmanageable.  Even spending 1 minute with each of 150 guests requires 2.5 hours.  

You can evaluate the upcoming invitations.  Are you feeling "obligated" to attend but would rather not?  Interested in sharing their special day?  Hopeful that you'll get "more than average" face time that day?  Depending on the situation, consider some "conversation" with the bride/groom explaining what has been "etiquette" and WHY it has been important.  Maybe your little nudge gets them to make it a point to "make the rounds" and personally thank the attendees.  

When my first son got married he and his wife made sure that they said hello to everyone.  I think they had about 100 people at the reception.  Most of the time it was sitting at the table and talking to each person sitting there. I noticed my son even danced with some of the ladies so that he could talk to them.  We went to a friend of ours' wedding last year and they didn't greet anyone except at the end of the wedding.  They had at least 500 people there.

I have another son getting married next year and they have 200 people on the guest list.  I know that they have discussed how to handle being able to talk to everyone.  

I think it depends on the couple.  The more intimate the affair the more likely the bride and groom will be able to talk to each guest personally.  

In 1987, I got married and it was a super small gathering so we had no problem talking to every one.  If I were to ever get married again I would still want a relatively small affair, but I will never do that again!  Burned pretty bad so I won't give anyone else a chance to do that to me EVER AGAIN!  

Two of these were small weddings - less than 100 people and immediate family. It wasn't that they were trying to circulate the room and just didn't get to us. They weren't trying. There was no receiving line. The minister greeted each aisle after the ceremony, not the Bride and Groom. The Mothers of the Brides circulated the room talking to guests at each table, not the Bride and Groom. From what I can see this generation has ditched tradition, maybe too boring, maybe too uncomfortable (just guessing I don't really know) but have not come up with a better plan.

My daughter was in 2 of the weddings. She was a flower girl in one and a program attendee in the other. Both times the Mother of the Bride gave my daughter a gift, not the Bride. The Brides were around but did not contribute at all.  It felt very detached to me. Both times I walked away feeling like they did not really want my daughter in the wedding, just gave her something to do because maybe their mother's wanted them too. I don't know that but it is certainly how it felt. 

Very different from what was expected of me by my mother 21 years ago. 

Not to excuse flat out rude behavior, but the younger generations seem to be rejecting a lot of otherwise traditional agendas at formal events. I am personally OK with it, it's their event after all, and some traditions like having the father of the bride give her away... the bouquet toss to single female guests... matching bridesmaids dresses even... seem wildly irrelevant, at least to me. A "receiving line" would actually be the last thing I would want to do at my own wedding.

My guess is that the brides were trying to find a balance of what they wanted (modern) and maybe what their family wanted (traditional - must have a flower girl!) and forgot some manners in the process. 

I've paid for 2 weddings.....2 to go (I assume).  My daughters can feel free to find more "balance of what they want" when they pay for their own wedding.  If they don't....they can work on finding more balance for what my wife and I want.

With that in mind,  they'll thank every guest for attending......in person.

Most of the weddings that folks I know have are small family ceremonies that are closed to the public.  They do a wedding reception or a wedding luncheon following the ceremony that is more public where friends can attend.  They always have a table at the entrance to the reception for gifts, then a sign in book, and finally a reception line where the immediate family to the bride and groom wait to greet all the guest as they arrive. The Bride and Groom are always in the middle of the line (with the bride's family on side and the grooms on the other) or at the end of the line.  Yes, they have to stand for three hours but but that is what I have always seen and no one would have it any other way.

When I was married neither me nor my wife had a single family member living in the sate that we lived.  Finances would have made it difficult for some of our family to attend a wedding where we were living so we had a wedding three states away where the fewest family members would have to travel.  This was not the location where the most friends could attend so we didn't do a full reception for lots of guest where we had to standard for three hours greeting people but rather did a luncheon for all the family at the ceremony and the few friends that could make it.   All our best friends from all over the USA were at the luncheon.  Some we hadn't seen in years and some had drive long distances to be there.  We were so excited to have all our friends there, but didn't have time to talk to any of them.  The luncheon was maybe two hours tops and we had a program set up where some of the family and friends spoke.  Then we had eat, cut the cake, do the garter toss, do the first dance, etc.  All our friend were there and we wanted to talk for three hours with every one of them but only got about 2 minutes with each of them.  We did greet everyone, give heart felt hugs, and shed tears of joy with each of them but we left feeling like the 2 minutes we had with our friend after their 12 hours drive was very unfortunate.  My only regret from my wedding was not having time to talk to everyone more than just in passing.  I am generation X and the generation Why, the Millennials, the i-generation, etc. etc. are defiantly different than my generation.  I really saw the generation gap when I started working with youth groups about 6 years.  What makes my generation tick is not what makes the younger generations toc. 

I would give the young couples the benefit of the doubt and hope that they were just unexpectedly tight on time at their wedding like I was at mine.  If they didn't seem to make an effort to great anyone then it is possible that their generation has not been raised with the same influences as previous generations to where they don't interact with others in the same way and large gatherings like a wedding.   At any rate I don't know of anyone that invites people to their wedding only to be rude to them when they get there.  If they invited you they wanted you there.  They may just know how they are expected to show it or have been caught off guard by all the things that they had to do in the relatively short time of their wedding.