If you’re like me, once you got married you didn’t enjoy weddings nearly as much as you used to. You’re excited for the new couple, of course, but most weddings play out exactly the same. Dress up, ceremony, clapping, wait to be dismissed, give a gift, wait to eat, eat, dance, lather, rinse, repeat. The whole thing takes anywhere from 3-12 hours, and when you make it home you’re ready for bed. “Were we just at a wedding or were we playing competitive racquetball?”
My waning interest in weddings was the reason I created the CROME System back in 2002. I wanted a way to quantify a truly awful wedding experience and a way to celebrate a truly great one. And since wedding season is in full swing here in 2009, this feels like the right time to break it out.
The name of the system is the CROME Wedding Rating System. The ratings scale goes from 5-50, with a 5 being the absolute worst score a wedding can get and a 50 being the absolute best. Weddings are scored in 5 different categories, each worth 10 points.
C is for Ceremony (10 possible points)
Things to consider when rating a ceremony: How long did it go? How many songs are sung (is this a musical or a wedding?) Did they leave out your favorite ritual (unity candle, communion, etc.)? Did they employ your least favorite ritual? Is the room temp. comfortable? if outside, is the sun baking your skin so that you can actually feel the cancer spreading on your neck? Can you not hear the bride and groom? Did they start on time? and so on.
The best part about rating the Ceremony category is that you can start off with a 10, and then deduct points as you go through it. “Ooh, they went with the Parents Praying on Stage For the Couple…that’s a 2 point deduction right there.” or “Did the Best Man just pretend to not have the ring? That’s a negative deduction for overuse of cliche.”
R is for Reception (10 possible points)
Things to consider when rating a reception: Do they feed you on time? Did you have to wait for 90 minutes without food while the wedding party posed for pictures with an albino stallion? How do they handle the clinking glasses deal? Is there dancing? Is there a bar? open bar? Do they have a slideshow? Are there 5 dances everyone has to stand around and watch? do they smash the cake on each other or are they nice about it? Is there a garter involved? Did the bride hit the ceiling during the bouquet toss, taking the drama out of what should be a great moment? is the venue nice? Did we have to drive 50 miles to get there from the ceremony?
Important to note that the quality of the actual meal itself is not rated here. just the reception. The Meal will get it’s own score in a minute.
O is for the Others (10 possible points)
Things to consider when rating the Others: Who else is at this wedding? Are you there with a bunch of longtime friends? Are you stuck small-talking with aunts and uncles you don’t even know? Are you an outlier guest at a wedding where the only person you know is the bride or groom?Are the actual “Others” from LOST at the wedding? Is there someone you can’t stand at the wedding? Did you once date the bride or groom?
The quality of the guest list is very important, and should not be taken lightly.
M is for the Meal (10 possible points)
This is pretty self-explanatory. Was it good? Was there enough food? Did you have choices? Did they give you your salad with some cruddy dressing already on it? (i hate that)
E is for the Exit (10 possible points)
As in, how did they dismiss guests from the ceremony to the reception. This is often overlooked, but without question is the most underrated aspect of any given wedding.
The 3 most popular options are:
- Everyone is dismissed, the bride and groom will see you at the reception. (my personal fave)
- Please make your way out to the receiving line. (always takes longer than it should)
- We will dismiss row by row and hug each and every one of you so that those sitting in the last row will have gnawed off their legs by the time we get to them. (Not that I’m bitter or anything)
As with the other categories, rate the Exit on a scale of 1 to 10 based on your personal preferences.
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On your way home from the wedding, while the details of the gala are still fresh in your head, score each category and add up your total:
50 points: This mythical score has never been achieved by a wedding in the history of mankind.
45-49 pts: This wedding was nearly flawless. It will probably the highlight of your year when you look back.
40-45 pts: You had a great time and would do it all again next weekend if you had the chance.
30-39 pts: It wasn’t the worst wedding you’ve ever been to, but for everything they did right, they did something wrong.
20-29 pts: If it wasn’t for one or two great moments, this wedding would have bombed. The highlight was when you left.
10-19 pts: This wedding was the reason advil was created. You wish you could take your gift back and have your memory erased.
5-9 pts: You drive home, burn your clothes, and never speak to the couple again. You refer to the wedding from then on as “The Event That Shall Not be Named” and spend the next 10 years in counseling.
So there it is, the CROME Wedding Rating System. Next time you’re bored at a wedding it will give you something productive to do. All I ask is that you post the scores of all your future weddings on your blog or here in the comments if you don’t have one.
Cheers!
Posted by Bryan AllainTags: CROME, Rating System, Wedding
should we present the bride and groom with their score when they return from their honeymoon? or should we call them while they are still romping around in jamaica?
How does your own wedding rate on this system? I say everyone who attended, please weigh in with the Allains’ score.
I wasn’t there since I was also getting married that day. Aw, shucks.
@jordan – good question. I think we should wait until they get back, but it should be posted on a huge posterboard stuck in their front yard or duct-taped to their front door.
@kelly – my wedding…hm…if i was a guest at it, let me think
Ceremony – 4 (way too many songs and prayers and such)
Reception – 7 (fun dancing, we smashed cake, cool venue, no alcohol)
Others – 10 (hey, it was like the guest list was made just for me)
Meal – 9 (i remember being really hungry and eating a lot)
Exit – 10 (we just dismissed everyone and told them we’d say hi at the reception…then we only said hi to about half our guests)
So i guess our CROME Rating would have been a 40, which seems about right.
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who doesn’t enjoy weddings since my own. I’ve never had more fun at a wedding than my own, and that is even given we barely got to eat dinner and had no cake except for the sliver we fed each other. (We didn’t smash it). That was my biggest disappointment, especially since our top layer got ruined in our move to our new house and wasn’t edible for our anniversary. So we drove back to the cake place to order another one and IT WAS CLOSED for good.
Anyway, I would probably rate our wedding as:
Ceremony: 7 (Piano processional/recessional, guitar and song during unity candle, short ceremony at Lehigh’s chapel – we had exactly 1 hour for ceremony and pictures before the next wedding came in)
Reception: 8 (venue on top of the Lehigh “mountain”, fun dancing, excellent DJ, short dance numbers to watch, no alcohol, spontaneous serenade to us of “Glory of Love” led by two of my former housemates)
Others: 10 (all of our seating placements worked out way beyond our expectations. the friends tables were actively celebrating, dancing, and even some playing poker in between dancing.
Even some of our questionable choices must have been spirit-led, e.g. my single aunt and Andrea’s aunt/uncle discovered that my aunt’s best friend was Andrea’s uncle’s sister; my aunt/uncle with a pastor friend/her husband discovered that my aunt/uncle’s church had been praying for pastor/husband (not knowing their names) because the pastor/husband learned their daughter had Downs and my aunt/uncle have a child with Downs.
Meal: 8 (Good food, timely served, and before dancing!)
Exit: 8 (we had a receiving line, but it was short due to picture time-limit. Turned out people hung around on their own anyhow).
I think that is 41.
And I’m not at all disappointed that there are no weddings this summer to attend.
Based on the CROME system, I would give Jesus, Interrupted a rating of 35. That’s what I’m supposed to do, right?
Thanks for this. I’m officiating my sister’s wedding in August. I’ll do my best to make sure she gets as high a score as possible. Unfortunately the food thing is totally out of my hands.
I just realized you’ve been blogging since I was a freshman in high school and it made me feel old.
Hey now … I was reading your ramblings in 2002. I’m hurt, Bry.
I’m SO excited for this! I’m on my way to 1 of the 14 weddings I’ve been invited to this year, can’t wait to implement the CROME rating system to get me through…
Great system – unfortunately, it comes a little late for me. At 31 I’m past the “my friends are constantly getting married stage” (However, if I ever do get married, I am confident that I will be able to pull off that elusive 50) I’m into the “my friends are constantly having babies” stage. So I’m wondering if you have a system for rating baby showers – or better yet, the babies themselves. It would be nice for me to have a way to rank my friend’s kids so I know which one is the best. That way I know who to agree to baby-sit for and whose calls I should stop taking.
@nate – your comment made me feel like i was 61. thanks! haha.
@geof – this is factually correct. some day when my blog replaces CNN.com and Twitter in popularity and someone asks me who my first readers were, I will tell them that for years Geof Morris read this blog when no one else did. Heck, even if the last year my readership has grown by leaps and bounds, but through it all, you’ve been there. all joking aside, it’s actually pretty cool…so thanks.
I would have to think too hard right now to rate my wedding but I will go out on a limb and say that Freimuth’s wedding would rate the highest for me on the CROME Rating System. Great time with great friends. We have a wedding in Santa Barbara on Saturday so that could always change. Unlikely though, since we’ll have all three kids with us.
Wow, I’m glad this is here.
I’m going to best friend’s wedding very soon, and I think this will keep me (and my table, assuming i like them) very entertained.
Also, I’m a wedding photographer, and you’ve now given me the key to staying awake during all those ceremonies.
Question though: suppose I used to date, maybe be engaged to the groom. Does that mean that the score in Others goes up or down? I want to make sure this is as accurate as possible.
I enjoyed reading about your CROME system… but I’d prefer to never have to use it in the first place.
I would gladly give the bride and groom not only the gift I bought for them… but also enough money for him to buy a ladder so they can elope.
Nobody would EVER hurt my feelings by not inviting me to their wedding. EVER.
I’m not anti-social, I just find the VAST majority of weddings a waste of a complete day. I could care less what color the bride picked out for the bridesmaids outfits… the only type of pew marker I would be interested in would be perhaps shrunken heads… and don’t even get me started on the eternal wait while they get pictures done.
Love this idea…too bad the only wedding I’m going to this summer was my own. I think I’ll ask some friends to rate it, just out of curiosity!