Wedding Receiving Line Etiquette

If you are a friend of the bride and unacquainted with the bridegroom she will introduce him to you after you have shaken hands with her. If you have not had an opportunity of congratulating her on her engagement you might say, "I must wish you both every happiness," but it is an old fashioned custom to offer good wishes to a bride at a reception, and therefore it is seldom done. – Image source, Pinterest

The Wedding Reception

Congratulations are usually offered as soon as an engagement is made known, and therefore there is no need to repeat them at the wedding reception. At the reception it suffices to shake hands with the bride and bridegroom after having shaken hands with the bride's mother. If unacquainted with the bride you should not wait to be introduced to her. She will offer to shake hands with you as a matter of course, you being a friend of the bridegroom and a guest in her mother's house. 

If you are a friend of the bride and unacquainted with the bridegroom she will introduce him to you after you have shaken hands with her. If you have not had an opportunity of congratulating her on her engagement you might say, "I must wish you both every happiness," but it is an old fashioned custom to offer good wishes to a bride at a reception, and therefore it is seldom done. 

Guests pass the bride and bridegroom so quickly that to pause and to make polite speeches would occupy too much time and would weary the newly married couple greatly if all the guests were to follow this lead. Handshakes and smiles are all that circumstances admit of on such occasions. 

Oftener than not, the bride has a word or two to say of thanks for a wedding present received on the previous evening, and this calls for a reply on the part of the sender before she can make room for another guest awaiting her turn to shake hands. – From “Good Form,” 1911

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