Wedding Party goes from *roof-raiser* to disaster in seconds...

[kacidama]

... and there is no apparent reason for it.  Sometimes the Sim has a memory of the disaster and another will remember the roof-raiser.  It has happened on different lots with different families in a custom 'hood.

[J. M. Pescado]

Wedding parties nosedive if nobody is married with the arch close to the end of the party. Managing to complete the relevant ceremony before the time expires will salvage the score (although the box may not update), but if you take TOO long, and the ceremony is not yet complete when time runs out, it may not repair the score in time.

[gali]

The only parties I do are: graduation party, and age transition party. They always succeed.

In Night Life Pack there is a change in the scoring: if you throw a wedding party, you get 5000 aspiration points, and 2500 infuence points; but if you just marry, you get 8000 aspiration points, and 3000 influence points. May be this is a sign not to throw wedding parties, and waste your money.

Anyway, if in any party there are too many negative relations ("-" and "--" with cry), the level is reduced from "roof raiser" to "good time" and lower. Therefore, I invite only friends, try to befriend among them as much as I can, to avoid the negative respods. The main method is - "tell joke" twice, it works like magic. Now, when you have the "selectable" option for your visitors, you don't need any cheats.

[Avalikia]

I've had much success by inviting the four parents of the happy couple (unless they have divorced parents or some other complication).  If you invite a happily married couple or two to your wedding, they'll often do lots of romantic interactions autonomously and the wedding score seems love that.  If the parents won't work for some reason, a sibling and their spouse/partner often do very nicely.  Just make sure you don't invite sworn enemies to the same party.  Oh, and the actual marriage ceremony is always scheduled first thing when the party begins.  It's like the Sims feel safer about partying once they know for sure that there will be a wedding at the wedding party.

[Dea]

I really do not like parties, the last couple of parties I had were golden anniversary parties.  Sometimes I do weddings but I rarely have a birthday party.

[J. M. Pescado]

In Night Life Pack there is a change in the scoring: if you throw a wedding party, you get 5000 aspiration points, and 2500 infuence points; but if you just marry, you get 8000 aspiration points, and 3000 influence points. May be this is a sign not to throw wedding parties, and waste your money.

Parties don't cost money, and the two options are not mutually exclusive. You can throw the wedding party AND get married at it, for both scores. Of course, it's ALWAYS the sim who DOESN'T live there that wants the party.

[kutto]

FOr me, it's usually BOTH sims who want the party. Too bad only one gets credit, which doesn't really make sense; they're both getting married.

[IgnorantBliss]

Wedding parties nosedive if nobody is married with the arch close to the end of the party.

I always have the ceremony right at the beginning and then just have the sims socialize, raid the fridge and dance to the cheap stereo. My wedding parties are almost always roof-raisers (kind of ironic considering how I dislike parties myself and never had a wedding party, just a 5-minute ceremony one day after work).

[Ancient Sim]

I always have my ceremonies towards the end.  I wait until there's about 1 1/2 hours to go, then I call them to the arch.  More often than not, the score will nosedive to disaster (esp. if not everyone makes it to watch), but all I do then is place either the cake or the wine.  As long as the groom cuts the cake, or you make someone selectable and get them to toast the bride & groom, it will jump immediately to roof-raiser.  I've found that if I have the wedding too early, it drops later on, so I leave it as late as I can.  For some reason, marrying them doesn't seem to work on its own very often, I need to use the cake or wine as well.  I only do parties if they're asked for, anyway.  I hate parties in real-life, so I avoid them in the game wherever possible as well.

[Orikes]

I always do wedding parties. The only time I don't is if I'm marrying off a Romance sim and worried about them rolling up a fear about the marriage.

In general, I try and get the couple to marry very early on (before the guests are distracted by other stuff and don't think to come to watch the ceremony). If I have the money for it, I have a karoke machine there. I block off the fridge but have the buffet up. I don't deal with champagne or a bar (since they seem to get obsessed with it too easy), but I do have the wedding cake.

Ultimately, I rarely have roof raiser parties, but they're always at least good times.

I will do graduation parties, but I rarely do birthday parties.

[ZiggyDoodle]

Dumb question: if you have the buffet out, why would your guests raid the fridge?

Mine don't - they tend to wind up in the hot tub or at the pool table.  Which leads me to believe my game is extraordinarily boring.

[Syera]

Parties don't cost money, and the two options are not mutually exclusive. You can throw the wedding party AND get married at it, for both scores. Of course, it's ALWAYS the sim who DOESN'T live there that wants the party.

If you lock said want beforehand and move the Sim into the house before the ceremony, then you can be assured someone'll be getting the aspiration points. 

[Orikes]

Dumb question: if you have the buffet out, why would your guests raid the fridge?

To be completely honest, I have no idea why the guests would skip the buffet table to raid the fridge for chips and cookies, but they do. I've seen them go completely out of their way to get to the fridge and raid it rather than get food off the buffet.

At this point, I have my frat house arranged so that I just plop the buffet table in front of the fridge for parties. In other houses, I turn the fridge around backwards so folks can't get into it. Of course, I turn it around backwards for the nanny too. Bitch nearly burned down my house once when she put a tv dinner in the oven and then walked away.

[Kokopelli]

I have to work hard to get a non- roof raiser party.
Why? Because I would love to see my popularity sims cry at a bad party memory at least one time!
They seem to pull a good time party score right at the last second dammit.

[Avalikia]

If you want a bad party, simply invite two sims that are sworn enemies.  They'll take care of your precious party score.  If you don't know two Sims that are enemies, simply serve lots of food or drink lots of champagne and lock the bathrooms.  All your guests will leave because they've gotta go potty and the party will be a disaster.  I did this by accident once because I threw a wedding party for a couple on an new lot after they graduated and I neglected furnish the bathroom.

[Kokopelli]

Sorry for being good at throwing parties.
Sheesh

[CatGirl]

I was marrying Ophelia and Johnny at Olive's house and they were scared by a ghost right as they said "I do". What I didn't realize was that the marriage was never finished, so it turned into a disaster at the last minute. Poor Johnny went into aspiration failure.

[J. M. Pescado]

I always have the ceremony right at the beginning and then just have the sims socialize, raid the fridge and dance to the cheap stereo. My wedding parties are almost always roof-raisers (kind of ironic considering how I dislike parties myself and never had a wedding party, just a 5-minute ceremony one day after work).

I don't permit fridge raiding. It's bad for everyone involved, fills the room with garbage, and costs me money. Totally unacceptable.

[kacidama]

I'm well practised at throwing parties (Sims and IRL ) but this has only happened since the OFB patches.
It is random which sim gets which memory - the sim throwing the party or a guest. 
I wondered if there was any glitch causing it.

[IgnorantBliss]

I always have the ceremony right at the beginning and then just have the sims socialize, raid the fridge and dance to the cheap stereo. My wedding parties are almost always roof-raisers (kind of ironic considering how I dislike parties myself and never had a wedding party, just a 5-minute ceremony one day after work).

I don't permit fridge raiding. It's bad for everyone involved, fills the room with garbage, and costs me money. Totally unacceptable.

Well, it's a cheap price to pay for the perfect party .

[J. M. Pescado]

No it's not. Tracking down everyone to find out who just lost fitness is not worth the zero benefit it has on your party score. That's right, permitting it has zero benefits to your party.

[neriana]

As far as I've been able to tell, social is the ONLY motive that matters at a party. Letting someone die at a party will tank your score. Other than that, any effect stuff has on a party seems not really worth tracking. Sims can be peeing all over the place, for instance, but so long as it's not enough to stop your Sim from cornering them to tell them a few jokes, it doesn't matter.

[kaonashi]

If you want a bad party, simply invite two sims that are sworn enemies.

I don't know about this. At one wedding the groom invited Gilbert Jacquet and Joe Carr, not knowing that they hated each other. During the reception they duked it out twice (with Gilbert being thrown on his ass twice and crying like a little girl), but the groom still had a good party rating (can't remember the exact rating- the one before "Roof-raiser").

[reggikko]

Neriana is right. It's the social interactions that make a good party. The higher the relationship scores of the guests/hosts are raised during the party, the higher the party score. One trick is not to invite people that are your Sims' "Best friends". It's better to invite Sims with a Daily score of around 75-80, do a few social interactions with each guest to get them up to about 85-90 and your party is going to be successful. Also, a little trick for Roof Raiser wedding parties is to have the bride and groom sneak off and woohoo during the party. 

[Avalikia]

If you want a bad party, simply invite two sims that are sworn enemies.

I don't know about this. At one wedding the groom invited Gilbert Jacquet and Joe Carr, not knowing that they hated each other. During the reception they duked it out twice (with Gilbert being thrown on his ass twice and crying like a little girl), but the groom still had a good party rating (can't remember the exact rating- the one before "Roof-raiser").

Ah, but the trick is to only invite the enemies.  Your other sims must have been having a really good time.  It also helps if you invite anyone who's the least bit interested in the bride and/or groom.  Have them kiss under the arch, then watch the sparks fly!  And then there's my personal favorite: Have Sim A influence Sim B to do something romantic with Sim C, who is loved by Sim A.  Sim A will then get upset because Sim B did exactly what they just told them to do.