To think that wedding s never used to be such a ‘thing’?

That's probably because most people getting married nowadays have been living together, as if married, for years and years. We don't have to get married these days. It isn't sad at all.

Instead of focusing on the marriage, too many focus on the wedding, which is exceedingly sad

Then if you get married abroad - the cost of flying out loads of people is bad enough

Then you got to have a do in the UK for those who weren't able to come to the wedding abroad - health issues, unable to book time off work, child care, their job (a teacher can't go on foreign wedding in June) etc

Think they have gone OTT IMHO.

Think since the relaxation of laws of you could only marry in churches and register offices closest to your home made that so.

I heard of people scoff at couples getting married in a register office instead of a barn or country hotel 200 miles away.

I hate weddings. Find them incredibly boring - esp the bit between the speeches and the evening stuff. Don't like wearing very fancy clothing. As for shoes - can't find a pair which are 1. Able to wear for hours as got feet problems 2. Look pretty and 3. Don't cost the earth as don't want to splash out loads for one wear.

About 18 years ago I was invited to a wedding of a manager of my then employer. The groom's family hired an entire 75 room country hotel for goodness knows how much in the middle of nowhere. Including the cost of taxis to/from train station to place and those who lived nearby too. I got very bored as the 5 or 6 colleagues I spoke to most only 1 turned up. Two were on holiday and one had surgery earlier that week. I slipped out of the reception room and went into my room and watched crap on TV.

YANBU

We got married on a registry office and had the reception at a local social club, this was only in 2016.

Wedding dress was second hand.

Had a fantastic time and the whole thing, including honeymoon came to under 5k.

When I got married in the late 90s, my parents were upset I didn’t want to just do a cake and punch reception at their house.

I paid for the wedding myself. Lots of bells and whistles, but nothing compared to today.

A friend of mine spent £30k on her wedding 2 years ago. 6 months after the wedding she was pregnant with their second and she told me that she regretted spending so much as they were desperate to move to a bigger place.

I spent 1/10 of that getting married, and it cost me more to get divorced. I love to see wedding photos, think it's amazing that folk even come up with some of the things they do along the theme of wedding, but for each fancy table decoration, or hen party PJ set, or random gimmicky thing I do think what could that be better spent on to set a couple up in their new married life. Even if they have been together for ages.

People can do what they want. It's their occasion, and their money to spend. You sound quite envious.

These posts and threads are only ever about virtue -signalling humble-bragging 'I only spent £100 on my wedding so I'm a better person than you' blah anyway

Married DH1 in late 1980s, total cost £100 (excluding DH's new jersey). I bought a gorgeous summer dress in Debenhams, our reception was a self-assembled buffet in a church hall. Had thirty guests, then honeymoon in the Cotswolds.

DH2 and I married mid-1990s in a registry office, followed by lunch in the officers' mess for thirty again (not all the same people!), total outlay c£1000. Honeymoon in Cornwall.I

I guess people have a bit more money now - plus the introduction of social media etc has helped fuel this.

Nobody I knew had an evening do in the early 90s, although a couple of weddings did end up back at the parents house for drinks.
You stopped at 5pm, put on your "going away dress" and that was it.

I didn’t dread the evening do. Mine was fab. We had a barn dance. 31 years ago.

I remarried in a church. It has been possible since 2002 in certain circumstances but it still isn’t guaranteed. It may have helped that we both already attended our local parish churches regularly.

We had the additional hurdle that we wanted to get married in a church 100 miles away from where we lived. We had to join that church and attend regularly including a marriage preparation course.

I put YABU because I was also married in the early 90s and your experience wasn’t mine. However, they’ve clearly become a much bigger thing since then.
I also bought the 4th dress I tried on (in the only shop I went in) but because I loved it. There’s no way I wouldn’t have known about hoops or whatever because I wanted a nice dress. Music in church was very important to me and I had friends perform: it so it was exactly right. Food was hotel mass market food and chosen from a limited selection. Perfectly fine though.
In conclusion - you didn’t seem to really care about stuff at your wedding, which is fine but not the fault of the 90s. My niece’s wedding in the 2010s was very similar to mine. Some people go way OTT now which possibly wouldn’t have been considered in the 90s.

Correct. Married in the Register Office (no other option), with the Environmental Health office right next door 😂
Off the peg frock from a High Street chain. Lounge suit for the other half.
One witness each.
Sit down meal in a hotel, cut cake then everyone goes home - definitely no dreaded "evening do".
Standard set of photos, of which you chose 24 to put in an album, and just got the others as polaroids with Proof stamped all over them.
Definitely no video!
35 years ago......

Weddings have always been whatever the couple wanted. I know family who spent £20k on theirs in the 90's and I know people who spent the same last year. I spent at the most £1k on mine as we wanted a small simple wedding. The only think that's changed is that we can easily see others extravagant weddings on social media when we couldn't before.

I disagree with it's all for Instagram now. As someone who is currently planning a wedding, and has no social media accounts, I am still hiring a decent photographer and videographer, still having a large number of guests which we consider good friends and family, and will prob do a few DIY "extras" myself because I am into that sort of thing. To an outsider it'll look like "eyeroll, this is all for the gram" but in reality it's not. SOME people getting swept up in the social media bullshite but not all!

The cost comparison to my sisters wedding 5 years ago is insane. Everything has increased in price so much and that's only in a short space of time. Wedding dresses seem to be about the only thing that have stayed somewhat constant in price. I also think some extras became the norm during the boom and never left which adds extra expense on the couple.

A lot of weddings are entirely curated for Instagram. Manor house, week long hen/stag dos in an exotic location, luxury fully paid for honeymoon by asking for “donations” instead of gifts. The costs are insane. I know a couple who are about to splash £50,000 on a wedding and are getting themselves into debt in the process.

Someone else I know who got married recently also cost similar. Their middle class parents footed the bill for most of it of course. They had multiple videographers, one shooting from the bride’s perspective and the other from the grooms. Personally I think that’s self indulgent nonsense; you’d think they were celebrities.

I read about someone that stopped doing weddings as a photographer as nothing is organic now. Every pose is staged and curated to an inch of its life as people don’t do natural now.

I have fond memories of weddings growing up. Usually a registry office with some sort of low key lunch afterwards. I remember my uncles; we had a Chinese buffet. Now it’s all Michelin star looking stuff for the Insta pictures. It’s a bit depressing.

Expensive weddings have always been a thing for some people, and of course in some cultures weddings can be huge by UK standards - it's the norm.

But, what I do think has changed is the burden tipped onto guests:

-Travelling to/from destination weddings (not the local venue, even abroad)
-Overnight stays or even longer to accomodate the above
-Gift registries (I have experienced some real 😮 cheeky-fuckery recently)
-Coordinated dress/colour rules for everyone (not just central celebrants)

Plus there are other things we didn't really see that often in the past and that make us people of a certain age go🙄

-Save the date cards weren't a thing, if you couldn't attend, that was fine
-Expensive overnight/holiday hen/stag dos (driven by cheaper flights?)
-'Demanding' behaviour, lists of rules, schedules, etc. all quite controlling
-Oh, and the constant build up months and months in advance on social media

Not true of everyone of course!

Most weddings are broadly similar to years ago. In the last 20-25 years all my friends and fam have had either a church then local fancy hotel/gold club or have the whole thing at said hotel/golf club. My wedding was almost exactly the same as DPs.

Ive been to one really fancy/extravagant wedding but these people have Family Money and are loaded!

My wedding, the largest cost was food and drink (open bar) - im sure guests preferred that to a cheaper weddong with less food!

I prefer when my friends have beach hen dos, an overpriced cottage in the drizzly countryside is a much worse use of precious free time vs a girls' holiday in the sun. (Caveat- none of my friends are bridezillas so it's been a chilled friends' holiday)

How long ago?

It wasn't an option when I got married.

YANBU. Most people marrying now live together, have been together for a while, know each other well - marriage is less of a life change than it was for previous generations. So more and more pressure is placed on the wedding itself and all the details as the marriage doesn't mark a new stage of life.

I come from a culture where marriages still mark a life change for women - people don't live together before marriage - and while weddings are a huge deal, there's less pressure for everything to be perfect, and they are much more about friends and families rather than the details. Which also means marriages happen far more quickly after engagement so you don't have time to fret over details!

Yes, you need about $600 million for a reasonable wedding these days.

As an aside I was intrigued when I saw a picture of Boris and family at a recent wedding and was taken aback by how similar looking the three children are. They must be triplets!