To think that couples getting married are overly criticised by other people?

I've been to many weddings, large and small, traditional and contemporary, formal and casual and loved pretty much all of them.

The only one I've really moaned about was badly planned. There was a full church mass at 12pm, so realistically with travel the latest we could eat was 10am. They then had the reception at an over-priced hotel an hour away in the arse end of nowhere and left guests standing around cold and hungry until 8pm with no clue about what was going on. The happy couple themselves buggered off to a pub en-route with immediate family, and then for scenic photos and didn't join the reception for hours. Most guests weren't staying there because of capacity and cost so were just stuck standing around waiting for hours on end.
The couple only thought of the kudos of a large wedding and their own comfort and a select handful of people. They did not provide basic hospitality to the 150+ other people there, some of whom had travelled internationally at cost, and that is worth criticism.

I didn't regret going to that one; 1) because I got to meet some of DH's extended family and 2) it was an excellent (but expensive) lesson in how to not organise a wedding and learned some useful ideas for our own by doing the opposite.

(They were divorced 5 years later!)

Did you actually go into debt for your £18K wedding? If you did, you should have said “sorry, we can’t afford to invite everyone”. We did. We didn’t go into debt. If you’ve gone into debt for fear of not inviting people, you’re a people pleaser and so throwing a wedding (and in life generally) you needed to accept that you can’t please everyone so you crack on and do what works for you.

I lost a very close relative shortly after my wedding. At my wedding they were in remission and we were celebrating that they were cancer free. The cancer came back so quickly that they were dead 3 months later. My grandparents were also growing older and frailer, I lost two within two years of my wedding, so I get wanting a wedding and something to celebrate with family. However, it’s also why I think if you’re planning a wedding you should think about your guests. It’s partly why we had ours at a budget hotel chain, the type that many people on here have complained about. I don’t care though. It had cheap rooms because people needed to travel, booze was cheap, it was accessible for my grandad in a wheelchair. I took my guests into consideration when planning my wedding and genuinely think I did the best I could with the budget I could. I’m not really bothered if someone found fault with my wedding day - there were faults with my wedding day! If someone complained to my face, they wouldn’t be getting invited if I got married a second time but if you’re complaining to someone’s face you don’t want to be at that wedding, let alone any subsequent ones.

We spent what we could afford. It was, still is, a lot of money but we are happy with that amount. That money bought me memories with relatives who were gone a short time later. It gave me videos of my relative dancing like they’d just been declared cancer free and when the images of them dying floods my memory, I try to focus on them dancing just 3 months before. It took a lot of time and effort to plan but honestly I couldn’t care less if someone has it on the best wedding list or not. I enjoyed the day and I had the people I wanted there.

You don't have to invite people to be with you when you get married, but if you do, then you should treat them as guests, not an audience.
The forced formalities of weddings are quite unnatural, and honestly a bit cheesy. Why on such a happy day, do we expect our loved ones to wear their most uncomfortable clothes, travel miles, sit in allotted seats, eat luke-warm food and generally behave as if George V was still on the throne?
Why does it have to big a "big day" ? Wouldn't a happy day, or a fun day be a more appropriate way to mark the amazing joyous optimism of two people agreeing to be each other's family for the rest of their lives ?

You’re confusing ‘people marrying’ with ‘people having a wedding’. Perfectly possible to do one without the other.

Well, most of the point of socializing at a big party is to meet and converse with new people; you could sit in your lounge with your friends. Being able to chat and get to know others is part of the duty of any guest.

Yes @FancyBiscuitsLevel !
Don't get me wrong, I love a roast pork bap but this was just shockingly stingy. My BIL asked for some extra pork on his and they said no 😂
Just do a £7 a head buffet/don't invite as many people or cut out some of the other crap. Just please don't keep your guests from 2 till 11pm with virtually no food. I ended up buying my kids crisps from the bar!

Yeah, I think some people just don't like wed dings and kind of go looking to pick holes - takes all sorts I guess. I like a good wedding and am a bit sad there are no more on the horizon for a long time yet and generally find the positives in all of them.

I enjoy weddings - maybe I’ve been lucky, all of them have been fun and well planned, so even if the photos took a while, the couple made sure there was ample food/drink/entertainment to keep guests happy.

Ah, @MissAtomicBomb1 did you go to one of the many hog roast catered weddings? There’s never enough food. But it’s usually a way to cater for more like £15 per head rather than a £40 per head sit down meal.

mass catering costs. A lot.

The fact is still that someone's paid it and you've made it to an awfully expensive guest list.

Listen, don't invite people if you can't afford it. It's not rocket science. Guests won't be grateful you invited them if they have to wait hours for not-great food and have to pay for drinks.

But again, I don't go anymore. For exactly this reason. Don't make me feel like you're doing me a favour inviting me. Spending shitloads of cash is the couple's choice.

I dunno, I think moans can be pretty legitimate if they ignore the fundamental enjoyment of their guests.

My friend had the lovely idea of putting a bridesmaid or groomsman on every table - as a result we were sat with one friend, and the other half of the table was some arsehole uncle who spent the meal belittling his stepson.

Why we couldn't have been sat with a tale of our friends I don't know.

This.

And the marrying couple generally already are living together with finances entangled, and often children. At that point marriage is not a huge "life transition," it's ho-hum. Why make a big deal about the anticlimax? And make guests lose a whole day mostly standing around or consuming mediocre food and drink.

Im at an age when most i know get divorced. Ive been to a few big weddings which I absolutely loathed. Too much fuss, expensive and they’re not together anymore.

best wedding i went to was last year (my best friend’s daughter)1000 yr old church, quiet pub over the road with a buffet, a choir singing, the grooms aunt was the vicar, friends singing, another was an opera singer. Absolutely beautiful! It was also the christening of their son. It was family only and myself and my husband were the only non family guests. It was magical.

a real wedding in my eyes.

Oh me too!

I've moaned (privately) about the seating plan. Everything else I have accepted.