To think that Millennials / Gen Z have sucked the joy out of weddings?

Ha ha OP

But they are the most important people and it’s going to be better than any other hen do, stag do, wedding in history.

Who cares about the guests they are just extras to make the couple look good.

And after all it is their wedding 😉

I’m a millennial, I had no engagement party, no hen night, my husband planned the whole wedding and I literally gave no input whatsoever, it was all a surprise except for my main wedding dress.

I had a great day but the only thing that I’d have changed is I’d have preferred it to be childfree.

He has a huge family with many many kids and they took over the whole day, I had chocolate smeared on my dress, no one could get on the dance floor because of kids running around and the wedding favours got stolen or eaten.
Everyone just seemed to let the kids run wild assuming someone else was watching them and the noise was deafening!

I look back on it as a great day but when I watch the DVD all you can hear is kids excitedly talking, singing or shouting (you can’t hear the vows) or babies crying. The photos are full of kids no one knows 😂.

My husband’s family paid for it all or he’d have also preferred it to be childfree, I think over half our guests were under 15.

Haven’t RTFT, but if someone has had a lovely “village hall” wedding, that is often because many someones (the bride and groom/their families) have worked their butts off for it, because there wasn’t a menu to pick from, an in house DJ, decorations put up by the hotel staff etc etc

Mother of the groom has worked all week making buffet food. Father of the bride has climbed a shonky step ladder to pin all the balloons and bunting. Best man had to hit the cash and carry four times for booze, or whatever.

It is not wrong to want someone outside of the wedding party and guests to take care of all that - and not everyone has family on hand to help anyway.

Or maybe they have lower divorce rates because in general they have more fun?

I absolutely hate the current stag/hen culture. I’m totally against any sort of holiday or weekend away, either abroad or in this country. Then they have the usual party at home on top.

Someone I know recently had 3 hen parties, and another had a stag holiday abroad, then a stag weekend in the UK. Absolutely ridiculous!

Those are the worse examples I have, but it’s definitely the norm amongst people I know to have 2 dos now. (And 2 baby showers now as well, but that’s another story 🙄)

I hate the way elderly people make out that younger people give up on marriage & just don’t try hard enough to stay together. Many of them stayed in unhappy marriages because it just wasn't the done thing to get divorced. Women had few opportunities beyond marriage & babies & relied on a man to ‘keep’ them. So they were stuck with the man they fell in love with at 18 or even worse someone their parents chose!

I would hate my DC to stay in a miserable marriage for years. Divorce isn't fun but the couple can go on to lead happy lives without each other.

Were the couple content creators themselves? The only people I know who hire social media managers / creators are in that industry themselves, or minor celebrities who want to curate a social media presence. It all sounds so exhausting. I hope you still managed to have fun!

divorce rates have actually reduced (significantly and near consistently, although there has since been a slight increase since the low in 2018) over the last twenty years, despite becoming more socially acceptable, which tends to disprove that...

Divorces in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

If I got an invitation with the word ‘aesthetic’ in it I think I’d be declining as they cannot be my kind of people!

I LOVE a wedding, we've been to some very swanky ones and some much simpler, more relaxed ones and really enjoyed the vast majority of them. BUT the last wedding we went to was like nothing I've ever experienced before, and not in a good way! After we RSVP'd we were sent very detailed rules and instructions. Our outfits had to adhere to a particular "colour scheme" (note, this is for guests, not the wedding party!) and there was a list of things we were not to wear (such as short dresses, hats, florals or "any busy prints") as they would spoil the "aesthetic". On the day itself, in addition to the photographer there was a "content creator" whose job was literally to produce stuff for the couple to post on socials. For us guests, this meant having a phone on a stick shoved in our faces and being told to "react to" things at frequent intervals throughout the day. When the evening guests arrived I spotted someone I hadn't seen for years so I hurried over excitedly to greet them, and the "content creator" popped up out of nowhere whilst we were mid-hug saying "sorry, could you just do that again?" They were literally feeding the smallest bridemaid (who was about 3) lines to say that I assume were meant to be cute or funny. Every moment between the Bride and Groom seemed stilted and overly rehearsed. It sucked any joy or spontaneity out of the day. I felt like a prop in some weird performance piece, not a guest. I wonder whether the OP has experienced similar and this sort of thing is becoming more 'normal'. I really hope not.

Wholeheartedly agree. I hate them now. Last one we went to the bride (my good friends wife) acted like a bridezilla all day. Really spoilt and rude. Going to one later in the year where the stag do was gonna cost my partner 2k to go on. I said absolutely not, we can have a full family holiday for that. This groom (his brother) has barely bothered with us for years and has met our children a handful of times in 3 years. I was TOLD not asked that my children were having a part in the wedding otherwise they couldn’t come. I’ve only ever been to 2 down to earth, fun weddings. But each to their own I suppose.

Unfair to select one example of upscaling events to a ridiculous level. See also 'milestone' birthdays as another example of ridiculous expense. Proms with expensive clothing at aged 16 another one.

I doubt any analysis has been done, though it would be no surprise if those with simpler weddings have a lower divorce rate.

I think the issue is people lose their heads over the event and then cause dress and anxiety for themselves and their guests ! I guess that’s why people on the whole prefer simple kind of events not to say it’s exciting to get wowed by a posh one !!

I don't think the size of the wedding is indicative of the long term sucess of the marriage in itself, but the RL Bridezilla weddings that I've known of didn't last more than a few years before divorce.

From what I've known of the couples, the wedding wasn't the cause, it was a symptom/ manifestation of imbalanced, controlling relationships. Possibly the focus of a couple of years of wedding planning (and sometimes following into planning a family) helped the relationship last as long as it did. Without those "goals" there just wasn't enough substance to the relationship (one did have debts in the equation too). One of the brides had deeply ingrained mental health difficulties including conditions like OCD. It wasn't the wedding itself that was the issue, although her decisions and moods during planning did permanently damage friendships which is unfortunate.

That's different to secure couples having the budget and circumstances to host larger celebrations because they want to celebrate with people they love and because they can.

A good wedding is planned around what is reasonably practical for the couple and guests.

I'm on my third (and last!) marriage.

First wedding was a traditional 'white' wedding in local church. DH went out for a few dinks with his mates the weekend before. I did nothing - hen do's weren't a 'thing' in 1988 😉 We had the reception at a local hotel & a Ceilidh band playing in the evening (I come from an Irish family) which was brilliant as everyone was able to join in the dancing & the music - including children. Unfortunately my first DH died.

My second marriage was a very quiet registry office 'do' with just our closest friends & family members, followed by a lunch again at a local hotel.

Finally I married my lovely DH in a registry office with only his daughter & a close friend without any announcements or fuss.

Sounds like your daughter's wedding was fab Mrs P - My invitation must have got lost in the post LOL!

The irony of
The people who suck the joy out of weddings are the judgmental old bags who moan about "back in my day"

when starting a post saying

God I hate these generational threads, all old people making massive generalisations and tut-tutting about young people.

🙄

Sorry lovey, I do do celebrations, just not performances often designed to weedle money out of people.

I think that’s maybe something you wanted to read rather than something that was actually there. Obviously if someone has a wedding at a zoo, or aquarium, or a castle, the idea is that guests look around the experience.

do I find that more enjoyable / a better experience than dancing for 5 hours in a plastic marquee in on a village green? Yeah, to be honest I do.

I think social media has a lot to answer for. Now everything has to be picture perfect so that their social media posts are envied. When I got married in the 90's we had none of the formality, and instead had lots of family inclusion and fun, it was all a celebration. They weren't so expensive either, now you need a mortgage. Indian weddings in particular have become so showy and you could easily spend a £100k on one. Back when I got married, children were included as it was a family affair. Now they are kept away as they are seen as noisy and messy.
I'm glad both my dc want low key weddings with only close family and friends attending and none of the formality.

Garden - fair enough. Plenty of normal wedding reception venues have nice grounds which provide an attractive backdrop to the event. I find the idea of going off to look around a zoo or do a maze during a wedding a bit strange though. I'm in my 50s and have been to plenty of weddings, including some fairly lavish ones. I've never been to one where there was an kind of activity or stuff to do or explore. Just food, drink, company and music and dancing. Actually I did go to one that had an activity room for the little children.

There's nothing actively wrong with putting other stuff on, but I think your original post made it sound as though weddings were too boring if they didn't have something to do or explore.

A 25 yo relative got married last year. The wedding was in a stunning venue, 6 bridesmaids and all dresses, hair, make up paid for by the bride and groom. Her dress was expensive, she adored it. The food, drinks, entertainment were all designed to make sure the guests had a great time. It wasn’t village hall cheap, but it was fun and relaxed. There is a middle ground

I had a ££££ wedding.
Thousands on a venue, thousands on a dress, thousands on flowers, thousands on food and drink etc, bridesmaids, no kids, everything mumsnet hates and I had the time of my life!
No regrets, it was a cracking party and I look back fondly 10 years later. 😂

Millenial here. I remember these things happening in my 20s and 30s - I think it was our generation that started spending riculous amounts of money and escalating demands around weddings.

I remember family weddings in the 90s that were very much centred around getting married to be married, rather than the wedding itself. Venues were typically a church or registry office (no stately homes or castles) and the receptions were often at someone's home, in a hired hall or a pub function room.