To be upset at how many people turned up to my dad's funeral in casual clothes?

I'm not concerned about being fashionable, I'm just not going to attend events where more formal dress is expected. Not because I haven't or can't get the clothes but because I don't want to attend the event.

Regarding people wearing "going out clothes" - party frocks/high heels/etc. rather than funeral black, is it simply a case that a lot of people wear the best clothes they have as they don't have anything traditionally appropriate to wear but can't afford or don't want to buy a whole outfit that they may never wear again...

Thank you. I agree with most of what you have said although I'm not keen about what you've said previously about the financial issues.

I have lived most of my life doing obligation and guilt and have decided from now on to not do things I don't want to do, unless it causes extreme harm to another person.

Perhaps I need to clarify.

The whole appropriate to the occasion thing is still up for debate so I won't get into that

However I have nowhere said I have refused to attend any more funerals, that's gutter media skewing of my words. I just said, I would not be attending any more funerals.

I have nowhere said anything about anti-capitalist principles. You may have confused me with another poster.

I don't object to people holding funerals, all I've done is said I won't be attending any.

Please explain why you think I am being selfish or childish.

In the case of funerals, because it's not about you and whether you want to go or not. No one wants to go to a funeral, it's duty, or some of us think so anyway. It's about supporting the family and letting them know you cared about the person. Which, yes, can be done in other ways, but personally if people didn't show for the funeral of someone I was close to, and didn't have a pretty compelling reason not to (not 'I don't feel like putting a pair of black trousers on'), I'd think it was really poor, tbh.

Why is it selfish to not attend formal occasions?

Im going to blow your mind and explain ti you that...wait for it....people are different and react differently to grief.

Just because YOU didn't notice what people were wearing doesnt mean that other people dont react by becoming hyper sociable or fixated on details or determined to give their loved ones what the deceased would consider to be an appropriate goodbye. None of which is wrong just because it isnt the way you reacted.

Not to mention stating the (should be) bleeding obvious that perhaps the reason you didnt notice what everyone was wearing was because they WERE dressed appropriately. Id hazard a guess that if one of the "sea of faces" was above a hot pink mini dress or bikini top you probably would have noticed them...

Agree with you OP. A family member died a few years ago and I was disgusted to see my cousin turn up with a skirt halfway up her arse and leopard print studded stripper heels.

Not sure why @OneElatedOpalDuck is getting such a hard schtick. Probably because it touches a nerve.

Funerals are money-making exercises these days. My DM died last year and what a palaver that was at the funeral place. Do you want her hair straightened? Do you want her nails painted? Do you want us to take her fingerprints? Everything had an extra cost. Absolutely ridiculous. We've turned death into something really very odd. Having a funeral, listening to people say things about my DM that really weren't accurate, listening to songs she would never have picked....none of that helped me 'grieve' or 'mourn' my mother.

I've unfortunately been to several funerals in the past 18 months, some very very traumatic and like @OneElatedOpalDuck I can't see what purpose they served or who felt better after it. And also made the decision unless it's a very very close friend or relative than I'm done with funerals. My auntie will go to one at the drop of a hat, if she passed them once in Tesco. I'm assuming she likes the buffet afterwards because I can't see any other reason to go.

You don't need a big hoopla funeral to say goodbye or 'pay your respects'.

Mu uncles wife wore an all white suit to mine. I honestly didn't care but a lot of other guests were seemingly offended.

@OneElatedOpalDuck - I agree with a previous poster, that funerals can and do help some people mourn the loss of the person they loved. But you are right too - they don’t help everyone and may make things feel much worse. I have been to a number of funerals over recent years - my mum, my FIL, two friends from my knitting group - and they have made me think about what I want - and it is definitely something simpler, a cremation followed by scattering my ashes in the sea.

when push came to shove, very few of the people who came to the funeral helped out in the months and years afterwards. I was lonely, tired, mourning and had four children who also had their own issues. It made me quite cynical about everyone who said, if you need anything just ask.

I don’t want to diminish all the help and emotional support that I got, but the unquestioning, unconditional and consistent support came from my in-laws and parents.

I honestly think we're losing the grip on the "happy medium" over life events. It's all very all or nothing. It's one thing to avoid certain things for personal reasons - I'm averse to birthdays because I've had multiple occasions when "bad things" have happened on my own birthday, or on the birthdays of loved ones, so I skirt the issue as tactfully as I can. I do my best to remember other people's birthdays and send messages though, and I don't judge people who like to make a big deal out of them, or begrudge them their happiness.

I can understand if people find certain events like funerals etc distressing, and really don't want to attend. The problem is when it's used as an opportunity to force those views and feelings on other people and compound potential distress.

What's the point of funerals? A coming together of people grieving a person, to support each other and acknowledge a loss, ideally. Every culture from time immemorial has had rituals to mark death. My DP quite fancied the idea of a Zoriastrian sky burial, but hey ho, he got the standard plot and a horsedrawn hearse because "Gothic".

If we start removing all customs and rituals, we're left with what in terms of opportunity to gather together and mark significant life events? Football? Teams meetings?

I've had 5 close bereavements in 6 years and it has induced a major existential reckoning in many ways. Life is certainly too short and one thing that has really struck me is that navigating personal tragedy is far more bearable with familiar touchstones and rituals to observe in the absence of "knowing what to do".

Yes, culture and traditions evolve, but if a majority feel comfirtable with the way things have always been for them, then what harm does it do to leave them to it.

I think the issue of funeral garb is indeed a metaphor for a world in flux and changing too rapidly for many. As a species we thrive on security and routine at a basic level, and that seems to be being eroded overall at an alarming rate.

I'll start by saying i'm very sorry for your loss.

But does it?

That's my question.

Or is just 'societal expectations' that we do it? shored up by a funereal system which costs thousands of pounds for the most basic system.

I think my BF 5 year old daughter could have benefitted more from that money being spent on her future rather than a day that she didn't even understand.

You said it passed in a blur and you didn't really know what was going on so how helpful was it for you to do all the organising and dress little children and yourself to attend an event when you were all traumatised?

What exactly was supportive about people putting on an outfit and turning up? that couldn't be achieved by all the really supportive things that people do after a bereavement? did you not have people around that showed they loved you and supported you outside of that day?

funerals are traumatic. My husband died young and I was a single parent mother with four children and an unknown future without the man who I loved and had spent every day of my life since my 20’s. The man I thought I would grow old with and spend my retirement with and hold hands when it was time for us to go. This was my romantic notion of what life would be like. The reality of death like life is more prosaic, ephemeral and mundane.

The day passsd in a blur, I was dazed and my children were very little. I was numb. I didn’t really know what was going on. But I had people around that I know loved and cared for me. The event is as much to support those left behind as to honour those who have gone.

@OneElatedOpalDuck

funerals help some people psychologically. So you cannot say they are a money making exercise that’s pointless

Read the post I just made about my best friends funeral before you make unnecessary shitty comments.

Oh just don't do that in the first place. Seems like you're the one that hopes to be cool with your use of emojis.

The social expectations are on the guests to turn up in an appropriate outfit for that event. So what if the bride doesn’t wear white to a church wedding. It’s the bride’s wedding and her choice. But to somehow claim that it’s ok for all her guests to turn up looking like a bag of shit because they can’t be arsed to make the effort is beyond me! The thread is not about what the organiser of the event looks like as they will have come dressed appropriately for their “theme” it’s what the others who attend those events wear.. and if they look like complete slobs then that’s an issue with them, not what colour a bride is wearing.

@OneElatedOpalDuck

you’re so cool and subversive 😎

@grumpygrape

unfortunately you will have funnels to attend in the upcoming years, no doubt about it

Yup.

And all the people who think a bride should only wear white if a church wedding/first wedding/is a virgin or hasn't lived with the groom before marriage.

So as you say, no shared understanding or agreement on what these 'social expectations' actually are.

I saw someone complaining the other day on SM that the Father of the bride 'giving his daughter away' should only apply if she was living at home with her Dad before marriage and otherwise, it was just performative for social media.

I am also retired and mostly wear joggers etc, but I do have a couple of pairs of black trousers (they are stretchy and comfortable, but they don't look like joggers) and a couple of dark coloured long-length blouses as well as a jacket and a dark coloured proper coat. I have worn them for many funerals - not dresses or veils or hats, but relatively smart.

My son wears joggers etc for work as he works in a warehouse. He can't afford a suit, but a few years ago he got a black blazer type jacket, a white shirt and some black trousers from a supermarket. He too has worn this to several funerals. His main problem is shoes, but he got away with plain black trainers the last time and they looked OK.

You don't have to be fashionable, just neat and smart and not too casual and these clothes last for years because they aren't worn so much (we hope).

I give up. Perhaps it's time for everyone to have a state issued uniform.

Except you'll be told time and time again on here that the "rule" extends to anything with a white/cream/pale yellow/pale pink/pale blue background even with a floral or any pattern. Which just goes to show these things are not agreed upon or have a general understanding.

The white at a wedding thing is clearly about not wearing anything that might clash with or upstage the bride, if it's a white wedding. Again, not rocket science. White with a pattern on is not traditionally bridal.