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Original poster

Who is a wedding for?

101 replies

TeenMinusTests · 23/09/2021 14:46

When DH and I got married, back in the last century, we wanted our friends & family to share our day. So far so good.

So we arranged it:

  • in an easily accessible location
  • on a date to suit the most important family members
  • timings so those with children could get home that day
  • children invited

I am regularly amazed on MN of people:

  • expecting / putting strong pressure on others to travel abroad or to a distant location
  • expecting bridesmaids etc to stay overnight even when they have young children, but not inviting those children
  • not running dates past key family before booking but then expecting them to attend
  • etc.

We wanted to make it as easy as possible for our guests to share the day with us.
So many others seem to think it is 'their' day and others should be expected to put themselves out as much as necessary to dance attendance.

So my question is:
A) do you view a wedding as something the hosts should make easy & pleasurable for the guests?
OR
B) is a wedding the bride & groom's 'special day' so everyone else is beholden to make it special for them?

OP posts:
RobinHumphries · 23/09/2021 15:45

When I got married my sister gave me a list of dates that she couldn’t do because she was on holiday and told us otherwise it couldn’t be a week day cos of work / kids at school……
Roll on a few years she got married on a Friday. Even my parents were a bit 🤨

bloodywhitecat · 23/09/2021 15:46

Ours was for us, it was what we wanted but it was small, local and just as lockdown was lifting and it was short notice. It was also important to us to be able to share our day with a few friends and close family so we paid to put them up in a local hotel.

aSofaNearYou · 23/09/2021 15:48

The couple weren't bothered though as they said their wedding wasn't just about them, it was about a whole community.

I appreciate this example was about another culture, but broadly speaking I just don't think this is the case for most British people and I find the logic a bit strange and entitled. What have most marriages in the UK got to do with community? It's a contract between two people. My DPs family and my family don't live close together and have very little to do with each other, us marrying will have no impact on who each of their family includes, they're not going to suddenly become enmeshed.

When I say the day is about the bride and groom, I don't mean it needs to be a massive show or a massive deal, as most seem to assume. I just mean it is fundamentally about them, and a contract they, and nobody else, are making. People tend to jump to the conclusion that you must be demanding and entitled if you think your wedding day is just about you but actually, I think it's the other way around. It's quite odd to think that two other people marrying each other is about you when you aren't either of those people.

Interested in this thread?

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Weddings
CarrotSticks23 · 23/09/2021 15:51

But again I'd hardly call a fancy dress wedding particularly demanding.

If the B+G want fancy dress then they can have fancy dress.

If you want your parents to come it's probably a good idea to run it past them. If you want everyone to come then maybe don't have a star wars wedding, but equally if your a massive starwars fan who has always dreamed of a star wars themed day then knock yourself out. If people can't deal with star wars dress up they can not come

I don't think someone should give up on their dreams of a star wars day because aunt hilda doesn't want to wear a brown Cape.

I think emailing weddings are things like the B+G insisting everyone provides £100 gift vouchers. Or everyone writes a poem about the bride. Or bridesmaids lose weight or die their hair. Its not a fancy dress themed party

Original poster
TeenMinusTests · 23/09/2021 15:52

Maybe the issue for me is that many people get invited to 'B' weddings, but still feel a strong social obligation to go, they feel the bride and groom will be upset / cross if they don't attend, even though the bride and groom have not apparently considered the cost/logistics of attending.

I guess I'd be happier to travel 200 miles so that the bride's grandmother can also attend (ie balancing needs of guests) than because 'it's such a pretty location for the photos' even though no one lives anywhere near.

OP posts:
CarrotSticks23 · 23/09/2021 15:52

Demanding*

minatrina · 23/09/2021 15:52

@bloodywhitecat

Ours was for us, it was what we wanted but it was small, local and just as lockdown was lifting and it was short notice. It was also important to us to be able to share our day with a few friends and close family so we paid to put them up in a local hotel.
Oo this is a good point - yes, I chose a location that was significant to me and my partner, but it was also local to the majority of our families because it was important to me to have them there. Not directly because I thought it was important for it to be easy for them to get to no matter what. There were other special locations we could have chosen, but they'd have been more inconvenient for guests, so the convenient one won out.

Equally I can't see how it's wrong in any way to get married abroad - as long as you accept that this choice surely reflects the fact that having all your family and friends there isn't a priority for you and your fiancé, and that people are likely to decline and you don't have a right to guilt people into going.

ABitOfAShitShow · 23/09/2021 15:55

B

Hugoslavia · 23/09/2021 15:56

Absolutely with you on this one OP! It's not just the bride's day! Why wouldn't you want to make the day as much fun as possible easy to attend! We had ours late afternoon to allow people the time to travel, have lunch and get changed first instead of showing up to the ceremony ravenous, wearing crumpled clothes (and also to keep it short and sweet). We had a few informal photos at the reception venue which was conveniently located next door to the church, so that guests weren't stuck waiting bored outside of the church whilst we had loads taken. The venue had lovely gardens and we set up outdoor games for the children and had a room for toddlers and babies to nap. We had a quiet area with comfortable seating the the oldies away from the band. We just tried to make it informal, fun and relaxed. By contrast we had to travel to hours to my sils in the baking heat for her ceremony, then there was a four hour gap between the ceremony and the reception so that they could drive around with a photographer for the afternoon having hundreds of photos taken in front of various landmarks. We were stuck in no man's land next to a busy highway, a small beach and a fast food joint in our wedding clothes in the baking sun for 4 hours. The whole ceremony was all about them and how impressive the photos would look. I just felt that little thought was given to the guest experience.

CarrotSticks23 · 23/09/2021 15:59

But what difference does it make? If your travelling 200 miles your travelling 200 miles. Sounds like you need to grow a backbone, if you don't want to go to a wedding don't go.

Unless all family live in one place guests are going to have to travel. No one can consider the logistics of every guest arriving, and there's people who I would expect maybe not come because they live too far away but would still invite.

Original poster
TeenMinusTests · 23/09/2021 16:01

Just to be clear: I have no problem with people getting married abroad or in north Scotland etc, as long as they are happy to accept that others are more likely and to be positively expected to say they can't attend.

It's the ones who make it inconvenient but then put pressure on people that get me.

(And the ones that dictate colour codes for non wedding party guests).

OP posts:
CarrotSticks23 · 23/09/2021 16:03

I think probably OP what has actually happened is when my grandma got married 60 years ago she lived in the same village as her parents, siblings. All her friends and her whole life was within about a 50 mile radius.

Now I have family all over the world. With social media It's really easy to keep in touch with people who live 100s of miles away from me and therefore get invited to weddings that are much further afield. People get married older and therefore have more chance to make friends throughout the country and more chance for friends to move away from home

I'm not sure it's anything to do with people becoming more selfish and demanding, and more to do with the fact that people are more spread out

MrsDThomas · 23/09/2021 16:04

B

But if its our if the way or getting too expensive, id make my excuse and avoid.

AnotherFruitcake · 23/09/2021 16:05

@DDUW

A wedding is for the families of the bride and groom.

Marriage is a solemn undertaking between the bride and groom. The wedding carries all sorts of historic cultural expectations around the role of the parents if the b&g. Therefore relatives of the parents will take offence if not invited. The bride and groom are incidental where the wider family is concerned.

See, I think that’s complete nonsense. Certainly in my case, I married an individual, with whom I’d already had a long and happy relationship, not his family. I’m quite fond of his family, but they’re largely irrelevant to me except insofar as they concern DH, as are mine to him. You may choose to see your marriage as some kind of solemn dynastic clan undertaking, but it’s 2021, and my marriage was an individual legal undertaking, to make certain legal/financial etc things more straightforward in an already established relationship between two people.

No family were invited, or forewarned. No one took offence at not being invited, because frankly, we’d never been going to do 200 guests, speeches, name changing, white dress and being walked down the aisle, because I think that is both expensive, a faff, and tinged with reactionary bullshit.

Mommabear20 · 23/09/2021 16:08

Is there an in between option?

That's how DH and I tried to do ours. It's our day and so did it how we wanted, but we compromised on a couple of aspects for the few key members of our family that we simply couldn't get married without (parents mainly).

Mariell · 23/09/2021 16:11

In the last few years I’ve noticed first weddings of the younger generation to be more pretentious than the next and like they are trying to outdo everyone else.

minatrina · 23/09/2021 16:16

@TeenMinusTests

Just to be clear: I have no problem with people getting married abroad or in north Scotland etc, as long as they are happy to accept that others are more likely and to be positively expected to say they can't attend.

It's the ones who make it inconvenient but then put pressure on people that get me.

(And the ones that dictate colour codes for non wedding party guests).

But I don't really think that's to do with it being "their day" vs "everyone's day", I think that's just a case of entitled self-centred people being entitled and self-centred, regardless of who a wedding is "for".

Oh, don't get me started on enforced colour schemes. Not only irritating but also supremely tacky!

milveycrohn · 23/09/2021 16:17

I have always assumned that destination weddings were to actually avoid having guests.
I would not go to one, unless it was a DC of mine.
Other than that, a wedding would not be a wedding without all the drama associated with them!!!!

drpet49 · 23/09/2021 16:24

Should be A (ours was) but almost every other wedding I’ve attended has 100% been B unfortunately

^This. Too many spoilt princes and princesses nowadays.

firstimemamma · 23/09/2021 16:29

Yanbu op, we got married in June this year and thought of others as you did while still doing it our way and making it a special day in the way that we wanted.

  • picked a location that was a 7 hour drive for us but only 1 hour for all the guests
  • picked a day in half term so no children had to miss school
  • food and drink carefully selected with everyone's needs considered
  • colouring books / activities for the children provided

The things we were bothered about were having it small and simple in a lovely location, me having a lovely dress, having confetti and amazing photos and great food so all the boxes were ticked for us.

peboh · 23/09/2021 16:30

@TeenMinusTests
We compromised on our venues, guest lists and colour schemes. If I had the chance again, dh and I would have booked and planned everything without telling anyone and just sent out invites nearer the time. If people wouldn't be able to come, then they wouldn't come. I don't see why a couple have to appease their family when they're the ones getting married. I wasn't marrying my in laws, and he wasn't marrying my family.

EnidFrighten · 23/09/2021 16:30

Bit of both, guests will have conflicting likes and needs, you choose what you like that does the best job of accommodating everyone's needs. I don't think it's so bad that they're not just ham sandwiches in a village hall anymore.

MrsMoastyToasty · 23/09/2021 16:35

We got married in England in the days before the rules changed about where you could get married so our only options were church, registry office or elope.
Once people were allowed to marry in venues such as hotels and football stadiums then it became a game of one-upmanship.

2Hot2Handle · 23/09/2021 16:39

I went with A for ours (I’d say we, but I did all the planning and my laid back DH was happy with whatever). To me, the most important thing was getting married with those we loved around. Love and happiness for us was the overwhelming sense I felt on the day, so I feel we got the right balance.
I guess it depends on what the couple getting married would be happiest with, but if they're decent people, surely they’d want their invited guests to enjoy themselves and not be too inconvenienced?

JayAlfredPrufrock · 23/09/2021 16:42

The time I truly understood what a wedding was for was when I saw a couple celebrating with family and friends in a marquee in a field on their farm. The air was filled live and happiness for the couple. It was a truly special feeling that managed to briefly soften my hardened heart.

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