Who is a wedding for?

[TeenMinusTests]

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?

When I was married almost 50 years ago , the done thing was fairly local wedding , fairly inexpensive.
My DM and his friends worked in the catering dept of a large car factory and they did a bit of catering on the side.
They provided a sit down hot meal for 70 daytime guests and then a evening buffet for 120. Nobody travelled more than 20 miles and we had a free bar .
Twenty years ago my DD was married and it was so different . Wedding at a local church and wanted the meal and the evening do local too as she didn't want people to have far to go home . Her best friend came from Germany ( army family) but stayed with family , and an uncle travelled from Scotland but again stayed with family .
I think it's totally what the married couple want but they do need to consider the cost to their guests . Hotels etc all add to the costs for guests and not everybody can afford it .

A for me, and if I remarry A again, with the caveat I will probably get married near my home and family are scattered however I will budget to pay for basic hotels (premier inn level) for all main guests who need to travel, free bar is a given too and I don't want gifts, will do a charity collection perhaps, to be discussed if the occasion arises, haven't actually bothered divorcing exh yet, we aren't bothered

@GivenUpEntirely

C - it's about the bride and groom. Guests shouldn't have to bend over backwards to make the day special, nor should the bride and groom make a special effort to make the day 'accessible to all'.

It's about being married - that's what make a wedding special. Not the party!

Totally agree with this!

Ours was an A and I compromised on my dream venue to accommodate family. I do regret that in some ways and I feel that the ideal scenario probably lies between A and B.

I think in previous generations A was more common, but now weddings tend be more along the lines of B.

I think a lot of that is driven by our social media obsessed culture. A lot of the choices made by couples seem to be driven by appearances above anything else.

I have to say, that some of the best weddings I went to when I was in my 20s were A style, and more recently weddings I've attended in my late 30s have been B style, and frankly pretty soulless affairs, but maybe that's because I'm getting on a bit

I'd say C) Instagram

I agree that the advent of Say Yes to the Dress and others of that ilk, have raised the stakes in terms of spending more money and having more and more ‘things’

When we married, thousands of years ago, we had friends and family, a reception in the in laws garden and a few days honeymoon in a seaside town.

Now it seems as though there must be dressing gowns with Bride, Bridesmaid, MoB etc, doves released, owls flying down the aisle with the rings, a statement venue and a lavish honeymoon. All of which is fine if you can afford it, but is it a better day than something more simple.

For me, I always felt it was about my husband and I and God (the spiritual aspect was the number one most important thing) and then our immediate family. But I wanted an intimate wedding, and don't like fuss or flashy displays which would make me feel embarassed and self conscious. In my family (Asian) weddings go on for a week and involve lots of wailing and crying and showering with gifts which I just found...alot. And gatherings where dozens of people come into the house just to look at the bride, who isn't supposed to react except to look sad. It's all...ALOT.

So tiny wedding, no flashiness was what I wanted.

In general I do think the couples wishes should come first. And they shouldn't demand too much from guests.

It's too simplistic to divide weddings into two types. Every wedding should be special to the couple, but there's so much pressure to put on a spectacle/performance and most couples are too young to understand what's special to them. Most people marry around the same sort of age as the rest of their friendship peer group, so it becomes a hectic round of weddings over a handful of years with the constant worry that your event is being compared to everyone else's.

The best weddings I've been to have been to were all very relaxed with the emphasis on a good time being had by all. Looking back on them, they were all older-than-average wedding couples and they generally all had a very small ceremony followed by a big party - often on different days.

Ceremony and celebration, they're different things. You might want to share them with different people.

There are two parts to a wedding.

The actual Marriage Ceremony, .the meal and celebration .

Here in Ireland the "afters" can go on all night and longer. A real hoolie

Years ago when I was new here, I was out to shop on Saturdays and on a few occasions stopped off at churches for Mass and it happened to be a wedding.
Lovely and dignified. Often a family member singing. Once a lad playing the trumpet, The church crowded but reverent and solemn. Beautiful

After there would be the celebration also in stages,,, a meal, that lasted hours in true Irish fashion .. and some with young families would go home then and the hoolie would start an d on they went all night long. Huge cost to the family...

So a wedding for everyone.

@TeenMinusTests precisely...which is why C is the option.

Guests aren't expected to attend - no harm done and no offence taken. Bride and groom aren't expected to throw a wedding that matches someone else's idea.

Your options are too binary. Either the B&G have it all their way, or they have a wedding that suits someone else's expectation. Many people manage a middle ground that makes for a wonderful memory of a marriage that started well.

If I had to choose I’d go A but for me it’s more about the marriage and the life long vows rather than the party.
Sadly B is far more common nowadays. I hate the whole big day thing.

C - somewhere in between.

With our wedding DH’s family had to travel anyway and so did most of our friends. Everyone isn’t in one location so we had no choice but to pick a location knowing 90% of guests would have to travel. In that situation it makes sense to pick a neutral place so you don’t favour one side. We actually picked a location close to my family as it made it easier for my grandparents to attend. However, this meant we had some dead wood from my side that found it easy to attend for the free food. Having my grandparents there was important and therefore we put up with the dead wood. However, that doesn’t mean we had to give in to FIL’s whingeing that our marriage wasn’t a real marriage because we weren’t getting married in a Catholic Church.

Modern society has ruined what a wedding day symbolises. The bigger the B&G go,the more they have lost sight.
Your wedding day is about vowing to love each other to be there for each other forever etc... it should be family a few friends.
I hate how it has turned into,200+ guests
Fireworks,doves releasing,best man expected to be a comedian,the bouquet of flowers the mothers of B&G have to receive ,I really don't get the length of the day and the hassle around them. Who will babysit our kids who are very clingy to me(being young and like most their age),sitting through the entirety of so many speeches, yes best man gives a speech but can the B&G just stay quiet along with the priest and mothers and kids of the couple. Seriously,let one person give a speech and let it be. The length of these days drag on forever and they are all the same just different venues, esp the abroad ones. Really???? Do you need to invite the whole family and friends to spend a fortune and put them under real pressure from childminding to money matters etc...please if you are getting married abroad just invite the parents or brother and sisters,please skip the friends invites,unless you are young and in your twenties,nobody wants to spend their few well deserved holidays being planned around someone else,I can't think of anything anything worse.
It's just immature and silly.
I think a beautiful day sounds like a late afternoon intimate ceremony with a handful of people and a lovely meal afterwards with everyone relaxed and everyone can go home at whatever time they want,they are not stuck in a ridiculous venue miles away where they are forced to stay the night.
It's a sacred vow and that moment is rarely cherished or even noticed with all the "extras" thrown in

@douliket I don't think its just modern society. I mean, in many cultures, large weddings were the norm. My grandma had hundreds of people at her wedding in 1950s singapore and they had it at a restaurant too- in china they would have invited the whole village. Its just that their lives were a lot simpler; it was rare to even have a television so these large weddings were 'entertainment',and anyway all the relatives and fellow villagers would have been offended if not invited. Its why second and third generation Asians have these mega weddings that costs tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds- they are just aping their ancestors but with all the trappings of modern consumerism. And of course there is a lot more you can spend your money on these days, most of which are more enjoyable than a wedding.

From a Western perspective, big fancy weddings seem to have been for the the wealthy and titled; what seems to drive these huge bashes these days is the growth of the middle class. The fact that many delay marriage till their 30s mean that they have more disposable income to spend on a large party. Social media also plays a role.

You forgot C (the wedding your mother always wanted...)

Bitter - moi?!

@habibihabibi was going to say the same:
C: Instagram

The hen do abroad, matching dressing gowns and dress codes for guests are all about social media

Doulikiet, I agree the weddings abroad. I think the couple should limit guests and pay the travel costs of those attending. Unfair to out the financial pressure onto the guests. Not to mention quite often the couple has already had to get married in their own country first anyway for legal reasons so the guests aren’t actually attending the actual wedding anyway.

So many moan about not being able to get on the property ladder or have no savings yet spends thousands on a big party. Priorities appear wrong for some.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss every single person I know who married abroad had family abroad i.e. parents siblings etc. I have a friend who had an Italian wedding, the wife was Italian and they tried to organize an English wedding (in addition to the Italian wedding for the family and the 90 year old grandma) but no one was terribly interested in going to exeter when you could go to a wedding in Italy with the amazing food. Probably costs the same in terms of travel too.

I am having a Singaporean wedding and an English wedding (in London) and most people were not remotely interested in the London wedding, this was discussed before the pandemic. Even though I kinda hinted the Singapore wedding was mainly for the benefit of the family in Singapore.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss also bought my flat before embarking on wedding organization. Though to be fair, my deposit for my london flat was 70k and I don't think forgoing the wedding would have helped me buy property when the deposit is more than 3 times of the average wedding

Neither. It should be what the bride and groom want, but with no expectations of others to bend over backwards for them. Likewise guests shouldn’t feel miffed if the arrangements don’t suit - just decline the invite!

Me and my siblings all married in the late 90s early 00s, and were mainly A, we knew we wanted our immediate families so checked and announced dates with them. We all got married locally and it was very much a multi generational family thing but each different and special to us.

BIL found a very demanding bride, chose a ridiculous venue with no accessibility for anyone with mobility problems, then invited elderly relatives. No discussion on dates but expectation that we would all attend, DD be bridesmaids etc and attend numerous fittings during term time on a week day when I worked full time. Huge rows with MIL over guest list with old family friends of BIL vetoed including godparents as SIL to-be didn’t like them despite only meeting them once for 5 minutes. So much stress for a wedding that didn’t last 2 years. BIL has since apologised to everyone inconvenienced and not invited or uninvited.

We got married 35 years ago in very traditional circumstances, ie my parents paid for the wedding.

This meant that it was very much my mother's day. She decided on who was to be invited and things like the food.

I did get to pick my colours :).

Honestly, I much prefer this approach to the bridezilla one.

My DS's wedding was lovely, but there were so many opportunities for things to go wrong (eg with all the little decorations). They didn't, thankfully, otherwise the day wouldn't have been 'perfect'.

What was common in both weddings is that we involved family and friends in the arrangements, eg DD and I made the cake, someone else made table centres, the favours were a small group with prosecco.

I remarried ten years ago and since then my daughter and two nieces have got married. They were all lovely weddings in their own way, but when I think about any of them I think about who was there and the lovely times we all had together celebrating a wonderful occasion. It is the couple’s wedding day, but when you have something to celebrate it’s about who you share it with. On that basis it makes sense to make arrangements that mean the people you want to be there can come. That might mean including children, or staying local, or not choosing a random weekday to make an expensive venue affordable.

Neither. We saw our wedding the same as we see our marriage: for us. We eloped, just the two of us and it was a brilliant day. I can't stand the 'but a wedding is for the faaaaaamilllyyyyy' attitude.

Our wedding was for us. We went abroad and had a day to ourselves. Not quite an elopement as we were up front about our plans. Parents were supportive but a few extended family members were unhappy. Frankly I didn't fancy the stress and expense of putting on a nice party for family and I don't feel guilty about it at all.