Just Wondering - Have You Ever Met Anyone At A Wedding?

[WerzMyHedAt]

Just that really.

I've spent all my life single except for 1 relationship where we basically carried on our lives separately.

So I've always attended weddings alone. Often not knowing any people other than bride and groom!

I love getting dressed up, seeing the bride's dress, having a tipple and getting a nice slab of cake ngl.

But god I get so bored.

I've always worked in sales so I'm very good at chatting to people and I'm very friendly.

But I've found most other guests to be quite unresponsive.

I wonder, can they not really be bothered because they know we'll never meet again? Am I being delusional to have hope that in attending, I could potentially meet a new friend or even a future date?

I have yet another wedding coming up this summer. It's a 2 hour drive away and I just think... I really can't be bothered any more.

But maybe THIS one would be the one event where I connect with someone.

Unlikely though, right? Or...?

I know the point of a wedding is to celebrate others' love. But I'm kinda done celebrating other people. I've given enough, honestly. I think its time to start being more selfish in life.

....I do have a really gorgeous dress to wear, though.

A close friend met her DH at a wedding. I met a lovely man and there was a spark but he moved abroad two days later - my friend had sat us together on purpose and I asked her why if she knew he was leaving and she had no answer! It did make for an entertaining evening though.

Interesting... 🤔

DH's cousin met his wife at his brother's wedding and pretty quickly told his family she was the one. Been married 20+ years.

I’ve generally only ever chatted to people I know at weddings, friends and family.

Honestly though, if you really want to meet someone, it will more likely be on a night out, pub, party, hobby, through friends or dating apps, than a random wedding.

Its not that I necessarily have in mind that I want to meet someone.

It's more just evaluating whether attending these events it's actually worth the time and effort. Like...'am I going to get anything out of this?' kinda thing

Also can I ask why you've only chatted to people you know?

Is it because no one you didn't know chatted to you?

Or is it that you weren't interested in/open to chatting to new people at these events?

I often feel in the only one to make an effort. And I don't mean flirting. I mean chatting to everyone of both genders, of all ages.

Hmm 🤔

Well, being honest, I haven’t been to a wedding for about 15 years 😆 but the ones I have been to, I was most likely with my husband or friends, and therefore just spent time with the people we knew, most likely because we would have been sat with them on the table etc. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have been polite and chatted to someone I didn’t know if the situation arose, but I wouldn’t have particularly sought out strangers to chat to because I had no need.

Hmm 🤔 thank you
You're right. If I attended a wedding with people I knew, I'd just use it as a chance to catch up with those people.
I am going to go to the wedding this summer. I've already said I'm going and so I don't want to let my friends down.
But tbh I think that's the last one I'm going to bother with!!

Agree, if there’s a group of family or friends who haven’t seen each other for some time they see the wedding as a chance to catch up so no need to socialise with guests they don’t know.

I wouldn't go - but not on the basis that a Hollywood movie might happen, but on the basis that you obviously don't think enough of the people who have invited you to want to celebrate with them.

It's not a clean cut as that.
I knew someone would come along and say something like that

Well I can only go on what you've said - I'm not a mindreader. If you read back your OP and disregard this other information that you've chosen not to divulge then surely you would make the same estimation? That you're making someone else's wedding all about your dating life - that's how it comes across. If you didn't want it to come across that way you should have worded it differently or added in this extra ingredient that would make people view things in another light.

I haven't made it about my dating life.
That's the second time this has been assumed.
First time, I pointed out it's not about that.
Would you be any less judgemental if I had only mentioned new friends and not dating at all?

Depends on the wedding. Friends weddings I get routinely ignored apart from the people we have in common. Same with DHs family, they don't talk to outsiders. My Irish family, I make new friends every time!
My DB met his wife at a friend's wedding, so it happens.

No, you're correct not just about dating, it's about 'what you can get out of it'. Your words. That's the bit I judge, because it sounds awful. The dating part just stood out as the main 'what you can get out of it' motivation, but equally it's weird to use it as speed dating for making friends.

I know of two people, both ex works colleagues who met at weddings and later dated and married. Both are, I think, still married 2/3 decades later.

For one, I knew the bride as I worked with her too and she was very open afterwards about how she purposely set the seating plan so that our work colleague (who'd been single a year or so) was sat next to a single bloke who was a friend of her future husband, so they kind of "hoped" that they'd gel together - and they certainly did on the dancefloor at the evening do!!

Me and DH kind of did the same at our wedding, but it was more of a "joke" thing as I invited one of my works colleagues (in her 20's) who had a revolving door of boyfriends but never stuck with anyone for more than a few weeks, and DH invited his "old" boss, in his 50's who was rich and recently divorced. We regarded it as a social experiment as to whether she'd go for a "Sugar Daddy" so we put them together on the seating plan! They did go for it!! But like all her others, it only lasted a few weeks!

But I don't really think people generally mix with people they don't know at weddings unless they're "forced" together, i.e. single people sitting next to each other. I think most people who know each other through family or work or hobbies etc will tend to stick together to do the small talk and socialising.

It didn't. I specifically said all people of all genders of all ages.

How many times have you attended a wedding alone?

You clearly can't empathise.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe your a saint who would go on and on attending weddings celebrating other people, making efforts to be friendly and buy lovely thoughtfully gifts.

And maybe you'd continue doing that for 10+ years and never once pause for thought as to whether it was doing your life any good.

Well done you. Here have a medal

I met DH at a wedding and we’ve been together twenty years. Total coup de foudre, and I almost didn’t go as I had jet lag.

When I was in the ‘wedding years’ there was no end of copping off that used to go on among the single guests. One of my friends went home with a guy from the wedding band two weddings in a row. Maybe times have changed?

Really?!?!!? 🤣
I have never seen anything like this, no.
How disappointing!

I think it’s always around the seating plan, if the couple have looked at sitting a lone person with like minded people or other singles it makes a difference but in reality I think the lone person is seated wherever there is a gap and that can be isolating. It’s not necessarily about finding a date it’s finding someone to pass the time with.

My DD is planning her seating plan and it’s a minefield and straight away I could spot the table fillers who were not going to have anything in common with the company on their table.

I did - we've been together nearly 27 years.

I met my husband at his sisters wedding. Eyes met across a crowded dance floor and all that😍
We have now been married for over 35 years x

I agree with @Arlanymor somewhat

Weddings aren’t supposed to be ‘doing your life any good’. They’re to celebrate the couple
getting married. If you know other people going and want to catch up with them, then go. If you’re not sure you’ll know anyone and you don’t want to be the only one making the rounds of strangers, best send a nice card and politely decline the invitation.
It does come across a little that maybe you’re slightly resentful that it’s always others getting married? That may not be the case but some of your posts are reading like that. I’m curious why you’ve always been single, apart from one relationship where you basically lived separate lives. Are you actively looking for new friends or a partner? Because weddings aren’t generally the best event to make new connections.

No, I know. In isolation as an occasional event, certainly. But if you are attending frequently, it gets a bit... "🤨"

You're right that there is a bit of resentment I suppose.

I think I am longtime single because.. I think it's just the way I am? I don't think I want a life like the one that is 'typical'. I have had a difficult life and I think that perhaps adds to it.

I would like more friends. I feel like I need new ones

I had a lot of friends and they have all seemed to follow a conventional path. This makes me feel quite different from them, and like I can no longer relate.

I am working on making new friends, but I do have this wedding event on the horizon and also another couple that I'll likely be invited to.

I just wondered whether it was short sighted to be hopeful that mingling with people at this sort of event could result in a connection (friendship or otherwise) that extends beyond the event.

i.e. I'm trying to look at the event like..
I don't want to go but "you never know, you could meet someone interesting!"
...as a way of making me feel more positive about going