Bridezillas- getting married to have a wedding, not the converse

[Moanranger]

I got married 20+ years ago & while we wanted to have a nice wedding, we knew the whole malarky could quickly spiral out of control so we spent our money on decent catering, champagne & music & not so much on dresses, & no bridesmaids stuff - also no hen/stag nights (ugh!)
My younger friends and employees seem to have completely lost their minds, their ability to add up, etc, etc. It seems that no one, even the most sensible down to earth couples are able to get married without completely over-doing it. One friend of mine is hemorraghing money (her words) but keeps on with the expensive add ons. I try to drop hints - are you getting married to have a wedding or having a wedding to get married? They will end up starting married life horribly in debt, stressed and possibly resentful.

One of my staff members is planning to get married in his wife's country & then move their while she quits work and he supports them - and his job skills are not transferable. He was then blithely discussing honeymoon options, including Hawaii, a place me & OH managed to get to after 18 years of marriage. It is so out of my realm of understanding I do not know what to say, sound like an old fogey to them, I suppose, but to me they are creating nothing but problems with their unrealistic expectations.

Anyone else noticed this??

There's nothing wrong with having a big elaborate party to celebrate your wedding, if that's how you want to spend your money. I don't think it reflects on the quality of the relationship at all, or means the bride is only getting married to have a wedding (what an odd thing to suggest!).

It's a shame if people feel they have to spend so much though, if they don't really want to and can't afford it without getting into debt. It is possible to stand up to the expectations/pressure though, and stick to having a small wedding if that's what you want!

I think if you're only doing it once then you should do it the way you want - whether that involves spending £££ or not.
I spent nearly £20k on my wedding last year and it was bloody brilliant. Everyone had a great time. Guests were fed and wined in a beautiful venue, we were lucky enough to get the nicest weather all summer, both families got on really well, and when I said my vows I took it more seriously than any words I have ever said. My husband's speech at the reception was fantastic, brought the house down and he also managed to fit in some sentiment that I will remember for ever. No matter what happens to us we will always have the very happy memories of that day.
I think YABU because nothing is more annoying when you are planning a wedding than people telling you it's a waste of money. Would you come on here moaning if they were all buying new kitchens and you thought the tiles were too expensive. Kitchens need replacing eventually wedding days do not!

God i hate this attitude that the cheaper the wedding the more you love each other. Does anyone actually have figures suggesting that divorces are connected to how expensive the wedding is?
I like thowing good parties and making sure everyone, myself included, has a great time. To me a wedding is the biggest party i'll throw and i'll only do it once so if i want to get married to the man i love in a castle then thats what ill bloody do!

If I'm going to be honest, expensive weddings have more of a tendency to become vulgar.

If I'm going to be honest, expensive weddings have more of a tendency to become vulgar.

If I'm going to be honest, I'd say that expensive weddings which aren't affordable are likely to be vulgar. Because the money is almost certainly going to be spent on flashy gestures which can look wildly out of place. It's all very well wanting something out of OK magazine (Godknowswhy, mind) but the cast of characters are usually going to let things down badly. Unless you can hire in a cast of suitably photogenic characters who can be relied upon to behave like appropriate accessories to the day.

Presumably the OP has copies of all of the couple's bank statements, know exactly how much everyone earns, how much they have saved, how much their parents are contributing? And presumably you also know everything about the relationship, how devoted they are to each other, how long they've been together - all of the above to adequately determine whether or not they're marrying to get married or have a wedding?

I'm getting married in two weeks - and it also feels like we're haemmoraging money. It's not easy handing over £1,500 of your savings to pay a deposit or whatever else. It doesn't mean you don't love your fiance or are just marrying them to have a wedding

Stop being so bloody judgmental.

And, this is totally going to blow your mind - we're getting married twice (for bureaucratic reason).

Wedding 1 - cost £300

Wedding 2 - costs more than £20k.

So do we love each other? Or not?

We spent 8k on our wedding 6 years ago and to be honest, DH's family ruined it for me and I wished we'd eloped. (With just my Dad and DBro if it was up to me)

I do agree with you though OP, it's gone mad. It's a bit like kids' parties though, you can't be the first one to break the spell and say "this is madness, let's all do it on the cheap like the old days!"

Are you certain that they cannot afford expensive weddings?

I think as long as people can afford it...it's up to them how they spend their money.

We spent a lot.....but we could afford it...and don't regret it at all. We had a wonderful day...which was special to us and were glad to have all our family and friends there to share the day with us.

I love all types of weddings - but am amazed at the cost of everything when I watch four weddings / don't tell the bride.
I am helping a friend organise a wedding 'on a budget' and quite a few of us are pitching in to pay for things as wedding presents as they have lived together for 15 years and don't want 14 kettles - I'm decorating the hall (ably assisted by DH) - another friend is organising a car for the bride.

She'd love to be able to splash out a bit more - but is not prepared to go into debt for it.

However - if she spent a whole lot more it would not mean she loved him any more or less.

It is the bride and groom's day and if they want to spend it up - fine.

However, I do think that some of the larger weddings become a bit of a pressure cooker - I have a friend who's DD planned her wedding for 3 years - it cost over £25k and they split up 4 months later - she said afterwards that her whole focus was on the wedding and she did not stop to think actually - I don't love this chap anymore - and she said even if she did - she would not have had the guts to tell everyone this huge event was going to be cancelled.

I just want people to enjoy their day and be happy together. You never know what is round the corner.

It's up to each couple to decide how much to spend on a wedding. I have been to a couple that must have cost in excess of £50k and they were fantastic parties and lovely celebrations of marriage, I have also been a guest at a wedding arranged in less than a month for a budget of £750 and that was a bloody great do too.

What I do take issue with is things like; bride getting the hump because I can't afford £200 for a hen weekend, bride getting the hump because I decline her invite to wedding 5 hours drive away when I am 38 wks pregnant, wedding being a total washout for guests who are left standing about in a car park with no drinks or food for 3 hours while photos are done, wedding that was in an unheated marquee in November (no warning) because bride decided she wanted a £3000 dress so couldn't afford to heat the venue any more, wedding with no food provided "due to budget constraints" and no option to get any from venue (again no warning) but designer bridal dress and 3 vintage cars for bridal party...yes, IT'S UR DAY HON but tbh I have better things to do with my time than fork out however much on petrol/hotel/outfit to then stand about in the cold without so much as a vol au vent.

If you are skint that is fine, I am happy to bring a dish for the buffet or pay for my own meal. I EXPECT to buy my own drinks. just don't make it a crap experience for guests because you spent so much on doves or a harpist that you can't afford to put on a few crisps. Don't have any guests in that case.

There was an episode of 4 Weddings on yesterday that illustrated this nicely, one couple had decided to have a really fancy venue that was a bit out of their price range so got married on a Monday and had hardly any guests, it all looked beautiful but nobody really seemed to be having a very good time, whereas the other 2 cheaper weddings seemed much more fun and celebratory.

In my experience where I've been close to the bride - circa 10 weddings over the past 5 years or so - there is a definite correlation between bridezilla behaviour and the money spent on the wedding.

I agree with other posters - each to their own; what makes you happy as a couple etc. *But... cannot stand bridezilla behaviour and wedding bores. Two examples:

• as bridesmaid for my close friend I was expected to attend 'abroad' hen do, UK hen do, stay over at the castle on wedding night, and attend pamper night before the wedding and pay for my own treatments; throw the cost of my shoes and wedding gift into all of that and the result was I had to sacrifice a summer holiday with DP. I know now that I should have refused but kind of felt obliged.

- sat with my friends having lunch on holiday this year (abroad hen do) and one and a half hours of wedding photography conversation later I was ready to just walk into the sea and keep walking.

I think the important thing to remember is, (especially with very large weddings) that other than your really nearest and dearest family and friends no one else is really that invested in your wedding, certainly not to the level of you and your partner.

I have been to some lovely weddings, lavish and frugal, but when they are done and the day is over, my memory blurs and all the lovely little extra bits and pieces that may, or may not, have cost a fortune are forgotten.

If it's about creating a really special memory for yourselves as a couple and all the extras, ( that are increasing the costs) carry some special, personal meaning for you both - go for it, but if you feel you are trying to make the day magical for everyone else, you can't really as the magic lies in your relationship together, not the day itself.

It's not the amount spent that makes a bridezilla, it's the mad obsessive micromanagement of every tiny detail.

Personally I think brides who get really stressed about wedding preparations are displacing anxiety over the actual marriage onto the practical details of organising the day. The whole pink-and-white sugary fug that surrounds everything bridal makes it quite hard to make time and space to think through hopes and fears about actually being married, and the result is that people end up projecting all their worries onto table favours and suchlike trivialities.

Well I guess it is each to their own and nobody can really tell anyone else what they should be spending their money on. But I agree that weddings seem to have got more extravagant and elaborate over the years.

I wonder how much of this can be laid at the door of the wedding industry which must always be looking for new and novel ways of parting people from their money. I wonder how many people now will think they are being a cheap-skate if they don't have table favours, chocoalte fountains, table magicians, pamper weekends for the hen party, the whole thing recorded for a DVD etc - when 20 odd years ago most people had never heard of or thought of such things.

I think I read recently that the latest craze in the US was some sort of posed photo of the couple at some famous landmark which is taken to mark their engagement and then used in some form in the subsequent shindig.

My mother organised (and paid for) our wedding, not my choice really, but I felt I had to leave that to her as she was very upset about her only daughter emigrating. Had a fantastic day, though: thoroughly enjoyed the food and the flowers and all the guests and the pretty dresses. I think what really made our day was that both dh and I were happy to go with the flow and just enjoy whatever happened. That and the fact that we were genuinely in love, had waited a very long time to be able to be married and have stayed happy ever since. There was definitely magic there...

Intrigued to know why buggering off to an exotic beach would be seen as the restrained economy alternative though: I could stuff a fair few aunts-by-marriage's faces on the cost of the airfare and consider it money well spent.

I agree with Manatee that people who agonise over table favours are probably projecting angst. Personally, I like my relatives and friends, I enjoy seeing them eat and dance, and would not consider that a less enjoyable use of money than an exotic holiday that only benefitted the two of us.

I would respond to mintychocolatechip, but I am too slack-jawed with shock at the amount of judgyness wedged into just one short post...

Perfectly put, Manatee

I still remember our wedding - 21 years ago - as the most perfect day. It was nice, it was moderate, it was traditional, we had about 100 guests and a string quartet, we drank champagne and pimms and beer and there was a lovely sit down meal. It cost about £7,500 excluding the honeymoon, we could afford it and the service was the most important part.

What I find irritating and to a degree I agree with the OP is the spending for the sake of the spending and the having for the sake of having and so little thought on why the wedding is taking place. What I find irksome is a colleague who a year or two ago spent £22,000 on a wedding. Nothing wrong with that if it's what you want and what you can afford. But there is a lot wrong with having to listen to her whine about how unfair it was to have had to come back to work when her baby was 4 months old because they can't pay their mortgage without her salary and the government doesn't understand that when they set the rates of SMP. What I don't understand is how someone can be daft enough to spend £22,000 on a wedding without any forethought about will happen when a baby comes along.

I think that mintychocolatechip makes a good point.

If you are serious about your relationship then you need to plan for the practical as well as having a lovely day. A wedding is one day of your life. For the next 40 odd years you need somewhere to live and if you have children you need to provide for them.

20K is enough to provide a good desposit for a first house in many parts of the country. 20K goes a long way towards paying university fees or the costs of nursery care for any children. If you are a multi millionaire then splash out on your wedding, but a normal couple simply doesn't have that kind of money to waste on one day.

I think the pressure to spend stupid amounts on getting married is why so many people choose to co habit. I think that being married has many practial advantages and its sad that many couples come under pressure to live up to ridicoulous spectations.

Hum, well, we spent £18k ish on our wedding - we already owned 2 houses and had money in the bank and no debt other than our mortgage (which is very manageable) so I don't think we were irresponsible. We do save for DD's future education and have other savings for emergencies etc.

We are quite normal and not millionaires. We didn't feel under pressure to do things a certain way, we pleased ourselves (and hopefully our guests) when making our plans. It's really nobody else's business what we choose to spend our own money.

Tell me about it. I don't give a stuff about the wedding and have been putting off arranging mine for ages and ages. If you could send off a form in the post that makes you married and not have to have any sort of ceremony, that would suit me just fine.

Last of the great romantics....

Yawn, yet another hair shirt wedding thread. I think there is something of the Four Yorkshire Men mentality about these wedding threads.

Why does everyone assume that if you spend a lot of money on a wedding you are automatically getting into debt? Some people have more money than others. What is normal expenditure to me will be extortionate to some friends, and chicken feed to others.

I'm not quite sure how dometic budgetary arrangements relates to love and how meaningful your wedding is.