....in thinking the cost of weddings is becoming beyond todays young people

[concernedrose]

DS is planning on getting married next year. He and fiance both have good jobs but are paying off student loans, and pay £850 a month in rent for a tiny one bedroomed flat. They also are trying to save for a mortgage. So imagine their (and our) horror at the price of weddings. It seems that to be able to do everything for under £10,000 is virtually impossible in the area we live in. And they have accepted they wont be able to have a honeymoon immediatly after the wedding. This seems a vast sum of money to me, but even calling in favours from friends and relatives, (ie cake making, invitation making, flower arranging) it looks like this is what it is going to cost. Oh well, anyone for beans on toast!!!

[curryeater]

Lueji is right, weddings were traditionally between broke young people starting out and the bride's parents paid for them and the wedding gifts enabled them to set up home. I think all the people saying "the money would be better spent on a deposit for a house" are talking about the traditional function of wedding presents, rather than the wedding itself.
I don't think weddings are relatively more expensive, it would be traditional to invite every single family friend and relative and they not pay a penny - because it was part of family life that by the time you had adult children this would be the way you would have an excuse for a massive family party, basically.

schoolgovernor - whether or not you were living in a council house, the release of all that stock onto the housing market made it a once-and-never-again buyers' market. It's all gone now and houses are blisteringly expensive relative to salaries. There is no point getting all bitter about twenty year olds with iphones when you had to use yoghurt pots and string, etc etc because the coupld of hundred spent on an iphone is worth bugger all compared to the cost of university (without which you cannot even apply for a job) and the cost of the crappy little flat you aspire to one day buy, well into your thirties. A 17 year old on minimum wage, let's face it, is at best going to go onto adult minimum wage. And do you have any idea how many young people - with degrees - have to work for free? I know it looks like they are all having such fun with their apple gadgets and alcopops and funny looking hair and trousers down their arses. But the reality if you are young now is pretty shit and I just want to stand up for them in the face of all this Harold Bishop-esque jowl-flobbling.

[LaCiccolina]

Read thread. Lots of great points just can't get past the stonking word 'becoming' in op post.

Becoming? It went past it about 20yrs ago unless just ceremony!

[squoosh]

Well Beveridge I personally find that Scottish weddings are very low key in comparison to Irish weddings. Scottish weddings end at midnight/1am!

I was so surprised!

[FellatioNels0n]

Oh God Hully PLEEEEAAAASE tell me every post you've made on this thread is a wind up, and not just the one about tonal sashes. Please, I beg of you.

[atthewelles]

Irish weddings are torture. They start at about 1pm and go on until about 4pm. A huge percentage of that time is spent hanging around outside the church waiting for the couple to have loads of photographs taken before they leave for the hotel; then hanging around the hotel for hours, starving to death, while the couple have another ten thousand photos taken; then hanging around after the meal while the room is set up for 'the band'. The band usually seem to think they're playing in Wembley Stadium so no conversation whatsoever is possible once they start.

[atthewelles]

Sorry, they go on until 4 am not pm.

[THERhubarb]

Of course everything is better is Scotland is it not? Reminds me of the Harry and Paul pisstake of the Scotsman in an English pub.

Again it's all about expectations. We live in a marketed world now. Adverts are everywhere; on Facebook, on iPods, newspapers, TV, bus shelters, internet, email accounts, etc. Almost everything that young people are into are taken over by ads. And these ads tell us what we need, what we should be wearing, listening to, eating, liking, watching and talking about.

All these ads give people a false sense of how the other half live. This raises expectations and they suddenly find themselves in a competition to have the best wedding, the best dress, the most guests because surely that's what most people do now isn't it?

Our grandparents got married in a church, wearing a gown passed down the family with just a few close family and friends present and then a small buffet would be prepared in the Church Hall.

Our parents still went for the church wedding but this time it was a little more grand with perhaps a new wedding dress that would be converted into a Christening gown for the first baby. Friends and family still provided things like the cake and buffet food and the reception was most likely held in either a Church hall or the local working mans club.

Children now feel as though they should provide a day to remember with no expense spared because they don't want anyone to think that they are tight or broke. There are Wedding Open Days in most hotels, wedding websites and wedding magazines to tell you what you need and how much it will cost and of course everyone is out to milk the average wedding for all it is worth.

And there's no point in sitting them down and telling them that it doesn't need to be this way because they will have been invited to super posh wedding themselves by friends and will feel the need to reciprocate, otherwise what on earth would their friends think of them?

So we might have been able to keep the cost of our weddings down but that is not what our children will want. They don't want a budget wedding, they want to be like everyone else and have an expensive wedding with all the trimmings.

[squoosh]

I love Irish weddings! I've never had to hang around whilst the couple are having their photos taken.

[Thumbwitch]

Yes but you're assuming these people have very sheep-like tendencies, Rhubarb, and feel the need to conform. Thankfully there are plenty of people who don't (goatlike! ) and I have been to all sorts of weddings, from enormously expensive (yes, the 3 most expensive weddings I went to were the 3 shortest-lived marriages! it does work...) to back garden barbecue, pretty much (still going strong).

I'm actually a bit of a sucker for a wedding, and have only really been bored at one, where half the guests were business colleagues of the father - they all left before the evening entertainment, and no new people came because everyone had been invited to the whole thing, so it all got pretty jaded by about 10pm (and I was there with quite a few good friends too!)

[AnEventfulEvening]

Anyone see Celebrity Wedding Planner last night?

Budget £12k.
They had a helicopter.
AND an Aston Martin.

[AnEventfulEvening]

oh AND a Horse and carriage.

[atthewelles]

Seriously Squoosh? That is my abiding memory of most of the weddings I've been to - the bride and groom disappearing for ages to have zillions of photos taken.

[ComposHat]

yep photos photos always photos . hours of the things. 'can we have all the bride's family who have brown eyes, a pet cat and and two or more vowels in their middle name in this shot please.

Everyone else stands around bored out of their tiny minds. for this reason there will be no photographer at our wedding. We feel that expecting people yo stand around for hours bored and hungry to be rude in the extreme.

[THERhubarb]

I am a cynic Thumbwitch and all around me I just see people trying to conform. Everyone has to have the latest gadget. People are up at 6am on Boxing Day to be first at the sales. Parents will do anything to get their child the latest must-have toy for Christmas.
I am pleased there are still exceptions but I reckon the majority of people succumb to the pressure to conform. Those around you may not as we choose our friends who generally live the same kind of lives we do.

My brothers and sisters all had the same 90s kind of weddings with large permed hair, blancmange dresses, dozens of similarly attired bridesmaids and all had their receptions in the Church hall with a hired DJ and a buffet.

I've been to other weddings including church weddings and hotel weddings and most were a drag. They didn't feel personal, they felt formal and staged.

Actually there was one, he had been wed before and they had their reception at a local cricket club. The food was provided by family, I think there was a band and the families knew how to have a good time. It wasn't a wedding that took itself seriously at all, it was a celebration and I think that's what missing with many weddings. They are all too caught up with tradition and formality and pleasing everyone that they forget they are supposed to celebrate. Hence the bride and groom are the ones still sober who retire early, shattered after their stressful day.

[atthewelles]

I agree with Rhubarb. An awful lot of weddings seem to be about ticking boxes with a checklist compiled from all the other weddings the bride has been to. Fair enough, if that's what you want and you can afford it.
But it is sad to see people putting off getting married for years because they can't afford expensive chair covers and a four course meal for 150 guests and three bridesmaids etc. or getting themselves into huge debt to pay for these things.
There are lots of ways to make the day special without spending an absolutel fortune. But loads of people seem to feel a wedding day won't be a proper event if they don't spend thousands of pounds on making it identical to every other wedding the guests have been to.

[squoosh]

atthewelles the bride and groom go off to have their photos taken but it doesn't interfere with the other guests enjoyment as far as I'm aware. Normally happens at the venue so people are busy chatting and mingling.

I don't need the bride and groom in my line of sight at all times in order to hav a good time. The photo thing only bores me if I'm actually in the wedding party.

[SaladIsMyFriend]

I agree totally with Rhubarb too. I advise anyone who mentions getting married to go to Vegas and just do it, and have a lovely holiday at the same time.

[CaseyShraeger]

We had a grand total of five formal group photos taken at our wedding (there wasn't room to fit everyone in one photo so we had all the male guests then all the female guests; then we had the whole wedding party, both immediate families together, and both sets of parents together), and popped out later during dinner to have a couple of posed photos (two setups and about four photographs) of the two of us together. No one had to stand around bored or hungry.

[squoosh]

I agree that people are too conformist when it comes to weddings. Strong, opinionated people become oddly submissive to the Big Book of Wedding Rules. It's nice to see people mix it up.

[squoosh]

Love to elope, definitely not to Vegas though. Ugh.

[atthewelles]

It does kind of interfere with your enjoyment though Squoosh if you have to hang around outside the Church in the cold for ages waiting for them to leave, or are nearly falling over with hunger and trying not to drink too much while waiting for the meal to begin.
I was at one wedding where they provided canapes and some piano playing while the photos were being taken, and that was nice.

[squoosh]

If that's been your experience well then yes I'm sure it did interfere with your enjoyment of the day. Personally, it hasn't been my experience at any of the weddings I've attended. Guests shuttled off to venue after wedding, wedding party left behind with photographer.

[atthewelles]

That makes sense Squoosh. Most weddings I've been at, the guests seem to be expected to wait until the bride and groom leave before following them to the hotel where they again disappear for yet more photos.
A lot of guests now don't bother going directly to the hotel but head off somewhere for coffee and cake to keep them going until the meal is ready to be served.

[Spuddybean]

With regards to the poster above who didn't send save the date cards. Neither did we on my 1st wedding. We thought we'd just call people and let them know, then send the proper invitations out 6 wks before the wedding. The entire dad's side of my family threw a strop and arranged a bbq on the day of my wedding, saying that as they hadn't had 'official' save the date cards they didn't think they were invited (despite the phone calls telling them that they were 6 months earlier). So none came because they were having a bbq in their garden. So let that be a cautionary tale for everyone, my family didn't attend my wedding because we didn't send save the date cards...or because they are cunts, you decide.

[Thumbwitch]

That's fair enough, Rhubarb - I have to admit that I've been to a fair few "personal" weddings, including my own, where there were standout events that just made that wedding different and special without trying to, you know? Just things that were personal to the couple getting married. My own "special event" was organised by my best mate, who took on the role of MoH despite me not having any attendants - and it was a fantastic surprise, and hilarious.

The most boring ones were the most expensive, that's for sure.