To wonder why people are so rude about expensive weddings?

[FluffyMcnuffy]

I have seen it a lot on MN, "we went to a 20k wedding and it was boring and shit", nobody would say that about a 5k wedding!

Equally people seem to thing big wedding = shit relationship.

I've been to 20k weddings where the couple are still going strong 10 years later and 2k weddings where they split up after three months and vice versa!

AIBU to think cost usually has no bearing on how good a wedding is and to be sick of all the inverse snobbery?

I'm the opposite of a mn wedding moaner - I've never been to a wedding that I thought was crap. I've even been to a very Presbyterian wedding where no alcohol was for sale in the hotel bar (a complete crime on a mumsnet wedding thread ) and it was still a nice day out.
I've no clue how much anyone else has ever spent on the wedding. If I'm honest, most of them have been much the same to me.

But...the biggest flashiest wedding I was ever at was also the one where the couple separated five years later. The bride told me shortly after their wedding that they had taken out a loan over ten years to pay for the wedding. There was something so desperately sad about the thought of them paying for their divorce whilst simultaneously paying for their wedding.

Disclaimer - I have no taste.

If DH has more money we would have had a bigger wedding, we throw big parties for Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, New Year, Bonfire night .... so we have no aversion to spending cash to celebrate. So I am sure that if our financial circumstances were different we would have had the big wedding. That would not mean that we loved each other any less.

I think it's because of the impression people get when the bride and groom spend an inordinate amount of time and money on the tiny details of a day and get all bridezilla. Weddings are becoming increasingly like competitive spending orgies.

I feel that the simplicity of a marriage ceremony is getting lost among the chocolate fountains, forbidden kids and dip dyed bridesmaids.

It used to be that finding a spouse made you happy, but now you have to look at 70 types of napkins before you can book a venue that costs two years of mortgage payments. I find it a bit sad. We need to go back to basics.

I bet we could find as many stories of couples who spent very little on their weddings and split up not long after.

I guess the only way it could be relevant is that if you have spent a fortune you would feel pressurised into going ahead, even if you had doubts. However if like me you have spent as little as possible it is easier to cancel the wedding.

20k isn't an expensive wedding though. It's a normal wedding and wouldn't feel particularly fancy if there were over 100 guests. Our wedding cost just over that amount. It was lovely and it only cost so much because of our huge families - we had nearly 200 people there. It wasn't about us being prince and princess at all. We put on a great party with great food and great music for our nearest and dearest.

But...the biggest flashiest wedding I was ever at was also the one where the couple separated five years later. The bride told me shortly after their wedding that they had taken out a loan over ten years to pay for the wedding. There was something so desperately sad about the thought of them paying for their divorce whilst simultaneously paying for their wedding.

That's so sad.
It's sad for parents as well when they fork out a fortune for a wedding and it goes tits up a few years down the line.
What a waste of money.

My wedding cost £600 including the rings. The bill for flowers came to £3!

Perhaps people expect a better party if the wedding cost £20K

I love my husband, I also love a party - the two can go together. I am also a huge show off lacking in any restraint or sense of taste or understatement - therefore I would have loved my dream wedding to start of my dream marriage.

*The 20k type weddings are always more about the day and showing off (being the centre of attention) and less about the marriage itself.
I think that's what subconciously makes people feel uneasy about them.

Whereas the couples who usually go for the simpler, (simple = more stylish imo) weddings tend to have warmer (less attention seeking) personalities and this shines through on their big day.*

But maybe it's just your perception of how much the wedding cost? A simpler wedding may look cheaper, but often they aren't. It's just money spent in different places and on different things.

20k isn't an expensive wedding though. It's a normal wedding and wouldn't feel particularly fancy if there were over 100 guests

That's the sad thing though- somewhere along the line the bar has been raised so that 20k looks normal!

I agree that it is sad that the typical wedding costs 20K, surely most couples do not have 20K.

The 20k type weddings are always more about the day and showing off (being the centre of attention) and less about the marriage itself.

Always is a big claim.

I love a nice expensive wedding Good food, lots and lots of booze, nice hotel room with big breakfast laid on and preferably no children at all regardless of how charming they are especially mine If anyone is planning one, I'd love an invite.

We had a budget wedding. We saved money by roping in a lot of 'favours' - venue was a club we were members of, a friend with a Merc drove me to church, MIL did flowers, SIL did make up & DDad rolled up with a boot full of fizz, having booze cruised in our honour. Bridesmaids received their dresses (in Monsoon SALE bags) on arrival. It made it quite fun - in a way that a very polished 'professional' event might not have been.

I agree Apocalypse. If I had had a big wedding it would have been show off central. There would have been bling everywhere, but my marriage would still have been more important.

Holding a big party does not mean that you don't love your husband/wife. We are currently planning a Halloween party, it is big and brash. Should I warn my husband that I am likely to run off with the entertainer?

5children, your guests will always remember your wedding because it was original.

The expensive ones I've been to have all followed the same bland boring expensive format.
Yes they were nice and I enjoyed myself, but they all merge into one in my memory - because they were all so similar and regimented.

I admit I don't like big flash weddings, as others have said, it seems more about the 'big day' than the couple's relationship - and doing a purely personal survey of all the weddings I have been to - it is true that the couples who had the more expensive weddings didn't stay together.

Of course I know this is only my personal experience.

I agree that it you can afford then it doesn't really harm anyone, but to me it just seems such a huge waste of money. the same as designer handbags and flashy clothes.

However, I have had two very small 'unshowy' weddings, one marriage has lasted over 25 years and the first one didn't .

I would hate it if my DS wanted a big expensive wedding.

I think if you have the cash and want A big wedding then you should go for it.

I only dissaprove if you can't afford it. I've been to lovely £££ weddings and lovely budget weddings.

I hated my BIL and SIL wedding, they had a big wedding they couldn't afford and came to us,in tears, a few days before the wedding to ask for a loan of several thousand pounds. Which we agreed to on condition they paid it back (even if they did it slowly). Of course they 'stole' our money even though they went on a big family holiday and had building work done to their house the following year. I will not forgive them for it, unfortunately I have to keep up the pretence of liking them for my pil's sake

Why would you hate it Ragwort? If they could afford it and it was what they wanted, why would you hate it?

My children have mostly inherited the party gene, I suspect we will keep the wedding business going for a few years.

^The 20k type weddings are always more about the day and showing off (being the centre of attention) and less about the marriage itself.
I think that's what subconciously makes people feel uneasy about them.^

Whereas the couples who usually go for the simpler, (simple = more stylish imo) weddings tend to have warmer (less attention seeking) personalities and this shines through on their big day.

That's interesting, as my experience has been the opposite, although I can't see any difference between the way personalities shine through whether it's an expensive or a budget wedding. They are always about the couple.

Some of the cheaper weddings I have been to have been lovely, but awkward for guests because they've either involved a long day not doing very much, or a long day and faffing around getting from the church/registry office then to a restaurant for the meal, and then on to somewhere else for the evening reception. The cheap weddings I've been to that have worked well have been ones that start late in the day. The ones that don't work well are the ones where you can see a lot has been spent on the dress and cars, and feeding the guests has been done on the cheap with a buffet from Iceland.

Don't get me wrong, I'm well up for an Iceland buffet, but I think it's a bit shit to host a wedding badly and cheaply when you have managed to spend plenty on the princess dress, cars, and then ask for cash.

It's also just as bad to spend a fortune on your wedding but to then spend all the money on dress, chair covers, cars, fireworks displays etc, but have it in a venue that has very expensive drinks, is in the middle of nowhere, and guests have to fight between themselves just to get a glass of wine at the table.

Whether it's a cheap or expensive wedding, the best weddings are always the ones where a good percentage of the budget has been spent on making the guests as comfortable as possible and they have been hosted well. Not the ones where the guests needs are secondary to the brides need to be looked at by lots of people.

I had a 25k wedding. I can hand on heart say I didn't rub anything in people's faces ie Facebook boosts etc.

I didn't want to look flash but we still wanted what we wanted if that makes sense. No debt from the wedding.

Some friendships basically disintegrated - my cousin was BM & she texted me the day before the wedding to say she couldn't wait as she knew nothing about what we were having! I didn't want to bore people with the finer details ie flowers but this seemed to have the opposite affect on some nosey people.

I'm from rural Ireland & there's a big thing where all friends & family come to the house for about a month before hand with gifts for tea coffee cake etc. I remember the look on these friends faces when they came - they were shocked at the amount of people that were there & the amount of gifts that were gathering up.

Pure jealousy which is sad. I could be jealous & be a bitch to everyone who is a natural size 10 instead of my post pregnancy 16, everyone who has smooth clear skin instead of my acne but where would it get me? No where but bittervile. Don't get me wrong these friends accounted for a small minority of my guests but it still hurt.

I have no idea how much the weddings I have been to have cost lately. But I always love good food, pretty flowers and lots of champagne. So I imagine it cost a fair bit.

the best weddings are always the ones where a good percentage of the budget has been spent on making the guests as comfortable as possible and they have been hosted well

Well ours was an epic wedding fail. We did not have a guest budget, although to be honest I think we paid for the venue and that was it!

We simply told a few people that we were getting married, it was low key but if they wanted to pop by they could. We then went to the pub, if people wanted to eat they bought their own. We then had a few nibbles and drinks at home, I made the nibbles probably from what was in the larder!

Why does it have to be that big budget = all about the day not about the marriage? It doesn't have to be one or the other, it can be about both!

And is it also maybe related to income? My h and I have a good income and with that comes the standard we are used to and out wedding was probably reflective of that.

Certainly wasn't about me being centre of attention, that was the bit I hated.

That doesn't make your wedding a fail Philosothy, not unless you spent thousands on a dress and all the extras and then didn't feed your guests.

It just makes it a low key wedding celebration, and I expect it was lovely.