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?

We recently paid for a relative's wedding, we held it in our home to cut down costs. I did most of the catering myself with a few friends - quite easy IF your kitchen is large enough, you have the equipment and time. The honeymoon was in our holiday home, so aside from paying for travel it was "cheap". Through work I managed to arrange "free" entertainment. We did the whole wedding for under £5K. I would not pretend though it was a standard budget wedding that anybody with a bit of common sense could reproduce.

Of course any idiot cab plan a wedding, but lets not pretend that your wedding was a standard budget wedding

I haven't seen this as a regular pov banded around at all - there are often complaints about people who expect guests to spend a months (or more ) wages to simply attend (ie wedding abroad etc and expensive hen and stag dos ) but have not seen threads or posts regularly slating weddings that cost a lot. I have seen threads where the b&g have gone for an expensive wedding and changed their minds about paying for bridesmaid outfits and hotels for wedding party a month before the wedding as they have overspent.

I'm not rude about big weddings but I am tight and for £20k, I'd want a new car or two, as opposed to a fun weekend.

I think if people are really rich and £20k is neither here nor there to them then I'm comfortable at their wedding and it's all fine. If I knew it was putting them into substantial debt or causing rows over money, then I'm afraid I can't understand why people do it.

I have to say though I agree with most folk on here in that it's very unreasonable to expect other people to have to pay out loads on your wedding. I think our average wedding attendance cost this year has been £500 and we had to forgo a holiday ourselves to manage it. They were family and close friend weddings so had to go. What with travel, accommodation, drinks, gift it all adds up

I honestly do see how lovely smaller cheaper weddings are and I've been some beautiful ones but personally we chose to have a more expensive one. People still talk about what a lovely weekend it was.

I can't imagine wanting to spend 20k on a wedding. Or 5k for that matter. It just isn't something I would ever dream of spending that amount of money on. We didn't have a wedding, just a civil ceremony.

Of course, if other people want to spend that much money on their weddings, it's up to them. No skin off my nose. Shrug.

I had no expectations for my wedding and was surprised and touched when our parents paid for the lot. It was very expensive, way over 20k but they all loved it, the guests raved about it for months afterwards. I think good food, good drink and attention to your guests makes an event successful, no matter the budget. Our families were soooo happy when we got married that they went slightly overboard. Ah well, we are still happily married and nobody is in debt so I have no regrets!

We'd never had a big family party before and dad had just earned his first big deal at work so it was nice timing and excuse for everyone to get together. By contrast my brothers was tiny and equally lovely :)

Sadly, some people are just perpetually jealous and will make catty comments even if a wedding is lovely, and just happens to be expensive. It says more about the person making the comment than the wedding. I've been to some awful cheap weddings: they were awful because the couple were, and they didn't give a damn about their guests.

A cheap wedding doesn't guarantee a happy marriage any more than an expensive one does, people!

To answer the question further up the thread about why I would 'hate' my DS to have a £20k + wedding it is, as Elk says, that I just cannot imagine how he would have a 'spare' £20k to spend on a wedding. I suppose if you had no mortgage, a solid pension fund, substantial savings etc etc and could therefore spend £20k without a thought then fair enough ............ but for most 'normal' families surely that is just totally unrealistic? I am just extremely cautious (frugal) myself and would rather have £20k in the bank than spend it on one day!

So many people get into debt for their wedding day and that is what I find hard to understand.

And I don't like big parties anyway .

The important part of our wedding- the vows in a church cost less than £495 because we only had one verger, the vicar and the fabric of the church. Everything else is gravy. I have seen so many people spend thousands alone on the actual legal bit -the ceremony- so actually our wedding ceremony wasn't 'standard' because we didn't spend anything on it really compared to every other wedding I have been to (most of which were perfectly lovely, irrespective of cost).

When you have been on the planet for nearly 100 years between you, it is perfectly normal to amass a circle of friends capable of helping you out. And not one of them was asked or approached. We booked the church, warned the local pub that we'd all be descending en masse afterwards for a drink and my friends were aghast and said 'you are not doing just that' whereupon they all got together and put together a plan where we'd have a party in one of their gardens. Having friends who can play guitars and banjo's and a son who can play the cajon does not make us super unusual.

I would not draw any connection between the cost of a wedding and the success of a marriage. I would say that cost has nothing to do with fun and enjoyment though. What I remember most is the vicar and verger chatting happily with everybody before the wedding (including us!) then we went and stood outside waiting for the signal to come in. And all we could hear was laughter and chat and it was lovely. The vicar was a bit raised eyebrows when we booked it and he heard we'd not want anything other than the loan of an undecorated church. But afterwards he said how touched he was.

I think it depends on what the £20k wedding looks like.
If it is all bling and very ostentatious, I think people might just view it as tacky.....and people can spend a lot of money on tat. Of course, it is all a matter of personal taste isn't it.
If I was a guest at a flashy, expensive wedding, I would enjoy it for what it is...the big day of my friends or relations. I might find the flashy features amusing, but it wouldn't be offended by them or complain.

I think people love to disect and discuss weddings generally. By a certain age, most people have been to a fair few (worked out I have been to about 70!) and have an idea of what they like and don't like. It is churlish to moan though. Isn't is just great to be invited to spend the big day with friends or family however their taste might differ to our own.

The only thing I understand the moaning about, is when the wedding results in huge unavoidable financial outlay for the guests....ie is abroad, or involves staying somewhere very expensive with no other options. I think people expect to incur some costs of attending a wedding, but if these are really high, people can feel resentful.

Apparently its not just a myth, US data shows that expensive weddings do tend to mean shorter marriages...

"n fact, brides who spent $20,000 or more on their wedding are 3.5 times more likely to end up divorced than their counterparts who spent less than half that amount."

nypost.com/2014/10/15/the-pricier-the-ring-the-likelier-the-divorce/

We didn't have a 'honeymoon' straight after but sent the couple who owned the garden who hosted us away for a night as a thank you.

It was very important to us, not to have gifts or guests spending lots of money on coming to the wedding- clothing, child care etc. So the kids had a giant 'nest' in a bedroom and snuggled up together watching DVDs and eating their own little boxed meal. They were really lovely to have around actually.

I think it's because it indicates that the bride and groom place value on things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the value of the marriage.
It's more about what is seen to be done, than the value of the relationship.
More about other people, than about each other.

People can spend what they want on their weddings, I personally tend not to like them when the value of the marriage has been lost in the one upmanship, bridezilla behaviour and the big party.

I always wonder how it is that anyone knows the cost of someone else's wedding. It didn't occur to me to send a spreadsheet out with the invitations to ours.

wine so you don't like people who spend more than £50 or what ever it costs for the legal part?

I spent more than that because we wanted to have the day we wanted, wearing the clothes we could afford and the platinum that we put on our fingers.

Strangely enough, we still have friends. And are still together.

A large part of lilannie's savings also came from a trim guest list: 50 people (and none of them her mum).

For £20k on 50 people, you would almost have to rent the hotel the whole weekend and feed them several meals, in addition to the expenses for the wedding party she skipped. Either that or go all out on everything: clothes, food, drinks.

And I agree, if you have 50 friends, and 10 of them are willing to work/donate toward the effort of a party for 50 friends, you will have an excellent party, that a wedding ceremony happened at, therefore, an excellent wedding.

Most people could do this in some manner, IF they have access to a home or garden. Having a private location is key, because if you have to rent a venue, a lot of other DIY is excluded, you can't cook in the venue's kitchen, must have them or some other licensed caterer, they will want you to buy booze through them, etc.

I have been to two very expensive weddings first one was Castle,free bar,designer dress and black tie.
I love them .They are great people and it was beautiful and tasteful like them.
The other one which I had to attend (dh best man dd bridesmaid) was a destination wedding sigh
On the day itself I just couldnt see where the expense had gone.
But due to the four hour flight and bloody far flung location all the guests stayed a week.
I know the second wedding cost over 40k groom told dh

There seems to be a sense of entitlement around weddings now.People that cant afford expensive weddings often have them anyway recouping cost through money as gifts or dragging everyone half way across the globe to avail of cheaper day.
DH works with a guy who during the reception b&g went up to the room to see how much they got in the cards.They had a 30k loan on the wedding and he was moaning that they didnt get half that back in the cards

mama and IF that's the type of wedding you want to have.

I'm loving some of the judgements on this thread just because people choose to spend their own money on their own weddings!

Doesn't it slightly depend on the couple's finances?

20k to a couple earning 300k a year is rather different to 20k to a couple earning 30k a year.

For the first couple, spending 20k on the wedding isn't going to prevent them from saving for a deposit/get them into debt/etc. It doesn't necessarily suggest they are putting the wedding day above everything else - as 20k isn't all that much to them.

For the second couple, spending 20k on a wedding suggests that the wedding day is the be all and end all, which I don't think it is (although I still think it's their decision).

I said that earlier, and I would be interested to know if the people who think it's an outrageous amount of money to spend are maybe in the financial position that that spending is out of reach?

Mom- yes a combination of a truly dysfunctional family who aren't fit to be seen in public and the rest of them dying over the last year saw to that. It does help the bank balance not to have to invite tons of people. Had my mother come, she'd have wanted another hundred, most of whom would be strangers to us.

But we really only had an average sized kitchen at my friends house- a lot of the food was made elsewhere. My daughter made macarons and shortbread to serve when we arrived as everybody was as hungry as wolves. We had BBQ, bought three whole salmon for £11 each from a local supermarket and roasted them. We had wine buckets and troughs filled with new potato salad and other salads, the usual deli stuff, bread, steaks and other meats on the BBQ. We staggered the cooking throughout the evening because some people arrived later. We had a cheese plank- a three feet narrow plank of wood covered with cheeses, fruit and nuts, crackers and bread along the length of the side table. People contributed a cheese if they wanted to. It looked lovely and cost very little for any of us as I took advantage of special offers in stores and the market. We also made a burger bar with bowls of sauerkraut, onion and cornichons, sliced salad fillings, cheese slices and tubs of brioche buns (89p for four from Aldi!) and people walked along the table building their own burger. It was fun and the kids loved it.

Then a cake table full of things we made and others brought. Our wedding cake was a two tier naked sponge, basically filled with passionfruit liqueur cream, fruit and decorated with flowers, fruit and nuts. It took me a couple of hours to make with my daughter in the morning. We married late afternoon then went to the pub and then onto the house. So we didn't have to feed people twice.

I am quite proud of what we did. We really had to cut costs but wanted to spoil our friends. I will always be grateful to them for our day.

Nicky

We could have afforded to have spent a lot more but with several children who might marry in the next few years, we decided to show them what could be done without going nuts. I just couldn't bear to spend a lot on things that are really only important because the wedding industry has kind of brainwashed us all.

Lil, why would you even consider your friends possible weddings as a reason for doing yours the way you did?

They will have the day that suits them like you did. Although I kinda feel like I was at your wedding now as you have posted so much detail about it!