To think that weddings are purgatory

[DameEdnasBridesmaid]

Especially civil ones, over in 15 mins and the worst part, hanging around waiting for the wedding breakfast. 3 hours yesterday between the ceremony and the breakfast. Total boredom and it was bloody freezing. I knew a total of 5 people and that includes DH.

It seems massively self indulgent of people to think that other people actually want to go to these over rated affairs.

Think it depends on the wedding.

I went to one a few years ago and it was horrendous - I knew no one apart from the bride and groom (through DP) and we had to leave at 9.30am to get to the church and then head straight to the reception - we were there at 12pm and the food wasn't served until about 4pm and then we were there until about 1am. I was driving so couldn't even drown my sorrows. It is lovely for people to invite you and horrible to be ungracious but yes - I do think it is terribly self-indulgent to think people other than close family want to hang around so much and spend the whole day and night celebrating.

My SIL got married at 4pm. Few photos and straight to the reception for snacks and drinks and then big buffet about 8pm. Was home before midnight. That's much more enjoyable.

The two-tiered bollocks. Calling it a 'breakfast' when it's lunch or dinner. Speeches. Who the fuck cares? I find church boring as hell, too, because I don't believe in god.

We are having a relatively traditional wedding later this year. We are having the dreaded gap due to the time of year, but we're also getting married in London & bunging a tab on at a pub between the registry office and the dinner venue so hopefully people won't hate us too much for taking up more of their Saturday afternoon than strictly necessary.

Having said all of that, why are registrar ceremonies so ghastly? At home you can get a lovely celebrant to say all sorts of naice things of your choosing for 30 minutes. Here, we're getting interrogated separately to ensure it's not a sham marriage.

Also, what is the point of an evening reception? Why is there a 'second tier' guest list?

I wish I'd been a mumsnetter when we got married.
We made a few faux pas:

• We had a wedding list - in my defence so did all my other friends, you can pretty much date what year a couple got married in my circle by their Denby set, ours is Imperial Blue

• Wedding was in the countryside because it was more scenic, but was a leetle bit tricky to reach by public transport. We had the reception at an expensive hotel, but we gave details of cheaper places near by and laid on a mini bus for the evening so everyone could get back to their B&Bs without having to pay for a taxi

• I hate being hungry and thirsty at a wedding so we had copious amounts of canapes during the short photo session, but I later found out that the hotel hadn't served all of the champagne, even though people had empty glasses. I don't know if this is because they wanted to sell more of their expensive stuff, or because my friends were already pretty drunk by this stage, but either way it was annoying as we'd paid the corkage and we didn't want to bring bottles home

• This one I do really regret - we had an evening list, not many but work friends. They all came which was lovely and there was wine for them and a big buffet that no one else wanted to eat, so I think they enjoyed themselves. But having read here that it's a big No No to have two tiered guest lists maybe we shouldn't have done it.

In terms of things I don't like at other weddings.

• Being hungry - enough has been said on this subject but nowadays I bring along snacks for me and DS if we are lucky enough to be invited to one

• Music too loud - this happened at a friends very grand wedding, they had the Bootleg Beatles or something similar, but they were amplified so loudly that we couldn't even stay in the building and ended up walking the grounds for an hour, and we weren't even old gimmers then. The DJ at our wedding hated us because we kept asking him to turn the sound down - it was a wedding reception not a blinkin rave, and we were the ones paying for his time.

• Long/Too many speeches - Yes it's wonderfully modern when the bride does a speech too, but all most guests are thinking is "Another bloody speech, when do I get my food?"

• Not putting people beside their friends - Had a bit of a discussion with DH about this for our wedding. He wanted to put my single friend at a table with all of his random mates. I put my foot down and said that my friend had travelled far and was entitled to sit with her own friends.

I'm drawn like a moth to a flame to the Weddings topic now that we have booked ours for May. It's shitting me right up!

Subject to MN approval we're having:
Late afternoon ceremony outside
No giving away/best man/bridesmaids/ushers
Casual dress specified on the invites
No traditional wedding dress for me
Canapes and drinks on the lawn
Bouncy castle for kids
DP and I doing all speeches/toasts outside
Hog roast at 6pm
Lots of free booze (though pay bar later in evening)
Live music later
Making all my own decorations/centrepieces
No flowers
No gift list/cheesy poem

What other faux pas can I avoid?

Shuddering in recognition at some of these. Half the time I think people have big weddings because they think that's how it should be done. They forget that if you go back even just one generation and look at our parents' wedding photographs they were generally only small affairs with very close family and friends. Ceremony at church, a few group photos, then a meal in a function room somewhere (quite often a pub).

I think the wedding business has taken off to such an extent with wedding fairs and the like that people planning their own wedding fall into the trap of thinking that all those peripheral things are what's expected of them too. They forget that they aren't famous people starring in an edition of Hello magazine.

I would MUCH rather attend an informal wedding like those that people used to have before the advent of wedding fairs, programmes like Don't tell the Bride, celebrity magazine culture. I mean, sometimes it gets so out of hand it's one step off Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

I wonder if the whole thing started with the relaxing of the rules about civil ceremonies? Suddenly there were all these posh country houses and hotels selling themselves as wedding venues and the chance to be pretend royalty for the day. None of that really appeals to me and while others may like it I really don't see the appeal of spending the first 5 or 10 years in thousands of pounds worth of debt just so you can sit back and remember pretending to be a princess for a few hours while your guests stood round patiently waiting for you to stop posing as Victoria Beckham.

Christ, can you tell I hate formal weddings?!

People saying don't go - it's often bloody hard and causes endless offence to just turn down a wedding invite, as everyone knows! You just need to look at threads like the one where a poster in NZ can't afford to fly back for her sister's wedding in the UK and several people told her she should borrow money and her DH should turn down contract work to look after her kids so she can go!

At least you get invited!

I'm no spring chicken but am still waiting to be invited to a wedding. I've been to a few receptions and I've been DPs +1 at weddings where I don't know anyone but I've never had a full day invite of my own.

I'd love to go to a wedding. I love dressing up. I love the formality of it all. I'd live to see someone I care about having a happy day. I love the romance and the tears. I'd live to catch up with friends of friends and family friends I've not seen for years.

And I'm really not going to complain about waiting for food when someone else is providing a free meal!

But I don't think it's ever going to happen now. Small family. Friends have either eloped or done the family only thing or are getting on a bit and probably won't ever marry. I suppose the same could be said for me!

I'll just have to satisfy myself with watching four weddings and a funeral for the 100th time

YAsoNBU, your wedding plans sound like my kind of thing! I would love to be a guest at that type of wedding.

Is there going to be somewhere warm indoors to sit? I went to a mainly outdoor wedding in a marquee and the idea itself was lovely but it was the coldest August day ever and it was freezing. There was a pub to nip into later on when it got too unbearable so I suppose as long as there is somewhere warm to go then everyone will be happy!

Also weddings used to be "local". You got married in the bride's parish church, local register office or another local place of worship.

It's madness and incredibly selfish to get married miles away from where you live and expect people to fork out for hotels. Bad enough in this country but to expect family to spend their holiday budget on attending your wedding abroad? How self indulgent can you be?

(yes I am looking at you S, as you price out older family members just so you can have your dream wedding to the father of your children)

If you want to have a wedding miles away from where anyone lives then you should also pay for accommodation for your guests.

I hate speeches too. They are often worse than the interminable waiting about and hunger. I'm not convinced that adding an extra bride's speech is at all a good idea. Why not just stand up together as the bride and groom and thank everyone for coming to your wedding and then sit back down.

Fewer than 3 people in the room are actually enjoying, never mind looking forward to, any of the speeches.

I love weddings. Never been to one I didn't enjoy. Tacky, OTT, childless, posh, the lot.

I always take some sandwiches and snacks otherwise I'm likely to get very irritable! I eat them in the car of course, not venue.

The evening music is always far too loud so you can't actually have a conversation with people that you haven't seen since the last wedding ( or funeral).

My personal wedding bugbear is when couples time the ceremony so they can just get away with not serving lunch, but actually the guests will be famished all afternoon waiting for dinner.

Also photo sessions lasting several hours, with guests milling around bored and hungry. If you want a long photo session, have a 'first look' and photos before the ceremony.

Thanks Assassin, I hope we have got the balance right and everyone can just have a nice time. I'd have just done the registry office thing if I thought we could get away with it. We do have an indoor area laid out for seating/eating and dancing later. Hate marquees!

Forgot to mention we're not having a photographer either as that seems to cause guests a lot of inconvenience. DP is entrusting his nice camera to his brother to snap some informal shots of the crowd. I hate posed wedding shots with a passion.

We are also paying for some hotel rooms for family who are travelling far and don't have much spare cash - I'm just overjoyed that they can actually make it :-)

fuck getting MN approval YAsoNBU
Just do what you like!

Never ever ever do I hear in RL the type of bitching and moaning about weddings that goes on on MN.

Some of these are not B&Gs fault though.

As I said above we had to tell the DJ many times to turn the music down at our wedding and he wasn't pleased, but there were a number of older folk there as well and I wanted them to be able to enjoy their evening too.

Photos - again we had to be very strict with the photographer. No more than half an hour of photos and if he hadn't got his best shot by then, well he'd have to make to with what he had. We weren't that bothered tbh, although I do look through my wedding album occasionally so it is nice to have.

I much prefer a nice, perfunctory civil ceremony to a tedious, hour longer church service especially when the couple aren't religious

But yes, long waits between the ceremony and the reception are exceptionally inconsiderate to guests. I went to a wedding in Ireland where the couple spent hours and hours traipsing around various picturesque bits of coastline having photos taken while the guests milled aimlessly around at the hotel getting shitfaced wondering when the hell the couple would be back.

"fuck getting MN approval YAsoNBU
Just do what you like!"

Agree, but as you asked: two points - a) what is the wet weather plan? And b) for the mingling/canapés bit, have you made sure there are places where those who want to can sit?

"Never ever ever do I hear in RL the type of bitching and moaning about weddings that goes on on MN."

That's because in RL people will use RL manners and would only ever talk about the bits they found lovely.

Sounds like she is doing it the way she wants. Not conforming to any expectations or set way of doing things. There will be a few (probably older) guests that will be disappointed that it's not an extremely traditional wedding but if the majority love it, and the main thing is that the bride and groom have a ball, then that's great.

I think she was probably agreeing with a lot on here in thinking that, for lots of people, being a guest at a very long and drawn-out traditional wedding isn't actually that enjoyable a lot of the time. Doing something a bit different so that everyone has a better and more relaxed time sounds like the way to go to me.

Someone got out the wrong side of the bed this morning.

The best wedding I ever went to was very simple. A registry office wedding at noon, followed by drinks in the pub next door while photos were being taken, then taxis to the couple's house where a massive BBQ had been laid on, with £500 worth of drinks (donated by a relative!)
No official photographer nor chef, as everyone mucked in.
I actually got to see the bride all day and evening, which was nice.

The worst wedding involved travelling halfway across the country to a church service, followed by an overnight stay in an awful hotel. We waited about 5 hours from the end of the service until food was served, while we waited in the freezing cold church wondering where the hell the bride had got to (turns out she was having photos all over the village!) we had no idea where the reception was supposed to be nor when we were supposed to turn up, so we couldn't just sit in a pub somewhere, and none of men got on the dancefloor in the evening. Pretty shit.

They have become much more lavish affairs, which seems to mean they just get increasingly complicated. I guess that's ok as long as you also consider your guests. I went to one last year that had potential to be a tedious hanging around affair - wedding in city centre venue, reception an hours drive away, then hanging around for meal & evening entertainment. I have to say it was the best wedding (apart from my own of course) I've ever been to - they laid on transport to/from reception, food & drink on arrival, entertainment for the children while they did photos, they seemed to have thought of everything & it was fab & flew by.

Stark contrast to dh's friend who got married in a venue that was also open to the public. He had a gaggle of seriously dressed up & ticked off people gathered when he confessed he had put the wrong time on the invitations as he didn't want anyone to be late. Rooms weren't ready & the only place to sit was the cafe, over run with slightly hyper children. I was not impressed as we had been given the job of looking after his Grandmother, in her 90s & had nowhere to put her - she was a lovely lady, but somewhat frail. He also applied for late bar, but most people had gone by 9pm. 9 hours stuck in one place. Only redeeming factor, it was about 20 minute drive away so I did indeed pop home for a couple of hours in the middle

The only really bad wedding I've been to was where the B&G both looked miserable all day.

The father of the bride didn't make a speech. The groom stood up briefly to thank everyone for coming and thank those who'd helped on the day. Then the best man stood up and gave a long speech saying how great the groom was & only mentioned his wife in passing.

So nobody stood up that day and said 'isn't she amazing and doesn't she look beautiful and isn't X lucky to have married her?'

Poor bride looked miserable and later that evening she & groom had a full on row and left in a taxi soon after.

That's what made a bad wedding for me. Nothing to do with food or music or anything. No idea if they're still married (they were friends of my ex)but I felt so sorry for them both.

Music: at a level where people can talk without raising their voices. And if the payer says Turn it down it goes down and stays down.