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.

OfficerVanHalen I've told him they are his parents so his issue to deal with. And that if he wants ONE of them as his choice of witness as a compromise that's up to him but I will not back down on OUR wishes for a minimum fuss for OUR wedding no matter who it upsets, I'll call it off entirely before I do that.

I will not put myself through it, not at the best of times and not at about-to-hatch-pregnant either.

If he wanted the formal, public, guests-and-party type of wedding, I'd have endured it for him. He hates the thought too, so I can and will be very stubborn on it.

YANBU. I have been to some brilliant weddings of my friends. But then I had a spell as a wedding photographer, and most of them, especially the traditional ones, were fucking awful. Long, dull and deeply uncool.

I have been to enjoyable weddings in Malaysia, India and Germany (none of them weddings "abroad" all of people actually from those countries, and the Malaysian and Indians ones I was invited to because I was already in the country, not asked to travel to). The Malysian one was the remarriage of my friends step father/ former step father who had more money than sense and paid for hotel rooms for 5 nights for hundreds of guests, with themed banquettes and free bar every evening, ata beach resort. I also went to an awful and quite frankly embarrassing one in Malaysia though, which took place at a strange strip-mall storefront church and at which the bride was invited to speak "in tongues" to the congregation among other things, after which the bride went somewhere with her mum and the groom and the 10 or so guests went to a seedy bar. Neither of those constituted as typical local wedding obviously, but they were more interesting than making one canopy last a couiple of hours in a marquee on a cold May afternoon in Essex...

Don't weddings n India go on for 4 days ?

That has to be worse than a few hours in an overpriced hotel?

BTW I liked pretty much all of the weddings I have been to, I just like to moan as well.

It is hard to find something that works for the majority of your guests. We were determined to have a nice menu, but when it came right down to it, some people don't eat fish or meat, so chicken was the safest option.

I've been to my cousins jewish wedding in the US hundreds of years ago when I was a teen. That was a lot of fun - ceremony had to take place after sun down, and the grooms parents were quite well off so they had a wedding fountain ( which as a teen I thought was the coolest thing ever and not at all tacky) and a free bar which did cocktails. Also the ceremony was short and involved breaking glasses, so different from normal weddings.

Remembered that both my parents & PILs went to weddings in Europe last year that went on into the small hours with no option to leave early - reception venue was over an hour away from the hotel in both cases, and the coaches back didn't go till well after midnight. (And that was just the early coach...)

The one that my parents went to included long breaks between dinner courses for traditional dances to take place, and very long speeches which all had to be translated for the English guests - so all the speeches took twice as long. There were still courses of dinner being brought out well into the night!

My parents treated it all as a bit of a laugh and one of those things you can tell a good story about after, but think they also found it a bit of a tiring evening. They certainly would have left earlier if they could have.

MrTumble Americans don't do two-tiered weddings. It's get married and then cocktails and canapés and food. No 'breakfast' for some and others wait round or only asked for evenings. Many Americans are non-white and opt for weddings that are traditional in their ethnicity. I've been to loads of Latino weddings. They tend to be in the evening, then followed straight after by meal, drinks and dance. Rehearsals, if there is one, only for wedding party and out of town guests.

Also quite a few Indian weddings as one of my uncles is from India.

Quite a few dry ones, too, of work colleagues. Those are: Church, reception immediately after in church hall with nibbles, sandwiches, cake, then you go home.

Weddings can be great, can be boring too, it depends on you and the people getting married. Big long gaps should be filled with something: drinks, canopes, cheap garden games for something to do. Some people just refuse to interact and get to know other people, some people get drunk to combat the boredom, others wander off, some really enjoy getting to know new people. It's what you make it really, like any social occasion, depends on your mood too. I can imagine if the venue was freezing then your mood was not good OP and you didn't feel very social, I know mine wasn't at a winter wedding a few years ago when the heating broke down.

I don't see the point of going if you won't enjoy yourself though, whether that because you don't know many people or not or just dislike weddings (or the hosts). Might as well stay away and enjoy something you like then take up space that someone else may really be wishing they could fill. Also saves you feeling frustrated. It doesn't mater if it's family, yes it's nice to have your OH thereto feel supported but if you really don't enjoy then you aren't being that anyway, you're just being there. No ones partner should push into going nor should anyone feel obliged if you don't want to- as long as you both agree that it goes both ways of course. It wastes the B&G money paying for someone who'll moan about it especially when someone else who'd want to come could have- believe me frustrations are very obvious. It also leaves you frustrated and ranting afterwards.

Be unsociable like me, sit on the sofa watching Breaking Bad instead :)

expat maybe Hollywood and sitcoms misrepresent the "typical" American wedding then, what a shocker 'How I met your Mother' and 'Friends' give the impression of horrendous amounts of the "self indulgent bollocks" wind chime said only British weddings involve

Family member and snooty partner took 3 hours for photos, meanwhile the buffet was laid out in the foyer and 3 DCs only allowed to look at it, not touch!

At my other cousins US wedding her groom serenaded her with his own awful song, thankfully I only had to endure the video of that one.

You know what makes a crap wedding which is not usually mentioned on MN??

Miserable po-faced guests.

Tight lipped women with a fascinator on, bitchyly whispering to their husband about how much their drink cost/how dry the chicken is/how much they hate weddings/how dull the speeches etc are don't half kill the mood.

Luckily though I think this is rare in RL, if rife on MN, and in RL ime most guests throw themselves into the joy of the occasion.

When we got married (traditional identikit type do much hated on here) we was blown away by the unexpected sense of love and happiness for us that we felt from our family and friends.

I really hadn't anticipated this, but the shared joy a wedding can create when the guests there are genuinely happy for you, is really rather wonderful.

So worry not brides to be, all should be rather joyful regardless of any faux pas or mishaps, unless you or your guests are total tossers.

YABU to lump them together as if all weddings are the same.
I love a good wedding me, although would not have liked 3 hours standing around inbetween ceremony and meal, agreed.

I like weddings. Although my patience was tried this year when I went to four in a row during the first trimester of pregnancy -so no booze (although I did sample a small glass of bubbles at each - spinning it out for a couple of hours!) and couldn't tell anyone although I know a few people guessed. One of them had a big gap between ceremony and food and I was STARVING! But I enjoyed the others even though two of them were friends of my husband and I knew very few people there. My second son is now 7 weeks old and we took him to a wedding at the other end of the country when he was 3 weeks. It was my best friend from university and I was a bridesmaid so wouldn't have missed it for the world. Had a brilliant time despite sleep deprivation.

So OP I think YABU. Some weddings are a bit rubbish. But IME most are joyful occasions and pretty much everyone is happy and chatty (clearly I haven't attended weddings with lots of people on this thread ).

We went to a wedding a couple of years ago where they had a church service at 2pm and dinner wasn't served (at a venue 10 minutes away) for hours and hours.....so many I got drunk. A combination of not being a drinker, the hottest day of the year and giving blood the day before wiped me out..... well yes I know I chose to drink but still. Why is there so many hours waiting around ?

We're going to a wedding I am so looking forward to in May as I love the people. Its at 11am so will pace myself

There's a story current on another forum about a wedding in India at which the groom was taken ill, taken to hospital, returned - to find that the bride had decided that she was not going to marry him and had had married one of the guests instead.

Now that's what I call a wedding to remember!

So this hanging around between the ceremony and the reception - do people not state on the invites what time the reception is due to start? I did - ceremony at 1, reception at 3. If everyone did that people could plan their time better bring sandwiches and a flask of tea, a coat and comfy shoes seems like common sense to me.

Yeah, it's best not to assume real life for most in a place is the same as on telly .

Definitely agree with this in 99% of cases. My sister's wedding was earlier in the year and loved that as knew lots of people and was involved a lot as I was maid of honour. However, I have been to far too many where there is loads of standing around for endless photos and talking to people you don't know. Yawn

'At my other cousins US wedding her groom serenaded her with his own awful song, thankfully I only had to endure the video of that one.'

We went to one where the B&G sang to each other in church. Badly. My dad was tittering so hard he had to leave, as did others.

And the reception was a dry one in the church hall after.

At least, the pain was short .

At my cousin's, a large Mexican one, some of the ladies were so drunk during line dancing they brought down most of a line after kicking so high during the dance they fell backwards.

We also went to one where the bride wore a black dress.

One of the best I attended was on a mountain outside Boulder,CO followed by an amazing potluck BBQ (B&G laid on kegs of homebrew and loads of wine and meats+cake), followed by a massive campout. People brought instruments and there was a load of dancing and fun.

That would be far too sensible for my friends, Kiffy sometimes I suspect they don't include reception detail on the invites just so the time for photos/faffing around can be extended indefinitely...

I dread the day when one of my best friends gets married. I love her dearly, but she is at least an hour late to everything....

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.

Er no, Rubybleu all the register office weddings I have been to have been quite lovely and a lot of them have been personalised with vows, readings etc. Also, they are not treating you as though it is a sham marriage, they are simply gathering information to ensure that the records are correct

I like weddings. Free food and booze, happy friends, generally a nice place. What's not to love? Is slightly less fun if I have to entertain dd at one though. Agree that later ceremony is good to avoid the wait.

needmorespace - I'd agree, except that the registrar very sweetly suggested it would be a very good idea to give notice before the 2nd March as otherwise our wedding would need to be referred to the Home Office for approval & we'd pay extra fees for the privilege due to yet another change of immigration laws. Something to do with sham marriages...

I hope the ceremony is lovelier than I'm anticipating. That would be nice!

They are mostly fun in your twenties when it's a novelty pretending to be a grownup. You get pissed, dance a lot, maybe snog a few people and tend to know lots of folk. By the time you're in your mid thirties they are boring same old, same old and are a hideous chore of childcare arrangements or just childcare, socialising with people's usually dull work colleagues, and expensive. The odd one will turn out to be fun but it's always the most informal ones where the b & g have thought out what would be most fun for the guests.