To not be the least bit interested in other people's weddings?

[PiperChapstick]

A colleague is getting married next month, and it just seems to be the only topic of conversation in the office at the moment. I've heard endless conversations about what the favours are, the first dance, cake, colour themes, "disasters" with the MIL dress (it's the same colour as her mums ). She's a bit of a queen bee and other people in the office are making a terrible fuss - there's gonna be a hen do, a meal after work for colleagues who make the hen do, a day where we've booked a meeting room to present her with champagne and on the last day before she gets married the chief exec is presenting her with flowers. For that day people have various tasks such as filming, photos, making sure everyone in building has signed the card etc.

AIBU to find this all horrendously boring? I get it's important to her and she's excited but why does everyone else need to care? Maybe I'm just miserable re weddings - I couldn't even be arsed having a "proper" one, DH and I buggered off to America to elope. I did make a feeble attempt, we were gonna get married in our home town but I just never found myself caring about any of it, I just wanted to be DHs wife and be done with it.

I haven't said anything to colleague but I also haven't been insanely enthusiastic either I actually love weddings of families and good friends, I've always had a good time, but that's because of the people who are there, not the stuff on the table

'It turns into the sodding four Yorkshire men of weddings on mumsnet in a competition for who spent the least money and gave the littlest shit. That is as dull as tales of dove releases, fairy castles and trained dancing weasels to me.'

Word!

Applauds Apathy

That is as dull as tales of dove releases, fairy castles and trained dancing weasels to me.
Or the recent thread about the MNetter who wanted her guinea pig as a ring bearer may not have been true

Dancing weasels sound fabulous though!

I do actually think that tiny and/or unceremonious weddings are morally superior. And bonus points if you did it in jeans, had strangers as witnesses, and aren't sure when your wedding anniversary is.

Quite apart from avoiding all the ball-achingly dull palaver the OP is quite rightly irritated by, all that 'been planning it since I was playing with ickle dollies/most important day of your life' stuff is so tiresome, prescriptive and gendered. No one suggests that a man's wedding day is in any sense the most important day of his life just because he managed to bag a woman, or that he's been planning it since he was playing with Lego. Or that he's supposed to be indulged by his entire workplace when he's boring on 9-5 about favours, stressing learning the final dance from Dirty Dancing for the first dance, and the disaster of the MoB and MoG wearing the same colour. And in the unlikely event he did go on about this stuff, the response of a male-dominated work environment would not be fake enthusiasm, but 'shut up, mate'.

Though what I really want to ask on all these 'office bores' threads is what the people involved do for a living and how the workplace functions if someone is being a 9-5 wedding bore instead of working.

Sounds incredibly tedious but surely it's very unusual to have such a fuss made of your wedding by your work colleagues?

I mean a dinner and a champagne reception? With your workmates - Really?

Oh no, not 'morally superior' weddings!

Morally superior weddings sound expensive

Are the dancing weasels thrown in?

I just wondered if you felt like you missed out on the hype due to your choice to elope. Perhaps in hindsight feeling differently. That's all.

Nope! I loved our wedding day, we picked our outfits in the morning, got hitched and then went for a hotdog - very 'us' disorganised

I don't think you get dancing weasels at morally superior weddings. There may be branflakes though.

Only1 filming the presentation of the flowers I think. My job is "keeping the bride occupied while people are setting up" any tips on occupying someone for 30 mins you have little in common with would be much appreciated

I actually think weddings can be fun, but the preps- give me a break! For that day people have various tasks such as filming, photos, making sure everyone in building has signed the card etc Wow! And you get to occupy her? Easy. Ask her about the table decorations, that should take care of an hour, you'll have to interrupt her to get to the flower presentation .

Just play Abba Gold on your iPod and keep calling her 'Mariel'.

The 30 mins will pass in a crunch of a crudités

or even like a real life event has taken place, such as having a baby. It's just an overblown party that she is having to celebrate herself and having found a bloke willing to go along with making her a Princess For A Day (TM)

You are in no position to judge what constitutes a "real life event" for anyone. I don't have children - have I not had "real life" events?

Overblown = your opinion.

Princess For A Day (TM) = I'm sure it's tongue in cheek but do fuck off

The winks aren't showing on my computer so maybe not on your device either, but I definitely typed one after "fuck off".

I think the competitive 'four yorkshiremen wedding' thing has been born out of a sense of jadedness with the big three day weddings, that take two years to organise, and a fortune to attend, that so many people have to endure nowadays.

Personally I think a happy medium is nice. Family and close friends and other people who are important to you in attendance, a real focus on the 'marriage' part of the day, and a reception that you can actually afford without bankrupting yourself, asking guests for cash donations, or leaving yourself with no possibility of being able to afford a house for years and years.

Weddings have become so bloody competitive and some brides seem to think they're auditioning for a starring role in Hello.

Thanks for this post OP. I'm a sahm and today was bored and felt like I was missing work.

I like a nice small wedding that's actually about the marriage rather than the bridezillas big day that's planned every day for a gazillion years. You tend to find that they come back off honeymoon pregnant and then turn into pregnancy divas where they believe they are the only woman to ever do it and can't possibly be expected to do anything whilst being pregnant.

'It turns into the sodding four Yorkshire men of weddings on mumsnet in a competition for who spent the least money and gave the littlest shit. That is as dull as tales of dove releases, fairy castles and trained dancing weasels to me.'

It rather undermines the whole 'I think weddings are BORING' point when everyone who says so then immediately goes on to describe their wedding. But supercool don't-give-a-shit weddings are obviously exceptions to the rule.

I got married in a hole in the ground and our guests queued up to take a dump on us after our vows. I was actually still working on my Blackberry during the ceremony and DH didn't even realise we had gotten married until several weeks later. We only spent 26p but everyone said it was the best wedding they'd ever been to.

I don't see why me disliking weddings has anything to do with feeling morally superior (I don't - as I said in one of my pp, if that floats your boat, go for it), nor being part of some 'cool club'. I just find them tedious, all that waiting around while the B&G get photographed etc, all the BS tradition. But that's just my personal preference, and happy to accept others actively enjoy them.

Having said that, I do have objections to the 'traditional' wedding. Sorry, but the fact it is basically marketed as 'the best day of a women's life' like the pinnacle of our lives are bagging a man, just gets my goat. And don't even get me started on how the woman at a 'traditional' wedding basically does nothing but sit there and look pretty - groom gets a speech, bride's dad gets a speech, best man gets a speech i.e. men get to talk, women get to to sit there and look pretty. It's so passive. I always said if I did end up bowing to peer/family pressure and have a wedding I'd damn well speak at it myself! but again, if these things don't bother you, go for it; if you like the tradition and want the big dress and the wedding favours and all the jazz, go for it. I don't give a crap what other people do. But having to hear about it all the damn day long (as in the OPs case) when I don't give a crap.. well that's another story

TonyDanza

I agree with the poster above who said weddings are gendered and prescriptive, and as women we're supposed to freak out about wedding favours and matching colours, while the men are supposed to turn up on the day or something.

Big fussy weddings are fine if that's what you like, each to their own. But I don't like being told I'm jealous because I find that stuff boring! I had a registry office wedding, with two friends as witnesses. Another friend who had a big wedding was "sad" for me, saying that I've missed out, I'll regret it, best day of your life yadda yadda. We had drinks in the pub after the wedding and she said "it's not the wedding I would've chosen." Thanks for that! Five years down the line I'm still not "sad," funnily enough.

'I got married in a hole in the ground and our guests queued up to take a dump on us after our vows. I was actually still working on my Blackberry during the ceremony and DH didn't even realise we had gotten married until several weeks later. We only spent 26p but everyone said it was the best wedding they'd ever been to.'

Good work HoldMe, especially the taking a dump on the bride and groom

It's like the other competitive stuff on here - 'I fed a family of 12 on one chicken for 3 weeks' or 'me and 8 children live up a tree and have 12p to live on each week - so count yourself lucky!'