to hate weddings?!

[milkyface]

AIBU to hate weddings?

I am always happy for the couple in question don't get me wrong but weddings just don't do it for me!

There's the looooong ceremony (especially if in a church) and then the undoubtedly long wait for the probably crap food. All the people you haven't seen in years who you can't really be arsed talking to.
All the questions of when it's your turn ask my fucking boyfriend and then staying in an overpriced hotel room because the venues in the arse end of nowhere

Aibu? Or have I just not been to many decent weddings? I reckon I might quite like an 'alternative' one?!

--Or am I just a miserable bitch

For me, the simpler and less "weddingy" a wedding is, the better it is.

My own wedding went: Married at 4pm in pretty registry office, packed our 25 guests off to nice pub for Pimms and nibbles, quick couple photos and joined everyone in the pub an hour or less later. Photos were all candid shots so we didn't make everyone pose and we had a three course meal with nice wine on tap at 6pm. Dancing until midnight and we all left together singing songs from the 80s.

Blew our budget on the best wine and food and didn't bother with forced fun stuff, or favours or flowers in bird cages and giant LOVE lit up letters or flip flops or any other weddingy things people get. We also asked for no gifts. It was brill.

All the pomp and ceremony and poems asking for money and twee shit make me hate weddings.

julianna I agree I think the less 'weddingy' the better, less structure etc

I'd be interested to see a straw poll of the people who hate weddings versus the people who love weddings and their martial status.

Do you think it's usually the unhappily married/ unhappily single who hate weddings?

Peppermintea

I used to be in a happily long-term unmarried relationship and I hated weddings.

Then I was happily single and hated weddings.

I am now happily married and still hate weddings.

peppermintea

I'm in a happy long term relationship with a baby and I hate weddings. I hated them when I was single too.

I imagine I'll still hate them if/when I get married! I wouldn't arrange a wedding like the ones that have been mentioned!

I read an etiquette advisor once lamenting that it used to be brides and grooms couldn't wait to get away and be alone together. Now the interminable wedding days/wedding weekend extravaganzas make it quite clear that for the couple there isn't much novelty in being romantically alone; they'd rather stay and be the center of attention of dozens of other people than their new spouse. The expert kind of had a point there.

It's the Look At Me generation.
There's an obsessive need to be the center of attention.
The marriage itself seems to take second place to the fancy wedding.

That's why there's a saying:

the fancier the wedding, the quicker the divorce

What would you arrange?

The implication that wedding-haters are doing it out of Deep-Seated Personal Ishoos is a bit reductive.

I've never been keen on weddings. I was for a very long time in a happily unmarried relationship, then we got married (but didn't have a 'wedding', obviously - we just nipped down to the registry office with a couple of witnesses - I think everyone was in jeans or equivalent, no rings, no flowers, no photos etc) and continue to be happy, but my position on weddings hasn't changed.

I mean, why would it? Whether or not I'm happily married or happily single or unhappily either of those has very little impact on my lack of desire to listen to twee personalised vows about tangoing and sunsets, and hang about for hours while the bridal party pose for studiedly 'natural' photos at a local beauty spot.

And I'm another one who ends up both translating (have you ever tried to translate a menu with explanations of exactly what the ingredients are to a deeply unimpressed elderly aunt from another culture, who keeps closing her eyes with horror and asking whether I can arrange for her to have some 'normal' food?) and interpreting at multilinguistic weddings.

11 o clock and I could suddenly murder a trio of desserts.

Quick, someone get married.

(No clowns though).

Oh I do like a nice trio. If you find some could you fling some my way please? My sugar cravings are in full flight today.

(nothing with dried fruit though)

I'm happily married and I hate weddingy weddings. Love being married though!

Hedge I agree with everything you say.

I also got married in a registry office with absolutely zero faff and no guests (or costs) beyond the necessary witnesses.

I had NO interest in being the centre of attention or getting anyone to 'look at meeeeee'.

It's very silly to suggest that people who don't like weddings must be either unhappily married or desperate to get married.

My position on weddings has not changed even though my marital status has.

Isn't the problem with a trio of desserts that you always love one but feel there isn't enough of it, feel a bit 'meh' about another, and the third is a puddle of melted sorbet?

squoosh I'd either elope, just us two the kids and two witnesses.

Or, a small wedding in a registry office or small venue, a small amount of guests - mainly family then a nice restaurant maybe a few drinks then on a plane to a honeymoon!

Or id get married abroad just us and the kids. But then would I need to get married here too?!

Dunno! No big hotels or chicken :-)

I don't think brides and grooms should get caught up in attempting to please guests who universally hate weddings. Even though I understand social obligation to invite certain people and some feel pressure to attend I think we should all stop bowing to this. I'm planning a wedding and we have said we are only inviting people we like and want to be there. There will probably be fall out because we are inviting some cousins and not others etc but we don't care- the cousins we aren't inviting would be the type to say it's a chore and plaster on a smile. We're not interested in buying them dinner and have them snipe behind our backs. If everyone stopped feeling so obliged to do things they don't want to do then this problem goes away. Guests come if they want to be there and hosts only invite people they want to share their celebration with.

There's always a last minute emergency you can come up with if you really don't want to be somewhere, I don't buy the "no excuse" thing. What would happen if you genuinely had broken your leg etc etc? You wouldn't still go would you?

No speeches. No first dance, I would have a cake but make no big thing of cutting it.

No massively posed photos! I like the idea of not having a photographer and getting the guests to take pictures and or have a Polaroid camera and or have cheapy disposables so you don't get to see the pics until they're developed

Does it say a lot about how complex my personal and professional life has been lately that I'm actually touched someone is agreeing with everything I said?

And - in case people feel their relatives will never forgive them for not having a wedding - ours didn't turn a hair about it. I'm a bit about the people who claim to have only done a full-scale wedding with marquees and bridesmaids and the last dance from Dirty Dancing because it would have broken their granny's heart not to see them in a white dress with six bridesmaids doing that weird 'lined up, leg and hip sticking out' pose wedding photographers seem to love.

By all means have a trio of desserts, seventy five flower girls and a wacky photo booth if that's what you want yourself, but I don't think you should do it out of a false sense of obligation to what you think relatives want from you. We suited ourselves and the world didn't end.

Elope. It's chic, cheap and zero faff.

Well it doesn't have to be cheap. You could have an amazing time blowing£10,000 on an elopement.

You know what lisses people off more than big hotels and chicken?

Elopement.

And foreign weddings.

If you can't bear the social aggro of turning down a weddding invitation, you're going to struggle with fucking off and not inviting any of the people who love you to your wedding.

And small registry office weddings with a nice meal somewhere and a smaller number of guests are just pretty standard weddingy weddings, with the same capacity for bored and disgruntled guests.

Hint: lots of people like chicken

The Red Wedding was my idea of an interesting wedding.

Or a Dothraki one where it's thought to be boring unless at least 3 people get murdered.

I'd definitely turn up to that Joffrey.

In full armour.

*You know what lisses people off more than big hotels and chicken?

Elopement.

And foreign weddings.

If you can't bear the social aggro of turning down a weddding invitation, you're going to struggle with fucking off and not inviting any of the people who love you to your wedding.

And small registry office weddings with a nice meal somewhere and a smaller number of guests are just pretty standard weddingy weddings, with the same capacity for bored and disgruntled guests.*

Hint: lots of people like chicken

Oh you're back are you!

It would be my wedding and therefore if I wanted to elope I would and I wouldn't care if I pissed anyone off

I go to people's weddings because they wanted me to be there and it's their day their choice.

If I don't want to reciprocate that's my prerogative and if they get pissed off then so be it!

Not everyone wants a big wedding.

Small weddings yes can be standard and weddingy but as people have said, some of the smallest intimate weddings are the best.

I'm not sure how big the window of Boredom would be if you have a short ceremony straight to a nice restaurant? No sitting through shit speeches and waiting for the bride and groom to have. 86,500 photos taken and then waiting for food then more waiting for the first dance, cake cutting etc

That would be my idea of a nicer not boring, definitely not lengthy wedding.

I'd want it to start at say 3? So you're not spending alllll day there

Have to admit I have just got out of an upcoming wedding of a somewhat distant relation. In all honesty It would of cost us a fortune to go and stay over and that's before a present. I know its different if a really close friend and I have been to some lovely weddings. I think a lot depends on the crowd of people that are going. It ultimately is the bride and grooms big day but if I feel that I wont enjoy that day and especially if it's going to cost the earth to go and they'll still have a fab day without me I politely decline.

The Red Wedding was my idea of an interesting wedding.

What a surprise Joffrey!