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

In Ireland weddings are for the most part all the same.
Long mass followed by a long wait followed by a long meal( beef or salmon) ending with a band who play the same music as every other band.

We were the first of our friends to get married so didn't know how like Groundhog Day weddings were.

Not even the arrival of , Coldplay in the church , ice sculptures at the meal or comedians at the reception can save an irish wedding lol

Garden party's ,Restaurants,
Registry offices ,Gretna green
all sound fantastic.

When it comes to most of the country house, chicken with a medley of seasonal vegetables, followed by a trio of miniature desserts type affairs, they all seem to merge into one bland event.

So true.
The sad thing is that these types of weddings usually cost an fortune, and for what?
A bland, 'samey' wedding that the guests won't remember anyway.

It's the small cosy affairs that guests remember (and enjoy) the most.

Awh sonders! Don't be depressed!

The wedding is your day. Don't think too much about the couple of people who possibly won't enjoy it. It's not a personal thing!!

I would love to say no to some of them, but they're all close friends and it would be rude not to go. And it's their day not mine, that's how they planned and wanted it and like I say I am always happy for them! Plus my DP would still want to go and it's not fair to say I aren't going go by yourself love! That would be awkward!

I agree, OP, other people's weddings are expensive and often disappointing.

But do you think weddings can be tedious for guests who are obliged to be there? Recently at a wedding, the partner of a relative of one of the couple looked bored in the photos and went back to their room in the hotel after the ceremony for two hours and could be seen staring from the window enjoying some red wine (the reception was still at the champagne stage).

When stbDH and I started to discuss our wedding we realised there would be at least two other people who be barely polite as well as the one above who had to be invited because they are spouses/partners of our family members.

So - we are just having witnesses and going out for lunch afterwards!

God yes, there's a special circle of hell reserved for Irish weddings.

They are all IDENTICAL. You get very jaded.

Disclaimer : my own Irish wedding was the exact same as everyone else's. I apologise to the universe, but it was just too exhausting at every turn to do something "different". Even the florist looked at me all when I said I wanted peonies! (I didn't get my peonies)

I've never been to an Irish wedding! It sounds like I never should attend one

I think it is worse if you're the partner or plus one and you don't really know anyone except the person you're going with!

I don't think I'd attend as a plus one.

Even when I am thinking oh god is this ceremony ever going to end I've still got a smile on my face and I would never ever ever let on that I was bored shitless.

I personally wouldn't have a wedding like that but only because I would hate ever minute of it!

That and the fact I will probably never be in the financial position to throw 20k at a wedding! And even if I was I wouldn't want to!

The two hour long Catholic church ceremony (in which us unbelievers were regularly reminded we were destined for hellfire and damnation) was very, very bad.

But civil ceremonies are only 30 mins long - the registrar has to be at the next ceremony so can't hang around.

I'd always imagined that Irish weddings would be great. Scales are falling from my eyes fast.

I love weddings. You get to properly dress up, have a nice meal, dance with your friends, everyone's happy. A brilliant day out, IMO.

The only thing I insisted on was not having the traditional Irish wedding band.

Paying €1000 for 2 hours of a bunch of sweaty retired gardaí with shirts half open roaring "EVERYBODY DO THE HUCKLEBUCK!" at your aunties. No fucking way.

Elspeth

Yes I much prefer a civil ceremony, even better when the couple choose the shortest vows

milky it was amazing! At the risk of outing myself... it was in beautiful grounds. They had hired out loads of fairground rides and stalls including dodgems and Ferris wheel, the food was all posh / artisan takes on fast food like fancy pizza and burritos and ice cream van, plus of course a bar and dance floor. And the ceremony was cool and personal and unstuffy.

puglife that sounds like a perfect wedding to me. I would definitely enjoy that.

Maybe I should rephrase my AIBU.

Aibu to hate generic church ceremony, hotel, dry chicken riddled weddings?

I went to one once where we arrived at the church about 15 mins before the service was due to start and thought we'd gone to the place. We didn't know any of the people there and then realized that it was guests still there from the previous wedding.
The bride arrived and had to do another lap in the car as the previous wedding service were still having their pictures taken, it was a right shambles.

We then went to the reception in a hotel in the middle of nowhere and had to wait around for about 4 hours without any food and drink before the actual reception started. Thank god we had booked a room in the same hotel so at least we could go and get away for a bit.
Going by the number of my relatives that asked to go to our room for a break as they had booked the Travel lodge 5 miles down the road it was money well spent. Just wish i'd brought some snacks with me.

Aibu to hate generic church ceremony, hotel, dry chicken riddled weddings

YANBU.

I might revise my answers if I'd been to many nicer weddings, too.

People keep saying to me that's it's our day and I shouldn't worry about what my guests think - but when I picture my favourite day, it's always surrounded by people I love having the best time.

I do think YABU to say you hate weddings as a generalisation, as most people here (including the YANBUs) seem to be able to think of at least one wedding that they thought was pretty awesome.

My venue isn't a cheap one - although it's a bit of a weird one - and based on the reactions of people on here I'd expect that if some of you were invited you'd be dreading it, all I'd ask is that next time you go to a wedding, maybe have an open mind that it could be one of the 1% of good ones?

In fairness, this summer will be the first time in nearly 20 years that I'm going to an Irish wedding (friends who were the marrying kind all got married long before the Celtic Tiger, and we've lived away for years), but - even though the CT seems to have made Irish weddings expensive and glossier - it doesn't seem to have altered the fundamentals. (Civil weddings are still comparatively rare, even though the entire mass-going population now consists of two octogenarian nuns, three Poles and a Filipina.)

I was very charmed when I started going to weddings in England at how modest (and how blessedly short!) they were allowed to be - I have almost never come across an Irish wedding that involved a home made buffet in a self-decorated village hall, for instance. My cousin, who had a civil wedding in a glossy Dublin hotel, is regarded as being a dirty atheist renegade by every older relative he has!

YANBU

And I am not from an English or Christian background, so have experienced a number of different types of weddings (C of E, Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, interfaith, atheist).

Every single last one was boring as fuck.

Sonders "I've spent the past year trying to plan the best possible day for my guests, making as much as possible to save on costs whilst still somehow spending all our money, and it sucks to hear that despite all that, some guests are going to be miserable anyway. How about you just RSVP with no? As the old MN saying goes, it's an invite, not a summons."

Unfortunately, especially with family weddings, there can be no end of ructions if you don't go. It's not as simple as that, despite the old MN saying.

Why are you "spending all your money" on one day of your lives? What a waste.

I'd always imagined that Irish weddings would be great. Scales are falling from my eyes fast.

Me too. I always imagined the receptions to be one big, fabulous piss up.
(Thinking of the 'below stairs' party ,in the film Titanic]

Proteus Why am I spending all my money?

Because I want to.

Paying €1000 for 2 hours of a bunch of sweaty retired gardaí with shirts half open roaring "EVERYBODY DO THE HUCKLEBUCK!" at your aunties. No fucking way.

I'm having flashbacks here. And someone always spilled on a pint of Guinness on the keyboard in the middle of the Big Tom and the Mainliners tribute part of the set.

Though there was also the Bad Karaoke Crooner type of wedding band, which featured Sonya up front with a bubble perm and a sort of 'strutting on the spot in the fast numbers' dance style that channeled the Nolan Sisters...

I don't go to them. The last wedding I went to was that of my sister and I went because it was important to her. I don't care about marriage, I don't respect it as an institution and I don't want to pay fortunes to help other people celebrate something that means nothing to me.