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

JoffreyBaratheon "I think the anonymity here makes people honest. The truth is, half the people at any given wedding are thinking these thoughts. wink"

Yes! Absolutely agree with this.

I think it applies here, and also to quite a few other situations where people are honest on here, and some posters are surprised that this is different from real life.

For me, MN is an opportunity to vent and to express my true feelings about many situations. I am not exactly a shrinking violet IRL either (more likely to be accused of being rude, blunt, or brutally honest!) but even I can keep a smile plastered on my face for a few hours.

it is such a relief to hear that others feel the same way.

squoosh "Surely if you've you've never been to a single wedding that wasn't utterly fucking dull you've got to wonder if maybe you're the dull one?"

????

How do you figure that?

I go to loads of things that are brilliant fun - holidays, gigs, clubs, festivals, all sorts of days out with the kids, lazy days with friends, etc. etc.

How does finding weddings deathly dull equate to me or anyone else being dull? They are boring. Other things are not boring.

Odd.

But why go to weddings if you hate them so much? If I'm sent an invitation to a wedding that I don't fancy attending I turn it down. Have done this loads of times.

Hmmm, maybe. But then there are all the other events that I've been too where I don't find myself wanting to gough my brain out through my temple with a dessert spoon so I think it's just weddings really.

It's the nature of the event that they are just going to be shit.

'Odd'

You said it!

Because as loads of people have said, often it isn't an invitation, it's a summons. there's loads of social and family expectation put on wedding attendance.

Unlike most mumsnetters I haven't been to many weddings. I have enjoyed most of them because they have been an opportunity to catch up with people I haven't seen for ages. The only one I went to that I really didn't enjoy was at the end of November many years ago. The church and the venue afterwards were freezing and I couldn't wait to get home to get warm.

All of our friends are either married or happily single and there isn't anyone in either family who is planning on getting married anytime soon, so we live in a wedding desert.

So no, I don't hate weddings.

Be a grown up about it and stop being so passive. If know you're going to hate it and have a miserable time use your imagination and think up a wonderful excuse.

squoosh "But why go to weddings if you hate them so much? If I'm sent an invitation to a wedding that I don't fancy attending I turn it down. Have done this loads of times."

I WISH it were that easy.

Check out previous posts in this thread e.g. this one from MadisonAvenue We've been invited to one in August. It's 200 miles away and midweek. Husband's nephew who I've probably seen a handful of times over the last 20 years is getting married and I don't care what Mumsnet says, it's not a bloody invitation it's a fucking summons. I happened to mention in front of my over-excited mother in law that it was going to be awkward ...and she very sharply said "Well you've got to go!".

That is the reality. On the whole you can't turn down wedding invitations without causing a whole load of grief and arguments. That is my experience, and that of many other posters too.

As for being odd - it's your idea that the fault of weddings being boring lies with the person forced to attend, rather than the events themselves, that is weird!

No one says that about other things. I would also find football matches very dull (I suspect) but no one makes me go to them.

See Nickname most of our friends are couples and most of us have been together quite a while, a lot of them got engaged around the same time and I am expecting it to happen for the rest soon!!

I think we only have a couple of single friends between us. Is that weird?

Once they're all married I'll be relieved!

Well with the greatest of respect attending a football match is a pretty standardised experience whereas weddings aren't in my experience. I'm convinced some people attend weddings just so they can moan to everyone about what a simply dreadful time they had.

So odd.

Trouble with that theory is, I have already used up every 'dog ate my homework' excuse in the book to get out of other people's weddings - so when it is a very close relative or someone who can issue as 'summons', there is nowhere left for me to go.

And I'm the girl who once got out of Art homework by claiming the oven blew up and my hand was shaking too much to draw.

Truth is it's a grim, relentless ordeal and whether you go or not doesn't change that. Unless it was a close friend's fun wedding (best wedding I ever went to apart from my own was my best friend's civil partnership with just the bride and bride and my husband and me present). We had cake, 80s music, and a tent in the back garden afterwards.

I could never turn down a wedding invitation of a close family member or friend! I would feel incredibly rude! It would definitely affect a friendship negatively if I turned down a wedding invitation, unless say it was abroad or I was having an operation of the kids were poorly or something.

Like I say I would never ever let on that I didn't enjoy it, I would never complain and I do always try and enjoy myself.

But if someone said you'll never have to go to another wedding - i wouldn't be disappointed!

No squoosh I don't go so that I can moan about it - I go because these people are my friends and family and want me at their wedding, I go because my dp wouldn't want to go alone, I go because I think when you're invited you're obligated to!

Like I say if I didn't know the couple I wouldn't go

I don't really enjoy weddings and our own was done in a couple of weeks with very few people there. I suppose sometimes I do feel resentful that we didn't put anybody else out or ask for money or for people to travel and dress up.
And I have tried saying no but when it's friends and family is causes such bad feeling. I once was guilted into flying to a different country 2 days after being discharged from hospital still quite unwell.
The days are long and I don't have the cash to spare especially when hen and stag do's seem to be getting more and more expensive. It doesn't go down well when you decline invites to those either even when you humiliate yourself explaining you can't afford to even buy food until the tax credits come in.
Plus why do brides invite people they spend the rest of their lives slagging off and then expect you to make polite conversation with them?
Do I slap a smile on and fake it? Yes I do because it matters so much to the happy couple and mostly after the happy day they stop being batshit crazy.

You people have no idea what you are talking about. Finnish weddings are the worst, give me an invitation to a British or Irish wedding anytime! At least you get alcohol. Finnish weddings are also all the same. Church ceremony about 2pm, then a long drive to some god forgotten barn conversion out in the sticks. No alcohol apart from the welcome toast. A buffet dinner, long queue to it and no air con (summers can be quite hot). You might get a glass of wine with your meal if the bride and groom has felt particularly generous.

After the eating is the "funny wedding games" i.e. bride is blindfolded and has to fondled a group of "volunteers" feet to try to guess which pair of sweaty feet belong to the groom. Still no alcohol.

About 7pm the band starts, usually plays old fashioned ballroom songs, none of that modern pop shite thank you. Then finally the alcohol makes an appearance, in the form of one single massive punch barrel or cans of cider and beer. Yes cans, forget about glasses and ice. And then everyone drinks like there's no tomorrow and sway away along the ballroom tunes.

We did get married in Finland but I made sure there was a free bar (strong sterling at the time helped) and no fucking ballroom or wedding games.

Ooh helipad that does sound particularly awful....

Jesus Helipad that sounds appalling. Feet-feeling games!?

squoosh you would do well to listen to the many, many people on here who are saying that (a) it's generally very difficult to turn down wedding invitations and (b) no, we don't go in order to moan about it. What an insane idea. I could think of a million better ways to spend any given day/weekend than going to some awful shit narcissistic tedious 'do' just to give myself material for later Mumsnet posts...

On a positive note, the Finnish church ceremony lasts only about 15 mins and then you've thrown out. Churches pack about 4-5 weddings for one day, no mincing about there.

I've been to two Irish weddings in the naughties and had great time. British ones are great too, yes there can be tedious moments during the day but on the whole they are good fun.

It's not rude to decline an invitation at all. Bride and groom can be disappointed of course, they did chose you as a guest, but I have had to decline events I really would have loved to go to: because I had already accepted another invitation (so annoying, but what can you do), because I could not take time off work that week, because I was having medical treatment and didn't want to tell anyone about it.

If people really want to see you, it's great to get a phone call as soon as they know the date, and you can get organise months ahead of the formal invits.

I am just curious: do people who hate wedding also dislike family gatherings? The big ones with all the family for a golden wedding anniversary, or someone big birthday etc? For me, there's not much difference at all, and I like both!

I decline invitations to ones I know I'll hate.

But this trend for sweetie buffets and giving out sweets instead of food, please, please just don't!

I could think of a million better ways to spend any given day/weekend than going to some awful shit narcissistic tedious 'do' just to give myself material for later Mumsnet posts.

You see just reading that makes you sound so rage filled. You think weddings are 'narcissistic tedious shit' and still you'd rather trot along like an obedient little lamb even though you'd rather be anywhere else instead?

Madness.

I think I'll stick to my method of wedding attendance.

I've always found there's an inverse relationship between the amount of money spent on a wedding and how enjoyable it is for guests. Big weddings are, in my experience, really dull - you're trapped for hours with a couple of hundred mostly strangers in a single space and with mediocre food and drink served at regular intervals. Basically like a long haul flight but with more legroom, better clothes and with everyone having to make small talk and pretend they're enjoying themselves.

Cheap, small weddings can be great though. The best wedding I went to had about 10 guests, no family, and the ceremony was done in time for us to be outside the pub when it opened at 11. Then we had a nice lunch in a restaurant and went bowling (the bowling alley's first-ever wedding party, apparently). Then we went back to the pub. It was nearly 20 years ago but I still remember it as a great day.

By the way, Daily Mail: if you're planning to lift this thread for your pathetic excuse for a paper, please fuck off.

There's many different type of games (I don't know what else to call them). That's just one example. Another one I've seen is when the bride and groom had to fold a sheet blind folded {hmm}. Or one very popular one is where a punch of male guests suddenly burst in with head masks and kidnap the bride. Then the groom has to do stupid things to earn his DW back. It's all very cringetastic. I do not know how young educated couples still go for this crap.

Myown this is a largely English site English people do not say this stuff out loud. Perhaps to Dh in the car on the way home.

That said I agree with you. Sad that weddings have tailed off in our early thirties we were averaging 6 a year rarely any now.