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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

....to think that weddings have just turned into a shitstorm

159 replies

DesolateWaist · 12/06/2016 22:42

Based purely on threads on here it seems that weddings are just insane now.

If it's not about the venue it's about the invitation, the dresses, the gifts, who is invited, the food or if you can or can't bring children.

AIBU to think that everyone needs to calm this shit down? It's just one sodding day and you end up just as married no matter what colour your cousins dress is or how many flowers there are.

OP posts:
Hastalapasta · 12/06/2016 22:45

YANBU. Grin

KatieKateKat · 12/06/2016 22:48

I think there's a lot of trolling in Wedding AIBUs. There has to be. Some of them are so utterly ridiculous and people have cottoned on to them often going viral so I always take them with a pinch of salt now.

PurpleDaisies · 12/06/2016 22:51

In real life no. On here, absolutely. But let's face it, none posts about a normal bog standard happy wedding. You're not seeing a representative sample.

BreakfastAtSquiffanys · 12/06/2016 22:53

Wonderful over the top wedding for a single day (or all weekend that seems to be the norm these days)
Or
Decent deposit on a home for the rest of your life?

Daft.

MummyBex1985 · 12/06/2016 22:56

I've ended two close friendships over bridezilla affairs and the fall out in recent years. YANBU.

What's wrong with buggering off by yourselves to another country or a small RO do... Why do you need to invite 100 guests to get married in Maui, complain at a £100 wedding gift cheque, attend stag/hen dos abroad at a cost of £500+, expect guests to pay for their own accommodation and have your guests complain about the food when you want a vegan wedding....

Grin
LineyReborn · 12/06/2016 22:57

Funnily enough, I am watching from afar the wedding planning of younger family persons, for this summer. If I told you the bonkersness in which they have seemingly become embroiled you wouldn't believe it.

I honestly can't be arsed with it all. They are obsessed. They can't afford it.

AmberNectarine · 12/06/2016 23:01

People do seem to get aerated about anything wedding related. We had whinging because our (very, very low key) wedding had a gap in the middle. Ceremony at lunch time (only 10 people invited a - v close family), reception from 6pm (a lot more
Guests). We had an 8 month old and we went home and put him down for a nap. MIL had the right arseache over having to amuse herself (in London, with her close family) for a few hours. I don't think it was wildly unreasonable but you can't do right for doing wrong when organising a wedding.

DH and I have just this evening paid out nearly four figures to attend a child-free destination wedding for one night - I don't mind at all. Their wedding, their choice - if we hadn't have wanted to go/couldn't afford it, we wouldn't be attending. As is so often quoted on here, it's an invitation, not a summons.

Original poster
DesolateWaist · 12/06/2016 23:09

It's a good point Purple, I guess all the ordinary ones just don't get mentioned on here really.

OP posts:
paddypants13 · 12/06/2016 23:15

I can believe a lot of the threads too, my SIL (who is lovely by the way) has just had a week abroad for her hen do.

The wedding will be a three day event starting on the Friday and ending on the Sunday.

They're hoping to have enough money from gifts for a deposit on a house!

Dh and I had a registry office with 5 people and a meal afterwards. We just wanted to be married and knew if we waited until we had the time to organise a big do and had saved enough to do it, it would never happen.

Original poster
DesolateWaist · 12/06/2016 23:19

Dh and I had a registry office with 5 people and a meal afterwards.
I had very similar. Perhaps that's why I think this is all silly.

OP posts:
fatmomma99 · 12/06/2016 23:23

I wasn't a bridezilla. I really didn't care about my day very much (didn't even have a wedding cake), I cared about being married.
But I have a very large family. We got about 3 grand and that was enough for a deposit back then so my wedding DID get us our first house, and I'll always be grateful for that. I don't know how the next generation get a mortgage these days - it's ridiculous. But that's another thread!

NaiceVillageOfTheDammed · 12/06/2016 23:38

Liney - you can't tease us with that Grin.

RunLillian · 12/06/2016 23:38

The vast majority of people use their words and deal with things in RL. Only a tiny proportion of the most extreme cases make it onto MN.

Momtothree · 12/06/2016 23:46

It's very recent though isn't it? My GM generation got hitched grabbed a sandwich and went off on holiday, no major dress or flowers., homemade cake and a few snaps -

The cost alone makes no sense!

notamummy10 · 12/06/2016 23:56

I think weddings are overrated anyway, I mean all of that fuss and expense for one day is ridiculous!

Lullabellesmell · 13/06/2016 00:15

I was just thinking about this recently. I watched old family videos of weddings in the early60s where it was a quick service then a sarnie & a knees up at one of the parent's houses. Looked so happy and carefree and nothing like the bridezilla crap you hear about now. Yanbu

tectonicplates · 13/06/2016 00:19

You know what, OP? I think you should cancel the cheque. Grin

NannyHJ · 13/06/2016 00:23

DH and I ran off and got married abroad without telling a soul until after the event. I haven't once regretted a moment of our day; it was exactly the way we wanted it and, frankly, our promises were only to each other so we didn't feel the need to involve anyone else.

KatieKateKat · 13/06/2016 00:23

Woah, people can have whatever wedding they wish if it is their own money they're spending and they can afford it.

It's the ridiculous grabby and ungrateful brides we have the problem with. The bridezillas come in all forms and from all budgets!!

It is entirely possible for someone to have an all singing and dancing with knobs on wedding but not be a complete twat about it.

BillSykesDog · 13/06/2016 00:26

Yes, but there does seem to be a bit of a competitiveness on MN about how little you can care.

Even if a bride said she was getting married in a dish rag in a public toilet with no guests or presents you'd have people telling them that she was up her own arse because the dish rag was bought at Sainsbury's not Lidl and the toilet was on private owned and not council land.

KatieKateKat · 13/06/2016 00:30

Grin Bill

RunLillian · 13/06/2016 00:39

Bill yes, and if your wedding ring was any more expensive than the ring pull from the can of Skol that your uncle Geoff was drinking in church then you are unacceptably vulgar and shallow and your marriage will last five years at best.

Beeziekn33ze · 13/06/2016 00:47

At last, people who don't think that to get married you have to put yourselves, family and friends to endless expense to make sure the bride has every detail perfect, and , of course, to be SEEN to be perfect and better in every way than anyone who has ever married before! Get real, bridezillas and those who encourage them!

LondonStill83 · 13/06/2016 00:52

I have a huge family and also used to do wedding photography, so have been to LOTS of weddings. Most of them were sweet but cookie cutter affairs, each one equally forgettable as the next.

Recently I have noticed that this is changing- in a bid to be "different", "unique", and / or "profoundly personal" weddings these days seem to become more and more over the top with more and more stress and cost involved for all in sundry.

I have begun to hate weddings, I really have.

Except for the smaller laid back affairs where getting married and celebrating with loved ones really is the focus of the day. Those weddings I remember!

Our wedding was like the above- basically a big party in a pub with good nibbles, lots of booze, and great music... Five years on people still tell me it was the best wedding they had ever been to! We ended up with almost 70 guests (originally weren't even planning to invite anyone but got cajoled into it) and dancing until the early hours. Cost about 3k, including rings, booze, food, outfits, and a recovery night at a posh hotel for me and DH!

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 13/06/2016 00:57

It's not that recent, unless you're talking in terms of decades of course!

I blame the wedding magazines for a lot of it - and the websites too of course! - putting unreasonable expectations onto impressionable people about how they MUST have this, and they MUST do that, and of course factor THIS into the cost etc.

A friend of mine, who really wasn't at all bridezilla, managed to spend £20k on her wedding about 10 years ago - I was horrified then, and still am! That was a year's income for me. I winced enough at what we spent on ours and it was a lot less than that. But definitely when I was first engaged (different bloke to DH) back in the 90s, there were a lot of people then trying to do "yooneek" weddings, hence my comment about it being not that recent.