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

[DesolateWaist]

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.

[EllaVaNight]

I've not been to many weddings but the best were very informal and relaxed, plenty of food and drink and just fun!

The worst one I went to was so boring! The bride and groom went off for OVER THREE HOURS to have photos! Which left us all stood outside with nowhere to buy a drink. Everyone was hungry having to listen to boring speeches. I was starving as they said they would provide a gluten free meal but didn't (I have Coeliac disease so gluten makes me very ill).

Because they'd spent so much time pissing about with photos the meal was interrupted to have their first dance. I had to leave before dessert as I had my toddler there and was a single parent (this was around 9pm). Quite a few people left as they also had young children.

They also had a bloody poem asking for donations to their honeymoon and one of their mums said in her speech they were all hoping we had all been generous enough to pay for the honeymoon in it's entirety as the bride and groom had spent over 20 grand "for us all to be able to share their big day".

[Doodar]

@AmberNectarine

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.

I would have been pissed off at that too TBH

[FangsForTheMemory]

I had two friends planning their weddings a year apart once. This was in the 1980s. It was like The Bridezilla Wars.

[Whatislife990]

Yep!
We will be having a registry office, with just family and a few close friends.
Then a meal at a pub I reckon!

[LottyD32]

Yanbu op. A lot of people seem to think they are celebrities or something.

[thecatsthecats]

Assuming the multiple people who spontaneously tell us that our wedding was the best/one of the best they've been to, our "OTT" wedding was well received.

Accommodation paid for by guests - self catered apartments on site. We provided food and a free bar all weekend. Lovely area and late ceremony so people could enjoy it beforehand.

No wedding cars photographers or gimmicks. (ok one gimmick, but it's outing!). Just stuffed everyone to the gills with booze and food for 48 hours for the price of a cheap hotel room, with everyone dancing in their socks at midnight, and all the dogs we invited howled when the music turned off. Oh, and we hired registered childminders to look after babies and toddlers during the ceremony.

It cost £13k. People don't know how to place it between extravagant and frugal, because we did extravagant things on a budget. I decorated quite a lot with the ivy that needed trimming from the garden anyway!

[Kite22]

Ignoring the Zombie thread issue, OP is not wrong if you think all weddings are like the ones posted on MN.

I enjoy reading the wedding threads on here as some of them are SO ridiculous, they are funny.
But it is a bit like reading the Relationships Board and then saying "nobody is happy / likes their spouse or dp / likes their in-laws / has any friends anymore" - people usually post when there is an issue.

[valerianaofficiana]

Marriage is primarily a legal contract stipulating responsibilities and rewards of the parties entering said contact. Why are people willing to spend their house deposit for one day of feeding all and sundry on mediocre food, cheap wine and forced conversations with people who will never meet again is as mystery of 21st Century.

[LowlandLucky]

One of my relatives had a huge expensive wedding, both bride and groom had 3 stage/hen do's, 1 abroad, 1 in a UK city and 1 in their hometown. Months later they were divorced. He is on to the second marriage now is having an even bigger wedding this time.

[MumsMetHer]

I had a big wedding. 250 guests, church then beautiful venue, expensive dress, expensive rings.

My husband and I wanted that many people there. My father, who paid for the day wanted a decent venue and didn't mind the cost. He paid for the dress I feel in love with that was made to measure and altered to fit my ideal - I think wanting to treat me after I'd had a traumatic few years. My husband and I paid for the rings, because we wanted ones with a particular symbolism and could afford to buy them, given we weren't paying for a wedding.

We had a charity gift list, and my hen party was free for guests. I was lucky enough (although, also unlucky enough) to have inherited a house deposit from a member of my immediate family.

Please don't assume that all big and expensive weddings involve bridezillas or a sense of entitlement.

And especially don't assume that the bride and groom are all about the wedding and not the marriage. We had a very short engagement (3 months) because we just wanted to be married, and in that time we spent more time preparing for marriage than for the wedding.

[sadpapercourtesan]

I have no patience whatsoever for wedding bollocks

One whiff of the kind of narcissistic selfishness that lies behind so much of it and I simply decline the invitation. Child-free weddings which inconvenience guests with small babies, two-tier guest lists, wanky demanding gift/cash requirements, stupid destination weddings which require a week off work - nope, get fucked.

There's no such thing as "your day". You can't own a day. Your guests are not chess pieces. They are your family and friends, who are putting themselves out (and out of pocket) to support you in a rite of passage. This is very nice of them. You should appreciate that, and treat them with respect.

[AcrossthePond55]

Oh and the idea of separate invites for separate 'categories' of people wasn't a thing, either. It would have been unthinkable to invite someone to the wedding but not to the reception or vice versa. Either someone was close enough to you to invite to everything, or they were not close enough to you to invite to anything.

[AcrossthePond55]

I'm in my 60s and there have been OTT weddings as far as dresses, decor, and dinners as long as I can remember. The difference is that there was no SM and people kept the price of things to themselves as it was 'vulgar' to discuss money.

What there weren't were 'destination' weddings to foreign shores unless the bride's or groom's family lived there. If so, it was not expected that friends or non-local family would go broke to attend. Nor was the wedding venue normally far away from where the bride's family lived, meaning a 2-3 hour drive to get there. Normally it would be in a local church and/or and the nicest hotel, country club, or hall close to home.

A 'stag' was a night out at the local bars. And there was no such thing as a 'hen party'. Being in the US it was a bridal shower thrown by the maid/matron of honour, or a friend if the MoH was a relative.

[Tabitha005]

It's personal choice obviously, but I find OOT weddings and bit like OOT kitchens & bathrooms or cars - spending thousands & thousands of pounds on any of that just isn't something I've ever been able to relate to nor understand the value of.

I like weddings where, as a guest, you feel included and not just part of an extended ensemble cast designed to make the bride and groom feel like they're starring in their own lavish production piece. I know that for THEM that's probably (even at least partly) how they want to feel, but it's SO boring for guests who have to sit around twiddling their thumbs for hours whilst the photos are done and no-one's even thought about making sure the guests are comfortable, fed and watered.

A wedding where you get to have a comfortable break (eg: a good snooze) between the ceremony and the evening reception is always a winner for me, coupled with good food at the wedding breakfast. I'm shuddering recalling the absolutely APPALLING 'camp fire cookout' effort served at one particular wedding of recent years consisting of a blackened, hard-as-nails Cumberland ring, half a chicken breast with the texture and flavour of chipboard, a piece of tough, salty gammon and a buffet selection of horrible watery salads and coleslaw that you wouldn't pay 10p for in the bottom of the supermarket's yellow sticker bin. The evening food was a single tiny bread roll with the world's stingiest portion of pulled pork cowering inside. Fuck knows what any vegetarian guests got offered... the sloppy salad and congealed coleslaw, presumably.

I felt like writing to the venue afterwards, incensed as I was that the bride and groom had been charged any money at all for their guests having been served with what essentially amounted to a tragic bin-fire of a barbecue, partially-composted salad and a shrunken bread roll 'filled' with half a teaspoon of pork.

I'm at an age now where I can confidently express my refusal to have to do anything I don't enjoy such as going on hen nights/weekends/weeks, and at a weight where no-one wants a fat bridesmaid (thank fuck because bridesmaid dresses rarely 'suit' anyone and those who disagree are the ones who either got to have input or control over their own dress or are vain enough to think they looked better than the bride).

I used to really enjoy going to the family weddings of my Greek friend: they were loud, exuberant affairs that, whilst probably not 'cheap', didn't need to employ much in the way of frippery or trimmings to feel special. I remember how much laughter there was - so much hugging and kissing and general arsing about and hilarity (the speeches were always brilliant, the family really knew how to send themselves up).... and the food was out of this world.

My own wedding was, I hope, not in any flagrant contradiction of any of the 'rules' I've created above... I'm fairly certain it wasn't anyway!

[godmum56]

@DesolateWaist

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.

This absolutely absolutely.

[Jvg33]

Weddings are important to people and to those who are invited. It's nice to dress up, have a nice meal, celebrate the occasion and have an evening do. I've had a brilliant time at the weddings I have been to/organised. No wonder people go crackers over them.

[LyricalBlowToTheJaw]

@FarAwayHills

I think in recent years weddings have become increasingly OTT, tedious and over bearing. People want a wedding to be like something from Hello magazine - it has become a BIG wow moment and all about being a celebrity for the day.

The trouble is friends and family do not share in this vision. They do not want to spend a small fortune on 2 hen dos, spa days, gifts and expensive stays at the luxury venue. You might believe that your wedding is different and better than the last 5 weddings your guests have been to, but chances are it's exactly the same.

I've done the registry office/ pub wedding, the church wedding, the luxury venue wedding and the foreign wedding. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME

Yeah, I think it's a general trend towards what you describe rather than full on shitstorms. The Overton window of weddings has moved.

[CoalCraft]

No one posts about ordinary, calm weddings! Most are fine.

I've never been to a shitstorm wedding... Starting to think I'm missing out

[Nanny0gg]

[quote Parpophone]@Nanny0gg

Zombie alert!!!!!
It's a 2016 thread.[/quote]
Bugger!!

I hope whatever 'improvements' MN are making to this site includes putting the date of the posts in flashing neon!

[Thoosa]

A return to the fashion for small, chic registry office weddings would be lovely. Maybe we will go that way now we are hitting more financial dark times.

[swimlyn]

We don’t attend any weddings where the invite comes with stipulations.

Simple as.

It’s a family and friends occasion, not a circus.

[MajorCarolDanvers]

In real life I have never been to a shitstorm wedding. Thankfully all my friends are sane and well adjusted.

I do find the wedding threads on here absolutely fascinating though. Its amazing that real people behave this way.

[Georgeskitchen]

[quote Parpophone]@Nanny0gg

Zombie alert!!!!!
It's a 2016 thread.[/quote]
I realised this early on but I was enjoying the responses so much I carried on till the end!! ¹😂😂

[Fernandina]

@Beeziekn33ze

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!

Amen to that!

[Parpophone]

@Nanny0gg

Zombie alert!!!!!
It's a 2016 thread.