To think that you can generally guess the chances of a successful marriage based on the wedding?

[EatsShitAndLeaves]

So DM emailed yesterday to let me know a family member is getting married for the second time.

All well and good and I'm happy for them.

However it inevitably reminded me of their first outrageously luxurious wedding which cost DH and I a small fortune to attend where DH and I concluded half way through the event that we had wasted a shit load of money we couldn't see the marriage lasting more than a year.

As it happens we were wrong - it all fell apart after 8 months...

Thinking about it more, nearly every wedding I've attended had a "sense" of if it's likely to work out in the longer term - and the odd exception aside, I've been right.

To be clear I don't go to weddings with the intent of conducting a forensic analysis of the relationship! I genuinely want these people to be happy and for it to work out, but sometimes I can't help that "spidy sense" feeling.

AIBU to think this pretty common?

Sorry just be be clear I don't think the more money spent on the wedding reflects the potential success of the relationship.

I probably de-railed my own thread a bit by bring that up!

In that case the "tell"'was the grooms speech where he used the word "hopefully" about 20 times - as in "hopefully we will still be together in 50 years" "hopefully we will have children" "hopefully I will make my wife happy".

It was just really odd and felt like someone not really committed just bumbling into marriage and being a bit meh about if it worked or not.

I gave my brother's marriage 5 years and they're coming up to 6 so that's me told!

oh no im planning mine for 2018.......will now be very aware of all judgments throughout the day.

My aunt got married and the bridegroom didn't even make it to the Reception. They made the mistake of not travelling together from the Registry Office and made a "quick" stop to the pub. He finally arrived four hours later.

They are no longer together...

Another one was where apart from the formal aspects of the day (photos, cutting the cake, meal etc) the B&G spent zero time in each other's company and it was quite snydy when the did - e.g. Photos "no, don't stand there, don't pose like that, don't pull that stupid grin" etc

It was more prevalent at the evening section where they just seemed to hang out exclusively with their own family.

honeylulu's comment about the couple leaning towards each other in photos made me - in every single photo of our wedding day, DH has his head angled towards me. I'm five foot tall, he's five ten, so it's not that odd, but it was something we commented on at the time. 30-odd years later we're still happy together, so maybe the psychologist is right!

Hirples

You are right and your theory is academically supported!

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480

It's not so much the cost of it (although that plays a part) but the attitude. For a marriage likely to last, the wedding is about the couple and their love/relationship. This is reflected in the way they choose to do things across everything from venue choice to guests invited and costs.

For a marriage not likely to last the wedding is about showing off/status/demonstrating to the masses. In general terms, a wedding in a local church is more likely to last than a chavvy "look at us aren't we fabulous" one on a beach in the Caribbean.

The only wedding I've been to that cost less than 5 figures is also the only one (so far) to end in divorce. They lasted less than two years.

But so-called "extravagant" weddings are loathed on Mumsnet so it suits that narrative to assume they'll never last.

Obviously if the bride and groom don't seem to get on at the wedding it could be a sign that their relationship is in trouble and they will split up within a year or two. Otherwise, I don't see how you can tell at the wedding if a marriage will last 7 years vs. 17 though.

I'm sorry but I think it's terribly bitchy to go to someone's wedding and sit there saying uou give it a year. And to then be still peeved years later that you spent money on it and they split up, that's quite horrid. I'm sure they didn't do it for the shits and kicks.

No, I don't think uou can predict how someone's marriage will go by their wedding day, I've personally been a bridesmaid at a wedding with eight bridesmaids and eight groomsmen, and they are still together, and my best friend had a cheapo do and is now on her second hubby. Sometimes things happen in life and no marriage ending is taken lightly by either spouse.

Sorry, but for me you sound very judgemental.

I think there are some cases when the wedding is more important than the marriage, and that is when everything falls apart not long after.
I have seen a few women (and it has always been women) dream for years about their wedding and that is the driving force behind the marriage.

I got married for a tiny amount of money, but it wasn't a rushed decision. We wanted to get married, the wedding was less important.

I don't think there is a straight-forward correlation between the cost of a wedding and likely success of the marriage though - that's a huge over-simplification.

Those that are very fussy, controlling and highly-strung about wedding preparations are also likely to behave like that in a relationship and thus be difficult people to be married to.

There's a lot in this I think.

My Dad is an absolute genius at weddings. Every wedding I've been too with him, he's tapped me on the shoulder and said 'I give it 5 years/18 months whatever' and he'll be accurate to within a few weeks. He's like a bloody soothsayer.

This is one of the very few photos I have of my wedding. That's my Dad on the right, the groom is on the left.
The first violent incident where police were called was 3 months in, I left not long after

I've been to loads of weddings, but never one when I've thought 'bet this doesn't last a year'.

Not even my cousin's - and that one lasted five weeks before she moved out!!

I guess I'm not a very intuitive person about these things.

evening section where they just seemed to hang out exclusively with their own family

Small wedding and our families barley exchanged a word - though I think we did both try and make an effort with each others - though they made that hard and by end of evening we might have been just with our own.

Our families have been stressors on our marriage at times - but they've met less only a few times and we don't live near any of them.

Your entitled to your option Blunt but as I've already said, I don't attend a wedding with the intention of "guessing" the outcome.

If I go to a wedding it's for someone I care about and I genuinely want them to be happy.

However based on the day (or even run up) it's hard not to reflect on what happens and why that would be so.

My opening post may have been somewhat flippant, but I didn't get any pleasure from feeling it wouldn't last (nor did DH) - quite the reverse.

However I'm not a saint and I'm not going to pretend that I felt great about being asked to cough up a lot of money to attend a wedding where it seemed apparent that the commitment of the couple was ambiguous at best.

I've just realised I've never been to a wedding that's ended in divorce (so far) and divorce doesn't look imminent in any.

There is one where I reckon she has made a mistake and she is not really happy but there are no signs of actually splitting. That one they married quite young, their parents initially disapproved of their relationship, and it was more of a 'break for freedom' (in her own words). The wedding was lovely but I found myself 'hoping' that they would be happy rather than confident that they would be.

My own wedding is still occasionally mentioned by a few as the one where they could 'feel' the love, ah. I'm not usually a mushy or heart on your sleeve type, which might be why people noticed, but I loved him so much that day it felt like it was radiating out of me and I'm still stupidly in love with him. Pass the bucket.

I can see your point bluntness, however a friend of mine recently got married and six months later had split from her DH because "she knew she shouldn't have married him."

This was a very big wedding. The venues were stunning, everything was incredibly elegant and they had the best of everything. As a guest, going to a wedding like that will cost a lot of money. New outfits, travel, accommodation etc. Not to mention their gift list was from John Lewis and the prices ranged from just under £100 to over a grand. Now most guests I'm sure would be happy to pay that and the expense probably wouldn't cross their mind in an eventual breakup. But to spend that amount and then find out the bride didn't want to get married in the first place and had "got swept up in the planning"...yeah, I'd be pretty pissed off, too tbh.

I'm not saying that's true in all cases, or even in this one, but I don't think it's always true to say that they didn't mean for things to go wrong or for people to pay out when it would fail. Some people don't enter into marriage for the right reasons at all.

Apparently, money spent does matter:

'marriage duration is inversely associated with spending on the engagement ring and wedding ceremony.'

We did ours for 50 people and £5k 4.5 years ago after being together for 7 years previously. We are in the approximately 1/3 of our acquaintance who haven't divorced (yet).

My most favourite wedding to go to was in Venice, only about 20 people, utterly magical. They split up 8 months later. No idea if they spent more than us though!

I don't think that's true, no. Our wedding was one of those 'in jeans down the registry office for a lunchtime cancellation' ones that people have tended to get snide about on here, because they think it's either 'miserable' or too self-consciously casual. It featured a bride who has always hated the idea of marriage, AND who was almost 9 months pregnant, a pressing practical rather than romantic reason to marry, a groom who genuinely didn't think the bride was going to show up, and a visibly puzzled registrar who thought it was a bit much that the couple were in a hurry to get back to work.

We've been together happily for almost 25 years.

I don't know.
A friend of mine came out of a long term relationship and married a bloke who'd just got divorced after a very short marriage (his wife met someone else on their honeymoon).
Both lovely people but their friends thought it was much too quick, less than 6 months from meeting.

They've been very happily married for 12 years.

I'm getting married in April 2018, exactly 10 years to the day since we first got together so if anyone is sat at the back making "I give it a year" noises I'd be really upset

Totally agree. It cost us a small bloody fortune to attend a wedding abroad with the dc. Groom's speech was all about how beautiful the bride is. And nothing else. Mahoosive fuss about photos, bride got snappy with ds for touching her with grubby hands. Lasted 2 years and I want a refund . For me, its about the amount of joy. The loveliest weddings (and imho the marriages that last) are where the bride and groom radiate joy and can't stop smiling.

No rings, no music, and I think the whole thing cost whatever the notice of marriage and room hire cost.

Yes, that US study concludes the cheaper the wedding, the better the odds of the marriage lasting.

◾In the sample of men, spending between $2,000 and $4,000 on an engagement ring is associated with a 1.3 times greater hazard of divorce as compared to spending between $500 and $2,000.
◾Spending between $2,000 and $4,000 on the engagement ring is associated with 2 to 3 times the odds of reporting being stressed about wedding-related debt relative to spending between $500 and $2,000.
◾Spending $1,000 or less on the wedding is significantly associated with a decrease in the hazard of divorce in the sample of all persons