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?

I get where your coming from the big flashy weddings tend to be the ones that last 5 minutes and what they spent on the wedding ends up being spent on the divorce as well my mum and dad had a wedding in the cheap and they have been happily married for 33 years.

I don't think it's the case. My parents saved for 2 years so my mum got her dream church wedding, big white dress, the works. However the man she really truly loved didn't feel the same. And so she just wanted the big wedding, and my dad was willing to give it to her. Now I know that obviously most people wouldn't be in that situation, but my point is despite the big, expensive wedding, it ended in divorce. She ended up marrying the man she had always loved in a registry office wedding, it was much simpler but still nice. Their marriage means more and is stronger because she truly loves my stepdad.
And to use myself as an example, I met my now dh in April 2014, we became a couple in May 2014, started ttc in July 2014, got engaged in January 2015, married in April 2015, and had our first child in September 2015. So we were actually married before we'd been in a relationship for 1 year. But we knew it was right. I also dreamed of the church wedding and a fancy reception, but due to a 3 month engagement (we wanted to be married before the baby was born), and money, we had to make sacrifices. We married in a registry office in a ceremony as close to a church as we could have. I still had all the old fashioned traditions, and wore a big white ballgown with long train and a 2 tier veil.
Just because our wedding didn't cost thousands, doesn't mean our marriage isn't as strong. We could have married in a bus stop and it would have meant just as much.
So I don't think it's right to judge a marriage based on the type of wedding the couple have.
My mum and dads expensive wedding was in effect pointless because he wasn't the man my mum wanted, but my registry office wedding was everything because I had the man I truly loved.

everyone who rushed down to the registry office for a £200 special split up because it was a generally impulsive (young) decision.

My parents had a cheap wedding at 20 and 25 years old and have been happily married for 31 years.

Many people lose sight of the fact they are committing to someone for the rest of their lives when planning a wedding.

People who want a big wedding tend to get caught up in complicated seating plans, dresses, flowers and all the other 1000 extras that come with a big wedding.

Brides particularly get themselves very stressed out in the months coming up to the wedding and all for it to be over in 24 hours and then they are 30k down.

I personally think many people just look at the actual day rather than their future together.

The best weddings have laughter.
Its the non staged photos that tell the reality of a relationship

my fave picture of a family member's wedding is of her literally doubled up crying with laughter at a line in the best mans speech

my wedding pictures contain a lot of goofing around

I personally think many people just look at the actual day rather than their future together

It's possible to do both. I did

I think the registry office thing isn't the same these days. It might have been the rushed job in the past..couples who wanted to be together but didn't want a church wedding or who couldn't 'live in sin' because it wasn't the 'done thing'.

All the couples I know who married at a registry office have either been marrying again or just wanted a very low key marriage.

All the couples I know who've married in a registry office have done it because they're atheist. The after party has still been extravagant!

Dunno about the 'radiating joy' bit. I've just been to a wedding where the bride wept copiously throughout much of the service, even taking two attempts at 'I do'.

But she knew she was going to, and had put pockets in the side of her wedding dress specially for her hanky.

The groom thumped her encouragingly on the back at the end of the vows and murmured 'Well done love.'

I think they'll last.

So far, the marriages I thought likely to last the course have and those I didn't, haven't. This isn't just based on the weddings, though, but on background knowledge of the relationships and couples' attitudes. I do agree those I am fairly certain aren't going to last the course often do seem to focus excessively on the day itself having to be a perfect fairytale fantasy, with disproportionate upset if reality gets in the way of the organisation. Maybe that's just a symptom of stress, because one or the other of the couple already feel like they are trying to maintain an unrealistic fantasy by contemplating getting married in the first place.

I've only been to one . How come everybody has been to so many weddings??

we are having a wedding which is big and expensive by my family's standards, its probably quite small by my DP standards though. We have been saving and living on beans for over a year so we can start our married life without wedding debt. i have been married before and know this is different because although the wedding plans are all in place and we are excited for it all of our conversations start with us talking about what we will do, where we will go, what we want 'after the wedding when we are married'
i think that the fact we are focused on being a married couple and the commitment that carries is the big green light in this relationship. previously with the ex it was all about the wedding.
the best weddings big, expensive, lavish or small, budget and quiet i have been to are the ones where the couple cant take their eyes off of each other and you catch them looking when the other is not aware of it and smiling to themselves. this is when i know they have a shot at a good long marriage rather than a beautiful wedding day.

Interesting topic.

I've been married twice. My first wedding was very cheap, church followed by village hall type affair, engagement ring was a family ring. Two nights on honeymoon. However we were very young (20 and 25) had little money and split three years later as we were on totally different paths in life.

My second wedding was a year ago, when I was 29. It was a massive country house affair where we paid for everyone to stay over and have breakfast the next day. Probably the type of wedding mn loves to hate . Followed by epic honeymoon. The difference is we were both established in professional careers, spent a small portion of our annual income and had lived together for a couple of years beforehand.

It's early days, but, my husband is amazing, he's my absolute rock. I grin from ear to ear whenever I think about the wedding, it was truly an incredible day, and was the start of a fantastic new chapter of life for us. I had little interest in planning my first wedding and was quite dismissive of wedding trends, I think because deep down I knew it wouldn't last. I didn't even put any wedding photos up at home after. I planned my second wedding in only a few months but loved every second of planning and had everything I wanted because I knew I'd never be doing this again.

No debt with either wedding but the first one probably cost a much bigger proportion of our annual income, despite being 'cheap'.

Because we're old, FoxMulder?

I've only been to a few weddings - but the one where everyone knew the groom had snuck off with another guest the night before was fairly doomed from that point on. They went through with it but it only lasted about 6 months. So many things wrong with that wedding day!

I've only been to one sad. How come everybody has been to so many weddings??

We're really, really old and our friends get married a lot? Or we get married a lot ourselves?

It's not something I routinely do, but there have been a couple of times where it's difficult not to sit and think that the marriage might have a short shelf life.

Mind you I went to a lovely wedding recently where the B&G had really spent quite a lot, but the whole thing was built around making it a fab time for their guests. The entire day and timetable was about making sure that everyone had a good time and my overriding memory of the day was watching them work round the room together, hand in hand, with humungous smiles on their faces radiating happiness and being concerned that their guests were enjoying themselves. Really great wedding and I think they are very well suited and should go the distance.

My own wedding was a bit of a disaster and was done on a shoestring. Even though the day didn't go to plan, the main thing I remember was DH and I trying not to giggle when the photos were being taken. What you can't see from the photos is that we were having a thumb war with the hands that were behind our backs. I like to think that our matched immaturity is why we're still together all these years later

I'm not young (33) but none of my friends are married. Which is unusual, now I think about it.

I actually find this thread very upsetting. If I could've seen into the future I would not have married. Neither I nor he knew he'd become a violent alcoholic. We had a nice wedding.paid for by both sets of Parents and loved each other yada yada. Things went wrong due to unforeseen circumstances and we're now divorced.
Spidy senses would not have helped.

Portia - I don't think anyone is suggesting for a second that it would be appropriate to share one's opinion with the B&G at their wedding. And there have been posters sharing their own stories of getting it wrong and underestimating people.

I think this is a lighthearted thread which isn't intended to make people feel like they should have second-guessed themselves.

because one or the other of the couple already feel like they are trying to maintain an unrealistic fantasy by contemplating getting married in the first place

Wow I think round hit the nail on the head there

^ round that's how we felt at the wedding we were at recently. He's always felt he 'wasn't the marrying kind', but I think he wants to be with her and she wanted to get married, so they did.

I think anyone at my wedding would have said the same. Neither myself or my husband like being centre of attention, and we were both visibly freaked out at the ceremony for that reason. We were going to go away and do it just the two of us -until we realised how upset our families would be- Anyway, anyone watching would have said we weren't interested in each other at all, because we rushed through the ceremony in 7 minutes and once it was over in my eagerness to get out of the room I left my new husband behind. The photographer had to ask me to come back so he could take some nice romantic photos of us walking out together as husband and wife.

We are still married...and i'm still not good in crowds!

I think there's a danger in investing too much in what the OP is saying here; she's not saying that the amount of money spent on a wedding is inversely proportional the the time the marriage will per se; rather that it's common that big fat F-off affairs tend to be low on joy and high on show. Having 80+ people at an event where everyone wants a piece of the pair of you makes it hard to actually stick together on the day and it's stressful to manage the emotion, the running order of events and the thanking everyone for coming.

BUT: I've thought the same as the OP on several occasions and maybe it's because I've been through my big wedding being not only shit on the day but also collapsing two years later, or maybe I'm just becoming a hardened cynic.

Totally get what you're driving at re: spidey senses. It's not nice to feel them tingling but as an attendee of umpteen weddings mines is usually right.

I have a bit of a rep for being impulsive, we got engaged very quickly and married 10 months after we first met, and I bet you any money you like that there were a lot of secret thoughts that our marriage would be short and I would get burned. I reckon all my friends were shaking their heads and saying "there she goes again". I'm only half joking when I say that I'm fairly sure someone was running a book on how long it would last.

10 years later we are still together and I think whoever was taking the bets should give US the money!

No-one gets married expecting to divorce, and no-one knows they'll last, though we generally hope we will, longevity is sometimes a triumph of hope over experience...