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 dont think you can.

I know couples who treat each other like dog poo., yet are still together,
I know couples who stAyed together even though there was domestic violence.

I know couples who appeared perfect for each other and have divorced.

Some people tolerate virtually anything, others don't.
I don't think you can predict.

What I do believe is that some couples are genuinely right for each other. Some aren't but The ones who aren't don't necessarily split up.

The only commonality I have noted in all the marriages that have failed and that I have attended the wedding for is that there have been some serious doubts expressed beforehand.Lots of talking people round into starting the relationship or getting back together or getting engaged.

Most of the time I'm just really happy for the people getting married.

There was one, though, that was such a car crash in the run up that I felt guilty being there. I didn't think it could last. It didn't.

When we got married (registry office) everyone was making 'maybe 5 years' noises.

That was almost 25 years ago, and in that time just about everyone who was at our wedding has married and divorced - we are still together.

I think sometimes you can get a sense of what a relationship is like from looking at how a couple interact, but that is true whether that is at their wedding or anywhere else.

I have been to many, many weddings and there's been no correlation between their cost and a successful marriage.

DH and I had a small wedding, but at an exclusive venue and I had an Ian Stuart dress which cost ££££s. We're still very much in love 14 years later.

I have only been to one wedding that ended in divorce (so far). I didn't predict it at all. The groom had been a bit of a player in the past but had been together with the bride for several years and we thought he had settled down, they seemed really happy. Turned out he was shagging his colleague and the marriage lasted 6 months.......

I've been to three weddings which ended in divorce. One was mine.

The other two were actually two sisters. One sister's husband went off with another man and that sister then had an affair with her BIL. It all got rather messy and Jeremy Kyle. It doesn't get talked about in the family any more. :o

I hadn't been to a wedding for ages actually but we had two in two days to attend this year. One local one on the Friday of a couple getting married for the first time, beautiful day, really lovely personal service and they both looked so happy and the second one (we got in at 1am and had to get up at 7am and drive three hours) was a couple who were both marrying for the second time. Everyone was in tears, it was so, so lovely.

I don't think I even considered the probability of them divorcing, it just didn't cross my mind.

Dp and I are still dithering about sorting our own wedding. Neither of us are fussed about making a huge deal of it. If we could just wake up and be married, we'd both be really happy with that!!

I've never understood why people say that a thread title is awful, but click on it anyway to post about how awful it is. Why not just skim past it?

Haha my dh and I were having an argument during our first dance. Married for 7 years now and happier than ever. It's just one of those things
*disclaimer, it wasn't a vocal argument, more of a smile through gritted teeth one.

one colleague said I was disgusting for spending £8k (including honeymoon!)

I hope you told them to fuck off - how rude! I might twitch an eyebrow if someone's spent £££ on a wedding. But as I have just said on another thread, I'm a tightarse

I think you should have the wedding you want and if it's 90 quid or 90 grand then it's up to you. I do struggle a bit with the concept of people going into debt to do it, but it's personal choice what you choose to buy. I think there is more of a danger of the lavish weddings being reflective of a focus on 'my day at all costs' and less about the actual marriage, which may translate in the longer term to the longevity of the relationship. But I have been to a few big and expensive weddings and all of those couples are still happily married.

I think you can base how long you think a marriage will last on what you know of a relationship and not the cost of a wedding.

That bit about the luxurious wedding sounds like sour grapes and it seems you are happy their marriage failed because they had a big wedding. That's how your post comes across.

Dh and I thought we were the last of the big spenders, because we tipped our Pizza Hut waiter £15!! (Yes we went to Pizza Hut on our wedding day)

PaulDacres I was too to say much. Her daughter had a wedding abroad and expected all her guests to pay for themselves. I'm pleased to say I don't work with her any more and never see her. Rude woman!

I do think people get lost in planning the big wedding and forget about the reality of being married.

Bored to be fair I can see how you might have reached that assessment but I can assure you that there was no jealousy at all with regard to the lavishness and scale of their nuptials.

If DH and I had wanted a wedding like that we could have easily afforded one. It just wasn't how either of us envisioned how our day would be. We just wanted something more intimate and low key.

I won't deny however as per a previous post that there are some sour grapes about spending a lot of money attending a wedding where it seemed apparent I'd probably spent more time considering the wedding present than the groom had on what being married actually meant .

Interesting. We spent loads on ours (including kind contributions from parents). All going well so far, but only four years in. Fingers crossed, eh?

I think you can tell. I agree it's not down to money spent (I've been to both ends of the scale from cheap and cheerful to lavish and all expenses paid) but to, for want of a better phrase, spidey senses/empathy.

Two people I know are currently separating. Both had relatively low key weddings within their means, with things done to suit them, but on both wedding days there were red flags, arguments, overly in your face displays of affection, planning to the nth degree etc and in the seven years since the first of the two I've not been surprised when cracks have appeared due to the very different people they were (in both couples children were an issue, with one wife constantly promising they'd TTC in six months, a year, next year etc)

My own wedding was met with lots of rolling eyes, I was 21, my groom 20. We had a big party with lots of food and drink and music and we spent less than £6k including buying my husband's kilt, my dress and our honeymoon. We've just celebrated our tenth anniversary and we've got two children. I'd be interested to see how many of our guests predicted that I've just had a look at the photos that made it to facebook and we're leaning towards each other and smiling though

Hah, we'll probably have our wedding abroad, in my native country. There's other reasons as well, but part of it is that my DP is from a massive relatively dysfunctional family and they'll all want an invite!

Though I did say to DP if they haven't made the slightest effort to meet me or our son in the past 2-3 years then I'm not meeting you at my wedding.

We'll sort out accommodation and maybe transport for the family my DP wants there.

The only wedding I've been to that ended in divorce was my own! And I think, deep down, that it was always going to end that way; he was EA even before the day and it was a downward spiral from there.

I went to a wedding with some friends a couple of years ago where we knew the bride had been playing away during the engagement. We joked (between us) that rather than give them cash for a gift (they were saving to furnish their new house) we'd give them a tenner a year on their anniversary, and wondered if they'd make it to the number of years it would take to break even. They're still together!

Sil and her now ex dh's day went as follows:-

Text to say "we are getting married next Wednesday if you want to come? At x registry office. Then we are going to x pub for lunch after. If you want to join us for lunch no bother but we can't pay for everyone".

Half of me thought how simple and effective! No faff.

No heating in registry office. No plan as who she would have walk her down the aisle. Fil wore jeans and his usual bomber jacket.

No heating in the pub who had no idea a new bride and groom would be arriving with 20 people. Bride ate a tuna melt and left half as it was crap. All the food came out different times (because they weren't prepared and clearly only have the odd pint drinker in during the day).

Few rounds of pool and home we came.neither b and g broke a smile.they lasted a year.

I was a wedding coordinator for a hotel for years.

I could tell which ones would be over within a year.

When any couples one year anniversary came up we would invite them back for a free meal to celebrate. You knew which ones would be the ones to call and ask if they could bring someone else.

But I obvious but spent a lot of time with the couples before hand and saw how they interacted with each other.

The one I didn't see coming was the one where she changed who the groom was about 3 months before and the ex attended the wedding. Same wedding, same cake, same flowers etc different man.

Bruce. Must have been an amicable split!

We attended a wedding a few years ago where the bride was so drunk that she vomited down her own dress during the photos! Had a feeling it wouldn't last and I was right.

The two that stick in my mind were beautiful weddings with an emphasis on marriage between couples who had been together for ten years. It was almost as though the relationships couldn't run their course without a wedding which acted as a catalyst for the break up. One ended in six months, the other within a year. Still very sad and both were twenty years ago.

Roses - oh yes, the 10 years in paper-over-the-cracks wedding. I've known a couple of those.

The only one I've been to where I genuinely didn't think it would last the distance was one where I knew the groom was a weak-willed, philandering idiot - but that was based on outside information, not behaviour at the wedding (which was lovely). To my surprise it lasted about 15 years before his mid-life crisis.

Bruce re:the new man - that's just

It's interesting what you say. I hadn't thought about wedding planners.

What things made you think it wasn't going to work?