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?

Bruce02 I'm sure you have some stories to tell! hint hint

I don't think it's about money either. It's definitely the vibe, the attitude between the couple.

Though it's worse when the spidey senses tingle, and you know they WON'T split up, because of religious /family reasons. Like my cousin. Horrible relationship, the most awkward and strange wedding ever, I'm pretty sure there is DV going on, but I highly doubt she will ever leave him, as she will lose everything and even her parents will take his side, because of their beliefs

Opinions should be kept quiet though!
I sacked my bridesmaid with three weeks to go as she kept voicing her doubts about whether DH was right for me. He's been right for the last nearly thirty years so I think it's a fairly good bet!

It's definitely not cost. The ones that come to mind are the ones where the brides parents kept shouting down the bride and groom over decisions and the bride always sided with the parents. There was a huge argument on the day because the grooms parents had been given a suite instead of the brides parents friends getting it. The bride ended up screaming at the groom even though she had organised who had what room.

There were a few where the grooms couldn't have cared less. Which is different to the grooms going with the brides ideas. Many grooms let the bride take the lead but did have input. It were the ones that sat there and said nothing or 'yeah that sounds fine' to everything.

Or the ones where the grooms tried to give input but where told to be quiet by the brides, brides family or (in one case) the maid of honour who came to appointments.

The ones where they discussed the decisions together were the ones coming back year after year for anniversaries.

In my experience the people who have expensive weddings don't last long. One friend spent over 30K and they were married for 7 months. Another spend in excess of 35K and lasted about a year. Our wedding was budget about 3K, we couldn't afford much and didn't see the point in being in debt for one day. We just wanted to be together, coming up for 16 year anniversary next month. The lavish expensive weddings seem to be about showing off and have very little to do with love.
Just my observation!

My experience is the opposite. The shortest marriage I know (literally a matter of weeks) was a low key event at the bride's parents house - not huge numbers and definitely not extravagant.

The weddings that I've been to that appear to have been jointly organised by the marrying couple usually give me the impression that the marriage will last. Weddings that reflects both of their likes, personalities etc.

It's the weddings that feel as though they've been solely organised by the bride (perhaps with some input from her family or friends) that make me wonder how the marriage will fare!

I don't think you can ever guess what's going on in people's relationships, several of my close friends have split up recently, really acrimonious and awful and I always thought they were the ultimate happy couples...you never know. Me and DH row a fair bit and have had a lot of ups and downs and a difficult few years, but i would never want to be without him. Our wedding was a cheap as chips affair.

In my experience the people who have expensive weddings don't last long. One friend spent over 30K and they were married for 7 months. Another spend in excess of 35K and lasted about a year.

We spent approx 30k and have managed 4.5 years so far. No intention of splitting up any time soon.

I'll venture I witnessed the shortest marriage - 11 days! Friends of my now ex, not cheap but not overly extravagant wedding, had been together including living together a while, so in run up all seemed fine. Then at the wedding ... physical fight between both mothers, things calmed down enough the couple left on their honeymoon until the groom got an early flight home! And that was that, they didn't even speak again.

My own wedding, even now - several years after the divorce! People who were guests say it was a fab fun wedding and we seemed genuinely in love. In reality i knew I was marrying the wrong man for the wrong reasons and he didn't want to marry at all!

2 weddings I've attended were shotgun jobs and the couples were very young AND they'd been together less than 6 months, both couples still together over 20 years later.

Another friend is still married, had a very elegant wedding but I suspect is very unhappy, that he is very controlling if not outright abusive.

Another friend I knew it wouldn't last cos I know him, total womaniser, he won't change, but loads of other people that knew him thought he'd been 'tamed'. I don't believe who a person fundamentally is really changes.

Predicting success is I think less to do with the wedding than what you know of the couple.

I totally agree. My brother and sister had expensive 'showy' weddings and both divorced within a few years. My wedding was small and meaningful, we had a wedding to be married not for the show! We have been married over a decade and don't regret our small cheap wedding one bit as we did it for us not for others!

Looking back, xh's speech was barely complimentary about me. I wonder if other people think the same if they ever ponder over it.

We spent quite a lot on our wedding; we both earned great salaries at the time (I've since retrained as a teacher and miss the money but love the job!) we already had a house and were in a position to spend it on somewhere lovely for our friends and family to all stay with us, so we did. Fortunately our priorities and end goals are very similar so despite the extravagant wedding we're still happy and focus very much on our family unit. 7 years married isn't too shabby. There are no guarantees and I'm sure DH's Aunt (who I've never got on with; she's always been incredibly rude and dismissive to me, particularly at the wedding) would like to think it won't last. But nobody on the outside really has much of an idea what's going on indoors. Marriage is marriage however you do it. Sometimes if you both work really hard as a team you might get lucky and have one which lasts. I don't think money is the defining factor at all.

The fanciest wedding I've been to led to a 9 month marriage which was 50% longer than most guests were predicting.

The wedding itself, from the castle they hired for the 3 day event, to the kids entertainment was perfect if you overlook the bride barking instructions to staff, photographers, guests and her new husband.

Our wedding wasn't all that auspicious. I freaked out at the church door and needed to be coaxed inside, after standing frozen outside for about 10 minutes. In the hideous video I never watch and would quite like to destroy but for the images of dear guests now departed, I look like I am about to cry or faint or be sick the whole way through. I have to be physically propped up by husband. To outside eyes, it might look like I was having second thoughts or being forced to marry against my will. This wasn't the case, I just had a stupid panic attack. Never had one before or since. Still happily married well over 20 years later.

I was bridesmaid for a friend who had a gorgeous wedding to a very suave and charming groom. I lost contact over the years but I vaguely know through friends that their marriage was horrendous almost from the off, and their divorce was extremely acrimonious.

I don't think the wedding is necessarily an indication of how the marriage will go.

I have a wedding venue and 100% they're are some weddings I think - really?! Forever, are you sure?!?!
It's sad tho. Even if you do it on the cheap it's a shit tonne of money, why do it if you are not sure! Mind you I've had several cancel and those ££££'s, Better to bail out than see it through if you aren't sure I suppose.
For us, 9 times out of 10 the weddings that do cancel are in the higher end of our price bracket. I think they must get swept up in it all and loose sight of what it's actually about.

"Our wedding wasn't all that auspicious. I freaked out at the church door and needed to be coaxed inside, after standing frozen outside for about 10 minutes. In the hideous video I never watch and would quite like to destroy but for the images of dear guests now departed, I look like I am about to cry or faint or be sick the whole way through. I have to be physically propped up by husband. To outside eyes, it might look like I was having second thoughts or being forced to marry against my will. This wasn't the case, I just had a stupid panic attack. Never had one before or since. Still happily married well over 20 years later."

Snap! I cried in terror almost the whole way through and everyone (my parents, my sister, my fiance, and the chap performing the ceremony) kept assuring me that I didn't HAVE to go through with it. Mine wasn't in a church, and looked like a shotgun wedding. We got married in America by a criminal judge, no less. He was lovely though. We recently celebrated our 25th anniversary.

When the bride shot the groom down with a cutting remark during his speech it was clear to the whole room things were already going down hill! 9 months later the divorce papers arrived!!!!
And this was their second wedding and second divorce with eachother! some people just dont learn. 😂

i used to do something that meant i saw a lot of weddings, and yes, there were definitely indications between the bride and groom that they weren't very happy. i did sometimes wonder why on earth they were doing it. one couple didn't look at each other or smile the whole time. that was really depressing.

in general i didn't see misery at low cost weddings though... those were pretty happy ones, and we were treated really well. posh ones on the other hand...

I have two friends who were MISERABLE at their own weddings, both happily married.

One, her mother took over and pretty much planned it, couple pretty much just showed up (wearing dress and suit chosen by the mother), she hated the whole day, there was nothing about the couple exactly, it was a shit wedding (& she admits that herself, wishes she eloped) and she looked lost all day, The groom looked unsure about the whole thing, in reality he was trying to act as a buffer between his MIL and his wife but on the surface he looked like he was turning his back on his wife a lot.

Another, similar, this time over bearing MIL, bride had such an awful day she sobbed in the toilets until she was sick! The groom was monopolised by his mother and other family while her side was blanked, you'ld have thought they were all strangers if you hadn't known the couple beforehand. The wedding photos… god they're awful, looks like an awkward arranged marraige.

Both have super marriages.

Such a range of responses.

It's been really interesting to hear what everyone else thinks.

I still don't feel (based on my experience) that the cost of the wedding is an indicator, more the "vibe" of the couple on the day and run up.

Derailing my own thread though AIBU to be miffed about the wedding in my OP about spending £2k to attend a wedding that didn't last?

My note about the lavishness was in relation to the fact that the costs of travel and accommodation/food/drinks were incrementally passed to the guests.

I went to a wedding where the bride blinked her way through the vows, which DH and I thought was very suspicious and joked with her later (whilst watching the wedding video) that it meant she didn't mean them. She's now married to someone else!

Sorry I don't think it fair to make such judgements on how long a newly married couple are going to stay together. It seems quite wrong to do so.

No one can guess at what is going on behind closed doors. No one, and it is super judgemental to insinuate you have some kind of insider knowledge that even the bride and groom don't know about

Just to highlight the, 'no one knows what goes on behind closed doors point' - an ex of mine, years back ,was regularly violent to me. When he unexpectedly died (heart attack), people were coming out of the woodwork to say what a lovely salt of the earth man he was. When in fact he was a violent psychopath who had held me at knifepoint, he was a thug who had never worked a day in his life. No one knew him, only the 'public image' he liked to keep up, the mans man image

We really shouldn't make judgements about people, its so uncool

eatshit I got married abroad, no one was made to feel like they had to comenit was a 'we're going here and getting married, if you wanna come feel free' type invite. Inwent through with the wedding because a number of friends and family had already booked it, 9 months in I couldn't take it any more that my husbands alcoholism was taking over our lives and putting my children in danger.
So I knew I shouldn't have done it before the wedding, I thought I would be able to just handle it rather than let the people who had forked out to come down.
So you probably aren't unreasonable to be miffed at all, but maybe thy bride, like me (hell maybe it was me!) still feels totally shit about it years later but really couldn't see any other way out

Maybe I'm not sure, my Mum and Dad got married on my Mum's 18th Birthday,my Dad was 25,they got married at the Registry Office,my Mum didn't have a wedding dress but she looked stunning like one of those 50's Movie Stars,they only had 2 wedding photographs and my Dad told us the whole thing cost less than £2 and my Mum and Dad were married for over 50 years,we lost my Mum a few years ago and I know my Mum and Dad would never have split up.

They renewed they're vows when they reached 50 years at our local church,my Mum's always been a Christian and she'd have loved to have got married in a church so my Dad made sure they renewed they're vows at the Church

My first wedding cost alot of money,over £16,000 and I was 18(23 years ago) and he was 21,we paid for everything ourselves and my Mum wanted me to have a huge over the top wedding and I did,horse and carriage,a huge church with choir and organ,250 guests in the day,4 bridesmaids,matron of honour,5 paige boys(all the grooms men including the paige boys,ushers,my Dad were in top hat and tails)all the bridesmaids were in dresses that looked like children's versions of my dress,large reception,4 course wedding breakfast,silver service,free bar then a hot and cold buffet in the evening and an extra 100 guests,a DJ,entertainment for all the children,special gifts for all the grooms and bridal party,wedding favours for everyone and gifts for all the children that attended,a huge wedding cake,fresh flowers everywhere.

It was madness and the relationship lasted 9 years,7 of those we were married.Everyone was shocked when I ended the marriage but they had no idea what he was like,it was an abusive marriage in every way possible and I was lucky to get away.

Mine and my DH's wedding cost us under £5,000 it was just what we both wanted,we've been together over 10 years and I've never been happier.

My DH was married,he was getting divorced when we met,his wedding cost him nearly £20,000 he did everything his ex wanted and paid for it all on his own and she was abusive to him and had an affair within 8 weeks of they're wedding.

So for us a wedding that was all bells and whistles had no meaning for either of us on the day or in the way the marriages turned out.

I think you can just hate weddings, though.

My DH kept saying between gritted teeth, 'Please stop smiling for a minute, you're freaking me out.' We both hated the pomp and ceremony of it all and the way our parents were at each other's throats. I'm sure you wouldn't have thought we'd have lasted.