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?

Thanks to this thread I've just added up how many weddings I've been to. I stopped counting at 40 and only one of those has ended in divorce (a distant cousin who I was a cute incompetent 3 year old bridesmaid for). Three of those weddings I've thought, hmmm may not last but they're all still together so far. Interesting thread.

I'm 35 so maybe haven't hit peak divorce age yet though...

Elph - 40 weddings!!!

I married my husband in a registry office 5 days after we became a couple. 8 weeks after we met. It cost a bit more than the standard license because we had a special license so we could get married faster than having to wait for 15 days. I think it was around £30.
That was all we spent.
My husband needed some new shirts anyway so we bought him some and he wore one of those but apart from that we didn't buy anything new. Not even a wedding ring.
One of my friends came along with her boyfriend for witnesses and we had a ham roll and cheese and onion crisps and a pint in a pub afterwards.
I got a wedding ring seven years later and our then six year old son helped my husband choose it.
We've been married 26 years and we are more in love now than we were then.
We've weathered a lot of difficulties that would have broken other people - my husband's health deteriorated quickly after we married and we found out he had numerous genetic conditions - incurable and progressive and we've had a roller coaster life as far as financial 'stability' is concerned as well as the health issues.
But I couldn't imagine life without him and we are a very tight knit couple and enjoy sharing the adventures life throws our way.

Me and my husband have been Married 3 years been together 18 it's not about how u r on the day, it how u get through the rest of your life together. We didn't see much of each other on our wedding day but the time spent together was the best time ever.

I don't think you can ever guess what's going on in people's relationships

Oh, I dunno, our guests were running a book on whether we'd last six months! We beat the book, but had a decree absolute by our third anniversary (actually we delayed the decree because it was due on the anniversary!)

To be fair to the guests:
I spent the night before the wedding alone in a bar, trying to figure out whether I should go through with it
His best man's speech revealed an episode of his past that would have been a deal-breaker for me if I'd known
He told me to fuck off during the reception
... and other fairly clear indicators.

We're both bloody-minded (I prefer 'determined') and I suspect this is the main reason we got married against all common sense. Well, that and the sex.

We're both great party hosts and laid-back about details. There was no angst about the actual event, it was mid-to-low priced, we did most of it ourselves, and everyone still remembers it as a really good day.

We should have just had a party and a few more shags - and saved ourselves a world of pain!

I have been to 22 weddings including my own. The only one I would have predicted might end in divorce (it has) was that of the daughter of friends.I had not met the groom before and wondered why on earth she was marrying him .Not an especially extravagant do .
All the other couples (mostly friends of my own generation) are still together, as far as I know happily .
As are we (34years).We were 32 (DH had married before very young to 'get away from home'Ended in a civilsed and unacrimonious divorce after 10years).We had a big but not especially lavish wedding .I cannot recall being at all stressed by organising it. It was done in three months,at a distance of 120miles, with my mum's help .I remember a cousin telling me afterwards that I looked so happy and ''sure' as we said our vows and couldn't stop smiling .We had been together just under 2years Not actually living together as we ddidn' live in the same place .I think because we were older we were pretty sure that getting married was the right thing to do for us .We have had some difficult times and I would not pretend it has all been blissful but we have weathered them and are happy .

Saracen I mean this in the nicest way, I'm so glad I'm not the only person to make an absolute arsenal of myself on my wedding day. One thing guaranteed to make me jealous, even now all these years later, is seeing video/film of someone (real or fictional) walking down the aisle, serene and collected. I don't wish for many moments back again, but if I could just do my wedding ceremony again, I would.

arse

I'm a registrar have done far too many weddings on and off site to count. Sizes from the couple on their own with witnesses dragged off the street to the humengous (vera wang frock, hundreds of guests and more bridesmaids, page boys, ring bearers and petal scatterers than anyone could ever wish to see.

YANBU - you can tell.
There is a look in the eye when they get to the "I take you as my lawful wedded husband/wife" bit of the vows. If that look isn't there .... they are usually back being married to someone else within a few years.

That's so sad

A friend of mine got married knowing full well that the bride was playing away with a colleague before and after their very short marriage. I only went to the reception but in retrospect you could tell something wasn't right and my friend looked incredibly gloomy. The whole atmosphere and chemistry was off between them. I remember thinking 'hmmm I hope (rather than expect) this to work out.

When the shite hit the fan a few months later and they separated I asked him why he went through with it. He felt that perhaps things would have been different once they got married and that maybe she was having one last fling and that when the who machinery of the wedding is in place it almost takes on a momentum of its own and with about six weeks to go it was extremely difficult to throw the brakes on, even if it would have saved him a fortune and more heartache in the long term.

I've only attended 4 weddings in my entire life. All on a limited budget.

3 of these weddings featured the same groom and all took place between 2001 and 2008!

Scientist have run those experiments and can quite accurately predict which couples stay together. It's all about how people communicate, how many negative and positive comments are there, do they listen to each other, are they kind and considerate.
This is of course all amplified on the wedding day.

uk.businessinsider.com/4-behaviors-can-predict-divorce-2015-1?r=US&IR=T
joe.ramfeezled.com/wp-content/uploads/Carrere-Gottman1999-Predict-divorce-in-3-mins.pdf

I'm bemused at how pwople know someone's wedding coat 5k, 10k, 75k? Obviously they brag about it.

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?

I think yabu if it only bothers you that it didn't last. If you were happy to spend it at the time it doesn't matter if the marriage lasts. There is no promise you will get your money's worth when you attend a wedding. I would hate the thought of someone staying in a unhappy marriage because of how much their wedding cost or how much guests spent.

I have to be honest though I wouldn't have spent 2k to attend anyone's wedding and I think expecting people to spend that much attending your wedding is really unreasonable.

Dbro wedding, including hen/stag do would have been that much. Both me and dh said no to a lot of it.

It's true that people don't know exactly what's going on behind closed doors. However you can often pick up on a vibe between a couple.

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

I am sorry he was so awful and you went through that. However people say this sort of stuff after someone's death wether they know what's gone on or not. My dad's dad was the village drunk. Everyone knew him and his wife (my nana) hated each other. There were many public displays of hate. When he died loads of people said similar things about him knowing full well it wasn't true.

I am not saying people always know what's going on. But people talk crap when someone's has died.

On a different note I am always intrigued by what was called a 'papering over the cracks' wedding earlier in the thread. I have quite a few friends that have been together years and then split with in months of getting married. I can only assume that the wedding shouldn't have taken place. I didn't feel that marriage changed much between me and dh. Surely the actual getting married can't have changed a happy relationship into a unhappy one.

dogsdieinhotcars the only ones I know the cost of are the ones where we have had significant involvement. E.g the £75k one DH was best men. The other one I know the cost of (7k) was when I was maid of honour. Otherwise no idea.

*best man

Thinking about it, I suspect it's more about extravagance than money spent. I went to a wedding that was clearly expensive (a round of two drinks at the venue was £10 and this was 8 years ago!). But it was relatively simple, the couple weren't showy, it was more that the bride's parents were well-off and footed the bill for an expensive venue. It's more about weddings where someone insists on having 'nothing but the best' that rings alarm bells for me.

Katharina this is mentioned in the book 'Blink', very interesting read.

I suffer v bad insomnia, got ZERO sleep the night before my wedding day, and was really upset/moody for most of the big day as a result. Sooooo badly wanted to feel my best!

I didnt want to pose for photos as felt (and thought I looked) like crap, and felt v uncomfortable being centre of attention as lack of sleep meant I couldn't handle it - I felt so light-headed from tiredness I thought I was going to fall over walking up the aisle (I sound like a right melodramatic dick, I know).

From an outsider's perspective, it probably looked like I didnt want to be there at all, and the marriage would be a disaster - but we're extremely happily married and have our first baby on the way :)

Anyway, long-winded way of saying: you don't know what's going on under the surface with a bride and groom on their wedding day to know from those few, crazy hours whether it will last.

My wedding was beautiful. Intimate, family-created, we adored each other. Photos reflect that and it was an amazing day. Money was on us as the couple most likely to last. I can guarantee there was no one watching thinking it wouldn't go the distance.

He left me 6 years later.

You can't tell from the wedding. Sometimes there is a vibe, I'm sure, but I suspect that's from the relationship as a whole not just one day.

Exactly, Razzle. I looked at my wedding exactly what I was, a very busy, heavily pregnant academic trying to finish an essay before my due date (two weeks after wedding) who was irritable at having to schlep off to a ceremony I didn't particularly want, and who was almost certainly looking bored and cross at the vows - but that had nothing to do with my feelings for my beloved long term partner.

We've been very happily together for 25 years. I just don't do publicly gooey to order, and I don't have much time for the institution of marriage. But marriage has had no effect at all on our relationship which was good beforehand and good afterwards.

I know what you mean. I haven't been to a wedding for a long time but I get that feeling too.

I went to a wedding where the bride was 8 years older than the groom and a lot of people had a fake 'sense' it wouldn't work based on that I think but as I knew they would be, they're still together, still suited. Not a pick on either of them from all their vegan hill walking.

A cousin of mine got married and apparently they both knew on the wedding day (themselves, the couple) that it wouldn't work but the two families decided at a crisis meeting that people had come from Australia and they wanted their child's parents to be married (albeit briefly) and everything was paid for etc.......... So they got married and went on honeymoon knowing they were splitting up!

Whyaspoon. :-/
These ones shock me. Sometimes people (men) don't know when they have it good.

"Surely the actual getting married can't have changed a happy relationship into a unhappy one."
Usually those marriages/weddings happen because the couple know the relationship is going wrong and get married in a last-ditch effort to 'fix' it. Which of course doesn't work.

But on the subject of never really knowing what goes on out of sight - I once went to a really lovely wedding that led to a marriage which lasted months. He moved out of the house about 3 months in, with vague claims that he'd been single too long and couldn't get used to living as a part of a family. It subsequently came out that he was a pedophile, (although he wasn't an abuser, I need to add). He'd been through extensive therapy before he'd met his wife, and believed - or hoped - that he was 'cured' but it turned out that living with her young teenage daughters was, not surprisingly, a really bad idea.
Despite that, it's still one of the nicest, happiest weddings - as an event existing in complete isolation of anything else - that I've ever been to.

I once went to a shotgun wedding where I don't think the bride and groom said 6 words to each other all day. Not because they were too busy, there were only about 30 people there, but because they apparently didn't want to. During the reception she sat with her family and he sat with his friends.
It lasted about 2 years, iirc, which was about 2 years longer than any of us thought it would last, but the marriage was a complete disaster start to finish.