Am I the only one who loves a proper formal wedding?

[StealthPolarBear]

Dress up, watch the ceremony, drink and dance and chat. Maybe even have your photo taken?
It seems fashionable now to call them stuffy and hate them.

I don't mind them! The only thing I don't enjoy is being sat on a table full of strangers and having to make small talk for a two hour meal which I'm terrible at (social anxiety) and this happens at most weddings we go to as most of our friends we know from different places so we end up not knowing anyone else. Other than that, which is entirely my own problem, I quite like them!

I thought traditional meant hours and hours long. OP you started at 3, a massive relief compared to usual weddings.

3pm is a fairly traditional time for a wedding to start, I'd have said.

Yes I thought so too. We just went from that to dinner and then the band.

I thibk the next fashion in weddings will be having a fried breakfast for the wedding breakfast.

Mmmm. I do like a cooked breakfast

I didn't want one myself as I hate being the centre of attention. I eloped!

But love attending a big wedding as a guest.

I like them too, OP! I think our wedding was probably much like yours: church at 3, reception afterwards with sitdown meal followed by dancing (80ish guests, all all-day - I do really loathe the concept of evening guests). I actually initially wanted a quick registry office and pub small do, but having what he considered a 'proper' wedding mattered a lot to my husband. I have to say that on the day itself when we were surrounded by people we love, I thought that having a biggish, formalish (though people kept saying how relaxed it was - maybe code for underorganised! It was all thrown together in five months!) wedding was the right choice for us. Though I'm sure I'd be saying exactly the same thing if we'd had the small casual wedding I originally wanted!

I've only ever been to one wedding I didn't enjoy, and that was quite a particular set of circumstances. There's no doubt that weddings are better the closer you are to the couple, though, and the more people you know. I often think that one of the reasons some people are so down on weddings is that they're mostly going to family ones. I'd probably be a bit less enthused about a cousin's wedding. A big party with your mates, though? What's not to like?

I love them! The only part that bores me senseless is when you are weddings where you have to hang around for 2-3 hours whilst they have photos taken, 99.99% of which do not involve you.

I'd love to be invited to more weddings (maybe I should also hire myself out).

I love weddings but have hardly been invited to any! (small family). Even the tacky ones are fun! We had a traditional wedding, but no receiving line or anything like that. No Thriller dances, no favours, but lots of food and drink! My goal was to make it laid back and fun for the guests. I don't really like stuffy posh weddings, where you're frightened to move or breathe, or weddings with organised "activities"

My wedding was like that (I loved it).
I've only been to 2 weddings, my mum and stepdad, and my own.
I'd love to go to a wedding where I'm just a guest so I can sit back and enjoy, rather than be part of it all (was my mums bridesmaid and witness).