Wedding day....England are playing?????

[arghhhhhhh]

Just been on fb and someone I know (though not well and I am nit invited to the wedding!) is getting married on Saturday. Obviously England are playing.

She has it a status on saying she has had multiple requests from guests wanting to know if the football will be shown.

Her status basically says she's angry at the messages she's had and under no circumstances will the football be shown. It's her wedding and the day is about that and that only. She's asked that no one checks their phones during the match and is even going to have a sign made for when people enter the venue as a reminder it's a football free zone.

Now she's had a fair few comments - a couple even say they wouldn't attend if they were invited due to her attitude.

What's everyone's opinions?

Me personally, I'd show it! I love football though, I've followed the World Cup through out and I'd be gutted if I couldn't watch it! I'd be making arrangements with the venue to make sure it's on.

The atmosphere would be amazing. I'd be jumping around with everyone else in my dress.....

Also a great way to break up the day. The day goes so fast for the bride and groom but the day guests....it can be such a long and tiring day. What a great way to break up the day!

Also, we are doing well, we haven't been in this situation where we may actually have a good chance of WINNING!!!! for years and probably never will again. The whole country is routing for them. Even people who don't like football are into it. I just don't think it's fair to expect people not to watch it, or not even check their phones!

Saying that....I do understand this lady's frustrations. She's been planning this wedding for over a year. I got married quite recently and know the stress etc of planning....but yeah, wouldn't make any difference to me. I'd be so excited for it to be shown!

Opinions? Is she being unreasonable? It's her and her partners day at the end of it.....I'd be worried my guests wouldn't show up though....

I think it's reasonable although perhaps people should be allowed to visit a local pub at 3pm if they are really bothered.

I hate watching sport on TV and would be sad if I had a wedding that coincided with the world cup.

I also disagree with your 'it's only a game' comment.

To you it is. To others it's much more than that. If you don't like football then you won't understand. This is a hell of a big deal to a lot of people. The bride needs to open her mind to the fact that yes she hates football - that's fine. But to others it's the opposite. She may not be able to see it but that's the way it is.

The point of the "It's only a game" comment is that the fanaticism for football that makes it seem like more than a game to some people is kind of vile. Partly because it makes people do things like prioritise it over a friends wedding. It riles up emotion for nothing of real value. It isn't something the people getting excited about have any impact on - it isn't their game - they are living vicariously instead of putting that passion into something real. The whole culture around football is really problematic for the UK and does more harm than good.

Wanting to be able to check the scores on a phone or discuss it with other guests is not prioritising football over a wedding. There's an argument that wanting to watch it during 2 of the 12 hours in what may well be a lull isn't either.

Also, football is a global passion. If British culture is problematic because people want to keep tabs on a game during a wedding reception,we've oodles of company. Heaven knows what some of you would think of the Brazilians.

I think guests asking if the football is going to be on is rude and that guests will stay home to watch the football is awful when the bride and groom will have spent a lot of money to feed them. I don't blame her for being annoyed (she could have worded it better), but for friends and family that is really disrespectful.

Usually on MN you see someone trying to change their plans being told they are selfish and they already made a commitment and don't get to drop it because a better option came along.

If guests listened/checked on the game in quiet times then fine, but you would not expect the bride to prioritise a football game in the middle of her wedding and they definitely should not be watching/checking the score during the ceremony or speeches.

Saying that, I did go to a wedding once that was on a finals day (can't for the life of me remember whose it was but think it may have been the rugby final). The wedding was at a hotel and the hotel did have a tv showing the game in a different room.

Some of the guests would disappear out to watch a bit and then pop back (mostly the men) and then they came back after that finished. However, I think that game was in the evening so people disappearing out of the evening party was not so bad (the bride said she didn't mind) but during the actual ceremony/breakfast would be really noticeable.

I'm with the bride, but then neither my husband nor I can stand football and avoid the World Cup like the plague.

I can’t believe this is still going on. Bride isn’t being unreasonable for not wanting it on a big screen or shown.

She might not have known the World Cup was on. I don’t know the dates of the games. To be frank I only know England are through because the media won’t shut the fuck up about it. I wouldn’t have this problem as all the people I know just want England out. If they wanted to stay home and watch it I would be quite disappointed. I wouldn’t put it on a big screen for my guests but I wouldn’t ban them from checking their phones either.

If football means that much to her guests where they would prioritise that over a wedding then they should have not said they were attending in the off chance this would happen.

You’d have to have a kangeroo loose in the top paddock, to plan a wedding during the World Cup.

Agree with a PP that the whole culture around men's football is toxic. The aggression, the tribalism, the misogyny (so many male footballers have form for beating and raping women, but that doesn't matter if they are good at kicking balls about), the way other people have to accept that it's REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT - though anyone wanting to watch a more obscure sport, or maybe women's football, would be told to suck it up and stop being so silly and selfish.

People were fucking tedious about the royal weddings, as well, but at least they weren't brawling in the street about it.

That's simply not true Reanimated. The only people who are repeatedly told to stop being silly and selfish when they want to watch sport are men who want to watch football.

I’d show it even tho I hate football. It will add more fun to the day

We’ve just been informed that if England go the semifinal it will be shown during a teams work meal, the meal designed to get the national team talking to each other which happens ever 2years. Why should I have to sit through that, people talking about something I know nothing about and have no interest in and I suspect many others bloody rude

The only people that would think not to book a wedding during a possible world cup season are those who give a flying fuck about football. Some of us don't.

Presumably the cost of the weeding was lower because of the football

Id hate to do it but the sensible thing to do would be to amend your wedding day to accommodate the match and embrace the atmosphere somehow.

She's crackers. It's the World Cup! My best friend got married during the group stages (thankfully not on a day England were playing!) I was a bridesmaid, and watched the games on my phone at dinner with the best man... The bride and groom though it was great and asked the photographer to get it on camera! If you ban things, people will resent you, but if you're reasonable about it (phones allowed) people are going to respect and enjoy the rest of the day.

I got married one July and as I was finalizing the date I double checked with a football mad friend that their would be no clashes before confirming.
As I heard one friend had got married during a big match it was years ago and blokes were slipping off left right and ventevto listen to it and some tried bringing portable radios into the meal. The bride, brides family and wives and girlfriends were all unhappy with their men so I didn’t want to have this scenario.
The bride sounds barking and self obsessed and is an idiot for not checking.

This is a tricky onen I would say! They obviously didn’t expect it to clash at all! If it was me I would show it but I do see where she is coming from. I suppose it also depends the time of the wedding...

When i got married it was FA Cup final day and we had to pray either Everton or Liverpool didn’t get to the final (which thankfully they didn’t) but if they had it would have left some people annoyed as the match would have started right when our wedding meal did, and there was nowhere to show the match anyway. In this case though with it being England and everyone at the wedding presumably supporting England, and also it starting at 3pm I would have showed it coz 3pm was when we left our guests to have photos so even though we wouldn’t have been able to watch the match ourselves, we wouldn’t have actually been at the venue during 3-5pm!

I think however, people should still respect the couple’s decision as it’s their big day and weddings are expensive. Anyone who doesn’t go coz they won’t show the football is an awful friend/relative!

We got married the day of the Calcutta cup during the six nations. We timed our day so that the rugby was on between the breakfast and the reception. We had a big tv with flags and hats and all sorts! We have some awesome pictures of all our family and friends watching and cheering!

I hope the Groom doesn’t turn up, who’d wanna be married to her ?

Turn it around and imagine it was a funeral.
Would football fans be asking the grieving family if they were going to watch the match or would they be checking the score on their phones during the burial etc?

No, they wouldn’t.

Good grief. What a bloody drama. You’re getting married, you’re not the Queen and you can’t expect your guests to spend the entire day marvelling at you like extras on a film set.
I would think the very idea of having guests is that you would like them to be happy and enjoy the day. I really despise weddings which are so stage managed. It also makes me feel a little uncomfortable that a wedding day can still be considered the highlight of a woman’s existence.

Weddings are nice but it’s the marriage that counts.

As Bill Shankly famously quipped. “ Of course I didn’t take my wife to a football match on our anniversary, do you think I would have got married during the football season?”

I'm with the bride.
Every so often folks need to do something to support their friends whatever else is going on
I think the bigger picture is this culture where everyone expects to be on the internet / fiddle with their phones all the time.
I'd say no phones, no football, enjoy the moment, find out what happened with the match afterwards.

We got married on the same day as a league final Or something (we booked ours first or I wouldn’t have picked that day).
I wouldn’t have wanted to sit their watching the footie on the evening of our wedding. We got married in a hotel with a bar area & I did notice most the men weren’t about in the evening. I guess it didn’t bother me massively (certainly doesn’t 7 years on) but at the time I did feel a bit peed that they watched the footie (more so because they had to leave the wedding reception to do so but made sure they took the buffet with them).