To think weddings have gone a bit crazy, or have they always been like this.

[Fitzsimmons]

Is it me, or have weddings, christenings, and other major celebrations gone a bit crazy in recent years?

I keep seeing posts on here about things like people having childfree weddings and getting upset when guests with kids decline, people expected to pay out hundreds to attend a hen do, bridesmaids who have to turn out like clones on the day or god forbid the photos might not look symmetrical. Christenings seem to have gone a bit mad as well. They used to be about declaring your intentions to bring up a Christian child (which is why my kids haven't been) but now they're about showy tea parties and props and gifts.

There are even companies now that will come and set a scene for you, with various props and backdrops to create the perfect look for your photos.

Is it driven by the rise of social media I wonder? Everyone is looking for the perfect image to post online, even if it means those at the event won't enjoy it.

I got married over ten years ago and we had a traditional hotel reception affiar. Loads of kids, lots of alcohol, no props, basic family photos. My bridesmaids helped pick the dress (though I chose the colour) and wore whatever shoes and jewellery they fancied. I invited plus ones, even if I hadn't met them, because I wanted my guests to be happy. I thought all of this was pretty normal but from what I've read on here it all seems to have changed.

People just have a wider circle of friends than they used to when people were born, lived and dies in the same place, hence bigger weddings. Plus some people have huge families and it's hard to leave people out.

We had over 100 people 15 years ago and most were our friends not family. When we made a quick list of close friends and family to start with we came up with 90 people in about five minutes.

YANBU

I'm with @Stillwishihadabs 4WaaF kind of did it really. I got married that year, weirdly went to four weddings and a funeral, and the weddings, although fairly posh, were all tasteful and done for the right reasons.

The next year however.... Dear God. The beginning of Bridezilla!!!

I don't think it's that recent, nor do I think it's entirely due to the rise in social media, as competitive weddings were about before most types of social media!

But I do think the rise in costs associated with weddings is ridiculous and outrageous, and I largely blame "wedding/bride magazines" for this, and also wedding fairs.
Telling women what they should have, creating envy for the big showy stuff, making them feel tight if they don't have ALL the extras.

We got married 11 years ago in the UK and had a limited budget, so pared down all the non-essentials as far as possible. No posh wedding car, no "chair covers", no expensive flowers, no attendants, no dressing the venue - I didn't even have a hen-do! (but I was pregnant so y'know).

People get sold the "idea" and there are companies there to boost the price of everything through the roof if you let them. Social media certainly hasn't helped, probably made it worse, but it's not the original source of the problem.

YANBU at all! I agree, I had a lovely wedding but it would seem like a peasants wedding now, I didn’t have a hen party at all never mind one that cost £100s, my kids haven’t been brought up religious so I didn’t have a christening or ‘naming’ day for them and I’m kind of glad, I think I would need to remortgage to have one now with all the photo booths and three tiered cakes! Don’t get me started on ‘baby showers’ .....

OK your an Aussie = so what is the punch line to this old Joke (tasteless) joke? What is the difference between an Aussie Wedding & a funeral? (blame my Aussie relative for this!!)

I'm sure in the late 70s/early 80s, most folk either rocked up to the church in a Jag or a nice Rover to the regsitry office, followed by a buffet lunch or tea in an hotel or in the room above the local pub, or if a very small wedding, back at the parents. Standard fare was vol-au-vents, cocktail sausages, pinepple & sheese on sticks stuck in half a grapefuit, suasage rolls and paste, ham or chicken sandwiches, cut into small triangles. If there was a bar guests bought their own drinks other than a glass of bubbly/champagne that was supplied. Cake was a simple 1 or 2 tiered max white cake with some nice piping and decorated with a few fresh flowers on top. No wedding favours.
After the food a DJ played a few records and Auntie Gladys and Uncle Raymond would attempt to jive to the more unsuitable punk tracks of the late 1970s, much to everyones embarrasment/amusement..
The bride wore a dress carefully crafted by Aunt Elizabeth who had been a dressmaker before kids, the bridesmades dresses were also made by Aunt Elizabeth who had run out of time somewhat so they were not the best fit but the lemon, pale blue, pale peach or pale pink concoction did not look out of place for the era. The groom wore a suit from Burtons, and a brand new pair of shoes - but had forgotten to remove the sale sticker from the sole.
The bride and groom would depart about 10pm by taxi to a local hotel for the night before leaving the next day by train for a week in Blackpool/Brighton/Isle of Wight or Spain if they were really lucky.

(sorry spelling) you are....(not your!)

I find the tone of this post very smug! A small or inexpensive wedding doesn’t mean it was “better”. I do agree that things are quite OTT now in terms of people being demanding or grabby, but a bigger wedding or more expensive isn’t somehow worse, or bloody matching bridesmaids outfits or whatever. So judgemental.

The more ‘performance’ a wedding is the more I worry about the actual marriage.

FWIW our wedding was a budget wedding 20 years ago - all self catered, but we did have a couple of hundred guests so I had loads of helpers, however it was very personal to us - we had organised a lot of our friends to help us organise things for our guests and us to enjoy rather than buy us presents, and is STILL the wedding that everyone elses is compared to, we often are told eg 'We went to Derek's son's wedding earlier in the month, very nice affair, but nothing as nice or as fun as yours'.
We got married 20 years ago, so it's nice people still remember a great day.

We couldn't afford to do plus ones for everyone for the meal. Numbers were limited to 40, so 20/people each, including family. We didn't want children there. Nobody minded. I am now pregnant and if I was invited to a child-free wedding, I would try to make arrangements of regretfully decline. No bother.

Just before you all come on and have a go, I know what I am going to say might upset/anger some of you. Anyway, whew.....

We do not accept wedding invitations anymore unless it is a close family one and only as far as nieces and nephews, not cousins. We don't have many of them and they are far away so that works.

Weddings are so formulaic and can be very tiring, long days and can be very expensive for the guests. You have to chat to lots of people you don't know all day long. What have we got in common? Knowing the B or G that's all! So decided a couple of years ago to no go anymore. Will still give the same monetary gift I would have given had we attended, along with a nice polite regret! No one seems to mind. It's not about us anyway. When we decline two more "friends" on the reserve list get to go, win win!

Sorry to sound like a boring old fart, but at this stage of my life I only go to these things when I am very close to the person concerned.

I was a bridesmaid (I don't think flowergirls had been invented) aged 6 at my cousin's wedding in 1972. She had a "discotheque" in the village hall. She was considered really flash.

I’ve been saying this for a while. We got married 10 years ago; and I haven’t once looked back and thought ‘Oh man; I do wish we had had a sweetie table/photo booth/cake that cost £500+....’ . These things seem standard now; and I don’t doubt that this is because of Instagram and Pinterest other social media.

If I had to offer any advice; make sure that before spending extra money on anything for the wedding, think ‘Will I look back and regret not having it?’

Ours was fab; we would say that! I think it cost around 10K including honeymoon, so not cheap but nowhere near the average (around 23k I think according to my brother in law and wife who got married earlier this year)

I am often horrified by the stories on here of hen holidays and stag weeks in Vegas. Where is the money coming from?

When I got married first time round, we buggered off abroad. My parents opted to come too but stayed elsewhere. But I didn't expect anyone to come and being the type who doesn't like a lot of fuss, it was lovely, just us on the beach saying our vows.

I have been to two weddings in recent years, one very low key and lots of fun with a million small kids running about and very personal. The other was a very expensive affair but also very personal to them and we enjoyed both days. I dread to think of the cost of the second one though and they did the holidays abroad beforehand.

We are planning to get married but ideally I would like to just get married on our local beach with our mates and kids and close family and then just spend the day having a beach bbq and a swim in the sea.

I was a bridesmaid (I don't think flowergirls had been invented) aged 6

Are you 4 thousand years old? Because flower girls date back to ancient Greece where small females would scatter petals and grains to symbolise fertility for the marriage.

It's not a new thing!

It's crazy what you are expected to pay for these things. Last wedding I went to also had a list of colours that were not allowed, it was abroad and I was invited to the hen party as well in a third freaking country. It would be okay, if I would just have to think about myself but there are so many extra costs with gifts and getting a new dress (if some colours are not allowed) and paying for the brides spa treatments...

Needless to say, I skipped this one ;)

No things haven't gone anyway at all. There have always been large lavish weddings and small ones. There have always been child free weddings and family orientated ones. There have always been destination weddings, there have always been weird weddings, there have always been just witnesses weddings.

That may be so, but the distribution has changed enormously. More 'ordinary' couples have big expensive weddings these days. And child free weddings were unknown when I got married in 1980. I'm not saying they didn't ever happen, because I don't know that for sure, but I had never heard of one.

toomanychilder ok let's say they're almost unheard of in Degustibusnonestdisputandem1's experience in Australia and, in my experience, in several other countries. In the USA, for example, second tier invitations to evening only are rare to the point of being almost unheard of as is the practice of not inviting spouses and longterm partners. It's just considered bad manners, if you can't afford to accommodate certain people at the whole event it's considered better etiquette to not invite them at all.

I’m 29. I was married 5 years ago. I didn’t have a hen do (because my moh only turned 18 a couple weeks before our wedding) but I went to my friends hen do recently and it cost a grand total of £17 per person. It’s costing me £20 for a dress for the wedding (she is pagan and I don’t have suitable attire) and that’s it.
I can understand how people can rack up ££££ because of the cost of babysitting, wedding gifts etc, but if it’s going to bankrupt you, then don’t go!
There are always going to be a mixed bag of weddings. Ours cost £5k all in (including 2 weeks in Venice) but people still talk about our wedding. A cousin got married in a £5k dress alone and yet people actually ask me if she ever bothered getting married - and these people were there! So yes it depends on the type of friends you have and your personal circumstances as to weather or not the wedding etc seems to be “crazy”.
I think it’s not driven by social media as such but it is more likely to end up on social media so more people are concerned about how they look now.

I stand corrected! I've never heard of them in oz though (I come from rural oz) - what's the point of just coming to evening do without seeing the actual wedding ceremony?

I couldn't agree more. Our wedding was tiny but it was memorable because I was vowing to be with my partner for the rest of my life and my partner was vowing the same.

That is what is memorable - your public declaration of your love. If a couple need something else to make it memorable, then I feel sorry for them.

Ps mumsastudent, do tell! 😁