To be surprised that relatively high spending on a wedding, means it is less likely to last

[abacucat]

Study quoted below.

"..we find evidence that relatively high spending on the engagement ring is inversely associated with marriage duration among male respondents. Relatively high spending on the wedding is inversely associated with marriage duration among female respondents, and relatively low spending on the wedding is positively associated with duration among male and female respondents. Additionally, we find that having high wedding attendance and having a honeymoon (regardless of how much it cost) are generally positively associated with marriage duration."

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2501480

That was a response to sunnymeg

Our wedding was ok, I had a nice time, kept things simple and look like "me" in the photos. Literally never think about it thesedays though - except when we're at a wedding or I'm discussing weddings with my friends - and it definitely wasn't the best day of my life. I agree that wedding planning can become the main focus / glue holding a couple together but that can happen in any situation.

As it's self reported (not evidenced) would a man be more prone to overdo the cost of engagement ring - "I spent £2k and she still wasn't happy" - and the woman be more prone to hyperbole too, about the wedding cost, following a break up? Whereas those who felt their weddings or engagement rings were good value (ie a lasting union) are either less focussed on the cost or got married longer ago when things were cheaper or underestimate? Just thinking aloud.

Neither do I can’tcatchme (evidently by my posts) and not do I think my single example says very much about trends. But the responses on MN to stuff like this always seem to indicate that a proportion of your guests may be pricing up your wedding and making judgements about your relationship accordingly. However we invited people we loved and whose company we enjoy and who I don’t think want anything but the best for us

That’s a good point sweetheartneckline - I had a good time at my wedding but by no means did I expect it to be the best day of my life! I haven’t even properly looked at photos yet as I found out I was pregnant a few weeks later and morning sickness zapped my concentration

Hersymphonyandsong humans will always try to work out the behaviour of others. Otherwise social research wouldn’t be conducted.

Sometimes we are right, sometimes we get it wrong, but people are always going to have thoughts and opinions on the behaviour of others.
No conclusions can’t be drawn that can be generalised to everyone, but you will never stop people supposing things.

If one of my guests thought hmmm well she’s had her church wedding that must have kept her mother happy, but I can see the reception, nice enough as it is, didn’t break the bank and they aren’t going to be repaying it for the next ten years about my wedding, then they would be right
Everyone at my wedding was there because they wanted to celebrate with us. I would be hurt to think otherwise, and very hurt if I thought they equated what we spent with how long the marriage would last. But most people will always consider the motivation and behaviour of others, hence why researchers take an interest.

DH and I had what must be the cheapest possible wedding- us, 2 witnesses and a registrar. No cake, dress, ring, photos, flowers, guests or reception. Our “honeymoon” was a 72 hour on call shift in our local hospital (I was a junior doctor).
The whole thing cost £13.50, the price of a licence back in the 1980’s!
But we adored each other, for the whole 16 years we had together - until he died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage in his thirties.
I still love and miss him nearly 27 years later, and never remarried.
So yes, I suppose we fit the survey results.

Our wedding was expensive and the assumption that my focus was on the wedding day, not the marriage, I find patronising.

We could afford it, we had lots of people we wanted to invite, so were happy to spend the cash. We are still happily married nearly 10 years later.

Oooh and purely anecdotally, the couples I know who were together a long time (say ten plus year) before getting married have all divorced now. Really strange.

I had a fairly average engagement ring but an expensive wedding with no honeymoon so the jury is still out five years later. Could go either way.

There are some mega bitchy comments on here. I spent loads of money on my wedding and I had a brilliant day. But the wedding was not more important than my marriage and we very much were considering the future and building our own security. I am not shallow or selfish. I’d do exactly the same again. I’d never be so rude about low budget weddings so not sure why so much spite comes out about people who spend a lot.

Lol I do understand why research is done - I’m talking about MN responses!

I have never judged someone for how much they spend on their wedding. I did wonder about a colleague who talked whenever she could about the details of her wedding and her preparations. Things like getting the exact colour of ribbon to tie up the party favours with. That is all she really talked about for more than a year, and she never mentioned the groom or love at all.

In the olden days, I think it was more about the marriage and less about the actual wedding as the wedding was the means to start of a new life together, not something that is tacked on to a long term relationship.

I think that's a really valid point, sunnymeg. When you've been living with your partner for 3 years, you decide to get married and you want to spend the rest of your life with them but you also want to take on this project together (i.e plan your wedding) and have a jolly good time! It IS exciting and you do want to be generous with your loved ones.

In the past, couples hadn't lived together yet and possibly hadn't even had sex, so I suppose the marriage was the exciting bit - no need for a huge party!

Mumsnet responses are just conclusions people have drawn about their observations of the behaviour of others hersymphonyandsong. Lol

Things like getting the exact colour of ribbon to tie up the party favours with. That is all she really talked about for more than a year, and she never mentioned the groom or love at all.

I get what you're saying OP but when you've been with someone for years you're probably not in that gushing about your partner, madly in love stage anymore so I can understand why your colleague talked more about colour schemes than how much she loved her DH2B!

My DH and I spent our whole wedding day crying our eyes out with the emotion of it all and our speeches about each other were very moving but that was not something either of us talked to colleagues or friends about. The dress was probably what we talked most about which doesn't mean I don't love DH any less, honest!

Surely the stats are mainly man woman marriages so how can high spends just affect the females, their male spouse must have been affected the same !

All the budget weddings I've been to have been where the bride and groom haven't known each other very long - so they haven't saved for as long. Less than 18 months between meeting and marriage.

Whereas the more expensive weddings I've been to are typically the people who've been together for years, have lived together for a long time and have saved up for a long time to pay for the wedding and honeymoon.

This might be why more of the budget ones have ended in divorce than the expensive ones, in my (albeit limited) experience.

Things like getting the exact colour of ribbon to tie up the party favours with. That is all she really talked about for more than a year, and she never mentioned the groom or love at all.

I would really cringe if someone banged on about how much she loved her h2b. She's marrying him, I think it's safe to assume she loves him. But the colours aren't something we can assume, I would find that a much more interesting topic of conversation tbh.

She doesn't have to say she loves him, but never to mention him at all?? And talking about details like colours of ribbons for a year was excruciatingly boring.

@KNain isn't it saying that with budget weddings, the marriage tends to last longer?

I don't know why a couple of posters took umbrage at my previous post. 35/40 years ago, you would have never thought of moving in with a boyfriend if you weren't married. Those that did were regarded as loose and immoral. You got married, moved in and then had children. The excitement was in looking forward to starting a life together. Now people have different priorities and live their lives differently. If you have lived with your partner and had a family before getting married, then the importance of the wedding is different. The boom in huge large weddings began with this shift in people's behaviour. That is undeniable.

I've heard these figures before. Seems a bit odd to me that bit about - expensive weddings correlated with poor outcomes, but high attended with good ones? Our wedding was expensive, but only because we had a lot of guests (c180), which I image is the main reason some weddings are expensive.

Bugger, we are having a ‘budget’ wedding with no guests and no honeymoon (by choice rather than need). I wonder what the future holds for us?

I agree @Sunnymeg. Back in the 80s if you moved in together without being married it was seen as a declaration that you had no intention of getting married, ever. Plenty of people still did it the old fashioned way, “courted”, got engaged and got married. It really was the start of a new and very different life as a couple and weddings had an emotional charge that is missing from many of the recent weddings I’ve attended of established cohabiting couples,

Interesting thread.

I don't think you can necessarily correlate spending on a wedding with the likelihood of divorce though.

We are spending about £20k on our wedding. About 75% of that is on food and drink. £20k is a lot of money but it's well within our budget. We fell in love with another venue but after getting quotes from the caterers, marquee suppliers etc and adding everything up we realised it would cost over £35k. That would have been within our budget too (in the sense that we could pay for it without having to get into debt) but we thought it was an unreasonable amount to spend on one day. We are really looking forward to the day and quite comfortable with the amount we are spending.

But £20k could be an enormous, unattainable sum for some people, who would certainly have to get into debt to pay for it, and a drop in the ocean and a "cheap wedding" for other people.

There's probably some truth in saying that people who are completely focused on the wedding and not the marriage are less likely to last. And I'm sure that getting into a lot of debt for something that is completely gone the day after your wedding and all you have left is an expensive dress and your memories could cause quite a lot of tension, especially if the couple weren't both completely on the same wavelength about the kind of wedding they wanted and could afford.

I know someone whose first marriage lasted six weeks. I have no idea how flashy or expensive the wedding was, but I do know that she rushed down the aisle with an unsuitable partner because all her friends were getting married and having babies and she thought that if she didn't do it before she turned 30 she'd be left on the shelf. She's now happily married to someone else.

I think if you choose to marry the right person for the right reasons and you see your relationship as a continually evolving thing that you have to work at, your marriage stands a good chance of success, whether you had a cheap registry office do or a massive swanky £50k party. If you're marrying the right person for the right reasons and you both want to spend a lot of money on a big party for all your family and friends and you can afford to do it, you should do it. You're (hopefully) only going to do it once.

SunnyMeg

That can be looked at in a negative way though, if you think about it, especially if you go further back.

You could only choose someone to marry out of the much smaller number of people you knew, and relationships weren't tested. There was no divorce, or there was stigma, so you went into this thing for life with little experience of the person. You were excited to do things in marriage that were forbidden or severely frowned upon. Being married and getting to do sex/cohabit was exciting, but nowadays people see a marriage - typically - as something that means a whole lot more than just that. You're expected to do the other things first, and rushed relationships are often frowned upon!

I'd much rather a culture of fancy weddings than one of extremely limited social interaction beforehand!

Bigchoc Thanks - looking forward to the next 32!

seren Strange, we moved in together in 1986, having got engaged a couple of months earlier, and were married later in 86. Still together. Ds says we have the most stable relationship he knows.