AIBU to be disillusioned about weddings?

[supersop60]

The more I read on here (and, granted, no-one is going to be on AIBU about their perfect wedding), and the more I encounter IRL, I think that weddings are an enormous source of stress and unhappiness.
For eg My DN had a lovely destination wedding in September -( it cost a lot for me to go and my family stayed at home). Two days ago she announced she'd met someone else and was leaving her husband. It now appears that the wedding was a band-aid.
So many wedding that I've attended, have ended after a relatively short time. What on earth was all that fuss and expense about? All the family and friends wishing them well, supporting them in their relationship.
On MN - worries about money, invitees, cf bridesmaids etc.
AIBU to think - just don't do it? Go to a register office and make your commitment legal in private.

@jayne310 there's no need for that, PP are just asking if you're aware that there is a difference between being married and having your partner's name.

Legally there are a great deal of differences, that's all.

Thanks for the marriage lesson guys. Appreciate it 👍🏼😂

@TinkerSpy
No need for what ?

I didn't want to get lost in it all and buggered off to Gretna green just me and DH. We were back in our street clothes an hour after the wedding. Loved it.had a party a month later for 'everyone else' and I hated it and we probably had loads of people moaning about how we did it.

I just don't see the big deal with going all out! It's not about the day, it's about the forever after. Saying that, plenty of people can have the big day and do it for all the right reasons but for some it's all about showing off.

@Jayne310 I married very young, now I am older and have quite staunch feminist views I don't like the history marriage has and it makes me uncomfortable thinking back to our ceremony- the things I'd do differently like not being given away, the vows, keeping my name and not doing it in a bloody church! But all that aside I'd still get married, for legal and financial reasons it's still very important in this day and age. I still love the man silly either way of course. He's never getting the toaster though!

@UserMe18
Haha, it just sounds like everyone's saying you HAVE to get married for legal reasons. Why ? If I don't wanna marry I won't marry. That's my problem in the future init. Stop trying to convince me to get married is all I'm saying haha

Only on MN, if you DARE to have a fancy wedding then it’s obviously doomed.

Get married in a bin bag and carry a bouquet of twigs and it’s true love.

🙄🙄🙄

@jayne310 no I get that I'm not preaching I promise I haven't even read all the replies, just thought I'd say I wouldn't be so keen to marry on "ethical" grounds now but still feel the system encourages it. One of the reasons it was so important gay people got the right to marry was because civil partnerships didn't have the same rights. Did you hear about the woman who couldn't claim widow allowance to help with the kids? Thankfully they did overturn that one! But of course it is absolutely your decision, there are things you can do to protect yourself legally when it comes to insurances, mortgage in death etc so might just be worth looking into that sometime. I'm sorry I don't know much, I admit I do tend to be one of those who says it's still needed without understanding the reasons why exactly ha!

I wholeheartedly agree with you op.

The whole wedding industry and everything that goes with it makes me roll my eyes. I'm so glad I'm old and those friends and family who got married did it without making outrageous demands on their guests (such as flights, hotels, dress code, paying bar etc etc).

We are currently planning our elopement for next year. No guests - just the two of us having a very special day together where we can focus solely on our marriage. We don't want the day to be about pleasing other people to the tune of thousands of pounds. Especially when there are some of those people we can't actually stand!

In Scotland you can get married anywhere so quite like the idea of a handfasting ceremony in the woods (ok we got this from Braveheart 😁)

This is what is right for us but I have enjoyed the traditional weddings I've been to. The couples seemed to enjoy their big days but it just really isn't for us.

Jayne310 Nobody is trying to convince you to get married. We’re educating you on the lack of legal rights and protection because a lot of people aren’t aware common law marriage isn’t a thing.

Only if you have all the facts can you make an informed decision, and you clearly haven’t as you didn’t even know what a pp was referring to in terms of rights.

Therefore you have made an uneducated, ill-informed, ignorant decision not to marry.

If you were fully educated and aware we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

I had a big white wedding and 14 years later we found out that my DH had terminal cancer. Both DC were still at primary school. He was ill for a year and died at home a few weeks after our 15th anniversary. It was a long time ago but I still miss him.

As his life drew to its close, it meant a great deal to both of us that we'd kept those vows we'd made so seriously. My wedding day was one of the happiest days of my life and our love justified the fuss.

I find it very irritating when people get married without the certainty and careful thought we put into it.

@WhatToDoAboutWailmerGoneRogue
I'm sorry I'm not well educated. I said my opinion people just need to get over it. 💁🏻‍♀️💁🏻‍♀️💁🏻‍♀️

I think YANBU to be disillusioned about some weddings.

However, you know to get this "average" wedding spend, you have an awful lot of much, much smaller amounts to be spent on hundreds of weddings to balance that one wedding where someone went completely over the top, don't you ?

Depends also what you mean by big wedding spends.
I went to a wedding a few months ago which was pretty similar to my own wedding, decades ago - service in Church, on to venue where we had a sit down meal, speeches, then dancing in the evening. It was absolutely lovely. So nice to have the family together for an occasion that wasn't a funeral. It was an absolutely lovely day. I don't think there was a huge amount of stress. There was obviously a lot of expense for the B&G, but not for everyone else. It was a lovely, lovely day.
I understand there are reasons why some people want to go off to a registry office in private, but for me I think part of the wedding is to stand in front of family and friends and declare your love for that person and to make your vows to that person. If I were getting married tomorrow I wold do pretty much the same as I did all those years ago. I didn't find it stressful, but I felt very loved and supported, surrounded by family and friends.

@Jayne310 get married, don't get married no one here cares

We won't lose out when you have an acrimonious split and your dp leaves you with 3 kids and no money, and you have stayed at home took after them and you have no pension, and he's off sunning himself with his newer younger girlfriend or when your dp is in an accident and you're not the one to decide if he gets life saving treatment or not, or which home he goes in to when he is old

And when he dies, enjoy that tax bill on the inheritance...

Jayne310 Don’t be sorry. Now you know the dangers educate yourself. Only then can you make an informed decision on marriage.

I have been with DP for over fifteen years, engaged for five years and absolutely no closer to getting married.....

I just don't like weddings, I don't want the fuss, I don't like the cost, I don't like the formality - in all seriousness if you could fill in a form online and get married - we would have done long ago!!

Now we have a baby, DP is pushing to get married so we will probably do it this year but very low key, registry office type thing.

However like others have said, the second we start to even think about getting married, family start involving themselves and before you know it, it's becoming something you didn't want! "Oh we could invite (insert distance relative name"")", "what about (insert stupidly overpriced hotel) for a venue".....

We will get married for the legal protection, but other than that - I don't see the point really.

I work with someone who spent £28k on her wedding last year, it's obscene. She has told me they will be paying it back for years - what the hell is the point in that!

YANBU to think along these lines - I'd agree with you as it happens - but despite your disapproval or mine people are going to carry on indulging in their grandiose weddings regardless. And if that's what makes them happy, fine; the only issue being I've seen some horrible behaviour emanating from certain brides- (and occasionally grooms-to-be) who seem to believe the world should stop for the interim between their engagement and honeymoon. I see my only options as attending the weddings only of people I really care about, avoiding hen celebrations which have become ridiculously OTT in recent years, and never accepting evening-only invitations at all.

As a couple, we both have an aversion to all that brouhaha so did a flit to Italy with about a months' notice (taking along four guests, our friends and their children, who invited themselves and we were thrilled to let them), married there and a took a cruise, departing that same evening. The in-laws were incandescent, but everyone else was genuinely happy for us. And as they're the sort who'd find fault whatever we did, we decided we may as well please ourselves and social expectation could go hang. We don't have a second's regret and have just celebrated our 15th anniversary.

@Jayne310 You don't need to apologise about not being educated - and, really, no one minds if you marry or not. It's nice you feel secure with just changing your name to your partner's.

I used to do something similar in school, you know, write 'Tinker Loves Spy'...And then do some sort of mathematical equation with the letters that corresponded to our love match.

I'm sure you two will be 4Eva.

I LOVED my wedding and as far as I'm aware everyone had a ball! It was in a lovely venue that I got a good deal on and I had a lovely time planning and prepping things with my bridesmaids in the weeks before.
Some things didn't go to plan - including a pain in the arse family member acting like a t**t, oh and a pink wedding cake that was not meant to be pink , but nothing was going to spoil our day. It ended up being a bigger wedding than we'd planned but we had a great day and it definitely worth it.

My first marriage was in Jamaica. It cost us less than 2 grand for everything.

I'm getting married again and my ideal wedding would be for my boyfriend, our children, his mother, sister and my siblings and mum at a registry office and then a party in a pub somewhere and whoever wants to come is very welcome. I don't want any gifts and I don't want people to dress up. Just come as you are and celebrate our day with us.

I'd love a classic wedding but I baulk at the cost. So many better ways to spend it, for me. Others can do as they please though

My feelings are not helped by the fact that my mum LOATHES weddings, either.

I enjoy going to weddings IF the couple are clearly in love. Others are not good.
We had a small wedding with just 2 witnesses. Purely because neither of us wanted to spend large amounts of money.

I’m excited about being married but not too fussed on the wedding itself; we will have a small celebration mainly as we both hate being the centre of attention! I have been to a few of my friends weddings and they have spent the money they were saving for a house deposit- I would rather have the house!

My wedding was over 20 years ago. We organised it in a month and the total cost was £1000. It was worth every penny and people still talk about what a great bash it was.
There is nothing wrong with weddings, the problem is with over entitled women turning an act of love and commitment into a three ring circus and a chance to spend money.