To think people are Cruel about big’ weddings?

[MrDarcyWillBeMine]

A few wedding threads have popped up this week. Awesome, as a 2019 bride I love a good wedding thread!

However, I’m shocked and bemused by the sheer disgust MANY people openly display towards big traditional weddings. I find them very rude and small minded!

No feelings spared - plain nasty comments and even name calling! Apparently anyone who pays more than £50 to nip down their local registry office is a total ‘MUG’ and terrible person? 🤔

These nasty opinions also seems to be one sided - no ‘big weddings’ reguarlh jump in to abuse smaller cheaper ones or make crass remarks- there are plenty of ‘I’d never spend £20k on a wedding- I’d rather lick a mouldy toilet seat’ commenters

But no (very few and usually only in retaliation to abuse)
‘I’d never have a tacky function room £1k wedding - I’d rather visit a public pool 🤢’

🤔 So I can only assume that either:
A- people having cheaper wedding are generally meaner
Or
B- the abuse of large weddings is actually driven by jealousy!

With our fail it sparks a big ‘race to the bottom competition’ between commenters trying to one up each other on ‘cheapeast possible wedding’ 😒 meanwhile I just sit here thinking ‘I like my castle wedding 😬’

EVERY TYPE OF WEDDING IS LOVELY!

AIBU to think that people need to just stop being trolls and making shitty negative comments?

• I do get that weddings need to be affordable but some people CAN afford to spend £10k+ on a wedding and that’s ok!

Do you mean people should give money to charity rather than spend it on their own wedding?

Lower cost weddings don’t automatically equal tacky!

Our wedding was around 3000. I can’t give you a precise figure as we DIYed a lot, used flowers from our families gardens etc but we also gas amazing caterers (that was half the cost) and an incredible photographer.

We also managed things like 6 handmaid bridesmaid dresses for £200 including fabric, designed by me to mimic details of my dress. They certainly didn’t look tacky and all the adult bridesmaids still wear their dresses in the summer.

We had a traditional wedding. In fact traditional wedding to me is the antithesis of what you’re wedding is. It’s different priorities and perspectives. And the benefit of hindsight and knowing what life is like years down the line.

But you do you. No one here has really argued that. If anyone has that money available for a wedding, it’s up to them if and how they choose to spend it.

Personally, We didn’t want a wedding where our wants were dictated to by a venue.

Our reception shock horror was in a village hall. There is not a single photo where it doesn’t look as beautiful and expensive as the £30000 wedding we just went to.
And the main reason, above all others, that I wouldn’t spend that on a wedding is that that equals over 6 years worth of my mortgage payments.

I think usually when people pipe up that it’s a LOT to spend, it’s because it is. And although it is a beautiful, important and memorable day, that amount of money could create an awful lot of them for the average person.

Still I'm not sure I agree that the working class don't care about marriage.

Weddings are if anything even more important to workingclass girls. All those Bridezilla reality TV shows are far more likely to feature Kylie the binman's daughter rather than Charlotte with the history lecturer dad.

A big, fat wedding is one of the ways the working classes can a) emulate the middle class they aspire to join and b) show off to the middle class they despise but secretly aspire to join.

Ever been to a wedding fair? It's working class parents spending £4,000-plus on a pile of satin and tulle so that their little princess can really look like one when she walks up the aisle...

I never understand the drama about weddings abroad. You just make a holiday of them, it's fun to do something a bit different.

I'd rather use my annual leave (and money) going somewhere I choose, and doing what I want, not what someone else's idea of a dream holiday is.

I loathe beach/resort type holidays and DP can't bear the heat, so unless someone's having their reception somewhere like the palace of Versailles we'd almost certainly give it a miss.

Anna Pukas, journalist.

“I hate weddings. Really hate.”

This ^^ is what I find rather joyless. Not the reference to excessive consumption which I find rather tacky and unnecessary. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it makes me sick. I just think it is all rather self-indulgent, pointless and wasteful.

“my beef is with the wedding industry, which encourages couples with very limited finances to get into massive debt for overpriced nonsensical “must have” items like dresses, flowers, photography and venues.”

I agree with you Babdoc

“"I'm in my 50's and don't have a single friend or family member still married to their first spouse."”

That’s sad. I am 60, and most of my friends and family are still married – many clocking up 30+ years of marriage.

greendale17

It is jealously, pure and simple.

Not it is not. Your view is overly simplistic.

Anna Pukas, journalist
it's very true, just look at the tv show My "big fat gypsie wedding" BUT you just need to look at the royal weddings to see that they are big affairs everywhere, the difference is that they are more used to throw big parties!

We spent £250 on our wedding 2 months ago. We are safe from divorce then.

"ll those Bridezilla reality TV shows are far more likely to feature Kylie the binman's daughter rather than Charlotte with the history lecturer dad."

Maybe Charlotte wants a big wedding as well, but doesn't have to go on a reality TV show to pay for it.

Royal weddings are not comparable, obviously.

Charlotte is likely to have a better idea of what is tasteful.

"My "big fat gypsie wedding" BUT you just need to look at the royal weddings to see that they are big affairs everywhere, the difference is that they are more used to throw big parties!"

Like the poster above who said everyone she knows already has a morning suit!

I don't think it's jealousy either.

You tend to find with small weddings it's about the actual marriage. There's no bridezilla build up for what feels like forever, it's just about the vows and commitment. They just want to be married.

With large weddings is all about the day, the vows seem very insignificant in it all and just a formality really.

The financial waste when it could be funding a house deposit, children's uni fees, savings for a rainy day is astounding. Such a waste just so the bride gets her big day and because it's all about the day rather then the marriage the chances of divorce are high.

"Charlotte is likely to have a better idea of what is tasteful."

That is just a matter of opinion isn't it. Charlotte's taste might be closer to yours, but not necessarily any better.

Good taste is pretty much set in stone. You have it or you don’t.

You can never prove what is good taste Kate. It's subjective.

It’s not how much you spend, it’s how you spend it.

If you spend loads looking after your guests that’s great, if you spend loads and still expect your guests to make up the cost then that’s not ok.

Lots of money doesn’t mean ‘big fat gypsy wedding’ or ‘tacky’, sometimes people can afford it and want their guests to have a lovely time - amazing food/free drink/great band/accommodation/transport.

Good taste is what Kate likes

"It’s not how much you spend, it’s how you spend it.
If you spend loads looking after your guests that’s great, if you spend loads and still expect your guests to make up the cost then that’s not ok"

Spot on itssoooofluffy

Why do you give a shit if you're happy with your wedding size? If you have the money and it's what you want to do, then crack on.

Our reception shock horror was in a village hall.

One of the best wedding receptions I ever went to was in a village hall, and the whole wedding was done on an absolute shoestring.

The best was in a field, on a farm. The couple both worked in an FE college. The catering was done by students (under supervision by tutors), the bands were friends of the couple and the college offered a "circus skills" course, so there were fireaters, jugglers, acrobats and clowns milling about. Nearly everyone who wasn't local camped and it was like being at a (very small) festival.

(The bride also had a great hen weekend: 8 of us went in a 4-car convoy to Dieppe for the weekend on a massive wedding related booze cruise, had a couple of fantastic meals out and did lots of drinking and shopping.)

I sometimes wonder if cheap weddings are more fun because they are cheap. People are perhaps less uptight if they're not worried about spilling something on an expensive dress or breaking the heel on their Loboutins, and not afraid of using the wrong bit of cutlery. And they don't go expecting everything to be fantastically perfect, so have lower expectations.

I'm in my 50's and don't have a single friend or family member still married to their first spouse.

That really is sad. There have been some divorces among my family and friends, obviously, but the majority are happily married, including myself and my DH of 15 years, despite some very hard times.

Second marriages can also be successful btw, my DSis had an abusive first marriage, but her second marriage (11 years) is very happy. It's a second marriage for both of them.

I do find some on MN depressingly cynical, saying to any happily married poster that they should consider what will happen if they split up. That's far more depressing than comments about vulgar big weddings, where I understand where they're coming from. (I had a fairly big wedding myself, so I'm not actually criticising that myself, as long as you can afford it.)

Anyway, congratulations on your forthcoming marriage, OP.

I can't understand people who spend a ridiculous amount on one day. I have no intention of getting married and I do hate the smugness of family members who make negative comments about this. Especially when same family members have spent a fortune on a wedding, got divorced, found someone else and spent a fortune on another wedding all in the time my DP and I have been together.
I genuinely don't understand why people would spend thousands getting married. Especially if you're not religious.

im going to put in my 2 pence worth:.
the average wedding in the UK now is about 15k-20k i think
my wedding was considered a 'cheap' wedding at 11k.
we didn't want to pay alot of money for ours because we could see where money could be better spent in life.
but i still had a very nice dress & shoes
mens suits were from Next
Bridesmaid dresses & shoes were high street
i had my hair and make up
we had flowers
we had the 3 course sit down
we had the evening food
we had a free bar
we had a good photographer.
we had a cake... of sorts.
we had the basics, but nice basics. it could have been cheaper, it could have been a hell of alot more expensive.

the question we asked ourselves before planning was: "out of all the weddings we have been to, what did we remember and enjoy the most about them?" we asked the same questions to our friends.

turns out, no one remembers your colour scheme, what flowers you had, how cute your favors were, what decorations you had on the wall, the arrangement of stuff on tables, the paper invite you send that gets shoved in a drawer.
apparently the little things you stress over at a wedding, no one even notices.
3 things to remember with a wedding

1. as the bride and groom, do what you WANT to do. sod everyone else. if they want to come they will come. those who moan probably dont deserve an invite anyway.
2. 95% of the guests are only really there for the free food, drink and party. yes they love you, and want to spend your day with you, but if the majority of you dig deep inside your thoughts, you'll agree that you get an invte and think aww there getting married, oo i Love a wedding & a party
3. if its a party wedding... ALWAYS have a free bar.