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!

@ThereWill

Totally get that and also get the ‘obligation’ to attend family weddings but our costs have been pushed up significantly by going out of our way to make it easier. Putting on transport for non local family - covering all food and drink all day- inviting all kids ...etc!

But still I get nasty little digs (in RL too) about the cost of my wedding! Soon as I mention the venue it’s ‘oh but that’s very expensive isn’t it? You don’t need to spend that much on a wedding!’

It is the cost inflicted on the guests of big weddings that I find rude.

Bride and Groom decide to get wed in a massive castle. Lovely.

Except that it's 15 miles away from a reasonably priced hotel or transport links, so guests have the choice to:

• not go, yes this option exists but will inevitably cause offence to someone
• go but spend a fortune on a room at the castle
• go and not drink so you can drive home or to the nearest travelodge
• go and fork out for a taxi to the nearest travelodge

On top of that there's a fancy dress to match the fancy wedding, accessories and shoes, gift for the couple, overnight childcare......

Go for whatever wedding you want, but genuinely don't be upset if people don't attend or want to leave early and sober. Make sure you are genuine, no passive aggressive, guilt inducing comments to people who turn down the invite.

It's your big day and it shouldn't cost your guests anything to attend.

I seriously don't care either way. DH and I went to the JP (registry office) in jeans and his Academy T shirt. We just had family and friends. But, that's just us. You do you. If you liked your castle wedding then isn't that all that matters? Who cares what anyone else thinks? Unless, it's hitting a nerve with you which it seems to be. If that's the case, then you need to ask yourself why?

The saddest weddings are the ones where it's already clear the relationship isn't going to last. They're not defined by the size of the bill.

I don't bother much with wedding threads so haven't seen much but I think people should do what they want to do and whatever they can afford. In other words, I mind my own business.

Btw, there's no 'registry office', it's 'register office' or 'the registrar'. A common error.

We had a big expensive wedding and it was amazing. We could afford it and wanted to spend the money. I've been to other weddings and the ones which are the best are the ones where the bride and groom have really thought about the guests. Worst weeding had been done very cheaply with not enough food or drink but nowhere else to go, expected to stand around for hours with nothing to eat or drink.

Whether it's 40K and stunning or 2K and stunning why do people care what others spend their own hard earned cash on or if they want to put it on finance ? I judge a wedding by the dresses, venue, food etc. To say you don't like a big traditional wedding because of the money spent is a ridiculous comment to make. It's either nice or it's not regardless on the money spent.

There's DEFINITELY a sense on MN of "Well we spent 47p and got married in a hole o the ground and the guests ate worms, and everyone says it was the best wedding ever"

BUT

When I hear people spending tens of thousands on what is essentially a party, I do balk and think what total fools they must be. Think of the things you could spend that money on! I judge a teeny weeny bit. Sorry

Thing is, like Christmas, Halloween and shop opening hours; times have moved on.
Marriage isn't about being family property anymore, people marry who they want, when they want and divorce is easier than it has ever been.

You only live once. Why not do the whole spectacular, spectacular. There are opportunities to get married in places that wouldn't have been possibly when my parents did it. But it's comparing apples to oranges.

Roll your eyes by all means I’m very happily married and I wish you the same.

Spend what you like, why do you care what anyone else thinks if you’re sure you’re doing the right thing, can afford it, won’t get into debt, couldn’t use the money for something more concrete? Your marriage is about your vows, your wedding can be a big fancy party if you like, they’re separate things.

My sibling’s venue alone (no catering included) cost £15,000. I shudder to think of the total cost, but they married into a very wealthy family where it was small change. My DP and I have lived together for years and aren’t married, but if we ever do, we will elope, as there’s no way we can match what they did. We don’t want to be seen as poor relations!

My sibling was desperate for a huge wedding and had an amazing time, which means the world to them. Worth every penny.

@OldDog

🤔 I mean I have a pretty solid ‘evidenced by qualifications’ grasp of the Socio Economic ‘The Race to the Bottom’ theory so I’m unsure as to how you think I’m misrepresenting it?

Developing countries feel pressure to lower their standards (environmental, economic and living conditions) in order to compete for foreign investment - in the hope that the industrialisation of their country will lead to a brighter future! (I mean it’s MN but if you wanted a 4000 word critical review- I’ve written several)

Commenters compete for ‘kudos’ by dropping the standards of their own weddings in order to win admiration from others as being ‘thrifty’ in the hope that this will validate their choices and make the ‘cheaper wedding’ trendy, retrospectivley rausung the value of the wedding they actually had!

🤔 I mean sure if you want to absoloutley dissect it .... but it’s such a vast topic with differing ideas anything I said you could argue was misrepresenting it!

I’m hardly using the term inappropriately

I think people should do what suits them. And there is definitely a tendency on MN to compete in terms of who had the most basic, joyless, inhospitable wedding - hold it in a skip or something, with two passing jakeys as witnesses and no one else there because that's the only way to make it 'meaningful'...
(You know, the sort of competitive penny-pinching and fun-spoiling that's only done by people who are actually quite well off).

Spend what you want, I don't care. But unless you are rich it does amaze me how much people spend on one day.

I’m having a ‘big’ wedding, we both have quite large families and a fair few friends etc so the main bulk of the cost is food and drink and venue hire, the food and drink is costing a fair bit cause we are having all day guests and not day/night guests as the venue is 1hr away from our home town.

Currently sitting at around £16,000 and yes that does make me want to vomit so we are going to cut back big time to get to the £13,000 budget but like I said the venue hire, food and drink takes up at least £10,000 of that.

I could care less what people think of my wedding it won’t be tacky just cause I spent a chunk of change on it and we both work and can afford it so why not. I’d just ignore people who make nasty comments.

*couldnt even!

Ours cost a small fortune and we were the only people in attendance! (Apart from photographer and officiant!).

I only judge (a little) when people have weddings that they blatantly cannot afford and either put themselves in debt for it or ask other people to heavily subsidise it.

I know someone who spent £80k on her wedding. It was lovely, free bar, great music, lovely food. They were 40ish, had both despaired of finding love and didn't have or want children. They also had huge careers and tons of money. It was the best wedding I've been to and i thought, given the circumstances, they were correct to spend a huge amount. It wasn't flashy or even high class just every thought given to comfort for everyone. I should know, being MOH at that one!

I’ve had a big wedding and I’ve had a small wedding. Both were lovely 😊

I agree OP, have the wedding you want and can afford, big or small. But:

• I hate the trend for big hen and stag do’s. It adds to the cost hugely for guests, and often into guests’ family time too. Nothing wrong with spending the night in the pub! and
• I think it is a daft thing to go into debt for, personally.

OP i liken it to when a friend of mine was pg and about to spend £500 on a mahogany baby changing table. Experience tells me the baby will get changed on the floor on a £3 changing mat and washed in the kitchen sink. I helpfully pointed this out but then i saw her face and asked if she would prefer I shut up about baby purchases and she quite rightly said yes. People who have been married know that there is a cheaper way to do it, but you have every right to enjoy doing whatever you like.

@thighof

❤️ Love stories like this - no negativity just a unique story

My wedding is currently sitting at £25k

But there is a £5k 3 week honey moon in there.
Small, local and classic stag and hen parties (pre wedding gathering) fully paid for by us for a select group (so as not to obligate struggling friends/ family to pay)

Full transport for all guests not local (so no need for overnight stays (the few that do we are paying for)

A beautiful venue/caterer (with negotiated 30% discount)

And all extras

I’m very pleased with the way our lovely wedding is shaping up!

I genuinely don't judge anyone on how much they spend on their wedding. But I have seen that those couples that spend the longest time planning often have the biggest post wedding problems because so much focus has been on one day and not actually what's going to happen after when they have to just live a normal life.
So much energy into one day. And sometimes that equals cost. And then it's all over and they have to find something else to talk about.

It depends how much money you have. I went to someone's 60th birthday party where he'd probably spent £50,000. Perhaps even more. But he could afford it and it was a bloody good night. Sadly, he didn't adopt us.

We spent 13k but that included an amazing 2 and a half week honeymoon.

People are staggered because it was an abroad elopement with no guests but it was exactly what we wanted. I absolutely adore my photos and the memory of such a wonderful day will stay with me forever.

When my mum died I decided that I didn't want to do the whole wedding thing without her. DH (who I started dating after that) doesn't do crowds so it was a quiet register office wedding for us. We did do an expensive honeymoon though.

I'm fine with other people spending money on their wedding day. I do find it surprising that several people I know went into debt for their wedding and 1 or 2 years later complained that theu couldn't afford a house and/or children. That does look like bad financial planning to me.

Besides, a big wedding doesn't have to be very expensive, one of my poorer friends did a home barbecue with music being her own cd's on a stereo so that everybody could stay for dinner and a party and it was one of the nicest weddings I ever went to.