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!

the brides had classic taste

OP do you call napkins 'serviettes' and say 'pardon' instead of 'what'?

I don't see how going to an expensive wedding costs the guests more......

@eco1636

You don’t see how accommodation at or near a more expensive venue will cost more? Or that a grand wedding might make guests feel they have to spend more on a fancier outfit, or a pricier gift?

For most it costs a lot more to attend a black tie wedding in a remote Scottish castle than a wedding in a London pub.

We loved our wedding! 120 guests - £10k - in a castle in the summer :)

Some people that's big, some people that's not. We wanted a big day, but had a hard budget of £10k which we stuck to.

Isn't it about doing what makes the couple happy? As long as it is affordable?

I'm in my 50's and don't have a single friend or family member still married to their first spouse. I now see my children's friends starting to get married and am sad to say I just think 'ah that's nice ( for today) I wonder how long that will last' Already some are separating in their late 20's and early 30's. I predict none will remain married to their first spouse either. So spending £20.000 on one day particularly now it's so hard for people to purchase houses and jobs are less secure seems pure madness. It's not jealousy ( mine was medium sized and fine as weddings go) and my marriage lasted around 20 years so i sort of feel we got our money's worth!

When we got engaged, we had £150k in the bank. But we were renting and house hunting. We could have put £20k aside as the wedding fund and put down a smaller deposit on our dream house, or bought a smaller house, but we decided we'd rather get the house we want to live in for the next 20 years. Four years and one DC later, were finally getting married this spring, in a registry office, for probably £3k including rings, dress and hotel. Do I regret not having a big do? Sometimes, when I see other people's massive weddings! But mainly I don't as living in my dream house gives me joy every day, more do than I suspect the memory of a one day event would do.

Op if anyones judgemental and mean it's you. It seems like you want a round of applause for being the most accomodating bride with the most cash.

To be honest if youve got the money and thats what you want, fine. But, i will always think its a bit of a waste of money. 20k on one day seems wasteful. Nobody except you will give a shit about all the extra expensive bits you have arranged.

Oh and i find massive structured formal weddings very boring.

Nah, I just think people are fools if they spend anything over about £1000 on what is essentially a party.

We could have spent thousands on our wedding but I'd rather spend the money on our home, or a holiday, or leave it in the bank to save for our future or our children. I think spending thousands of pounds on one day is actually pretty obscene.

I had a big wedding. Would I do it again? Dear god no. The ridiculous things you waste and time and energy and money on - you get sucked into party favours, make up, hen dos abroad, relentless dress shopping and shoe shopping and tiara shopping and underwear shopping.. It’s like a treadmill you can’t get off. If I was to do it again there’s only three things I’d make sure I got right - the food, the drink, and the band. Nobody remembers or really cares about anything else. They’re there to celebrate with you and have a good time, and nobody worth their salt cares whether your dress is Karl Lagerfelt at Chanel or George at Asda. That said, it’s your money. You spend it how you like and it’s nobody else’s business.

I don't see how going to an expensive wedding costs the guests more......

Oh don't be naive.

If the venue is in the middle of nowhere (ie castle or big country house) it costs more in petrol, time as it often needs at least one day off work and accommodation in those places is far more than if you can take the tube back from your local pub!

Big expensive weddings are for the benefit of the couple only.

I think the issues are individual specific: e.g. when people who clearly can't afford a big wedding decide to get into debt because their family is pressuring them into inviting every living relative, and they'd have been happy with a registry office in the first place. Also, you say the word "wedding" to a make up artist / hairdresser etc. and the cost is doubled, trebled on the spot. Weddings are extortionate if you dont try to save money and we should all be finding ways to have a beautiful day without being ripped off.

Totally not jealousy in my case, I’ve been married twice & both weddings were very small and modest (the first in a scout tent in DP’s back garden, much to ex MIL’s disgust ), the second was even smaller, seven guests to lunch and that was it. We could have afforded big ceremonies and receptions but I just think it’s a complete waste of money.
What makes me sad is when couples clearly haven’t got anything like near enough the budget for a great big wedding but feel it is more important than spending on basic living , people get into huge debts whilst paying for big, fancy weddings and really - are the guests that interested?
I’ve been to some shocking weddings over the years, where clearly they are just a great big commercial rip off (have worked in hospitality so well aware of the huge mark ups on weddings). And have calculated that only a third of the marriages where I have attended the wedding have actually lasted.

It's really interesting to see people's perspectives on this and I'd like to throw mine in.

I'm middle aged and never been married (due to my tendency to attract utter fuckwits 🤦‍♀️ )

However a few years ago I unexpectedly met my (also middle aged) fiancé who is the anthesis of all the others. We are fortunate enough to be in a good financial position and will be able to pay for our wedding without needing to get into debt, and the whole point of having a wedding reception is that we really want to celebrate with all the family and friends who have been with us through all the fuckwit years. By all accounts those people want to be there to celebrate with us too.

Personally I'd rather not spend £15-20k on a wedding as there are plenty of other things we could use it for, BUT all of our friends and family are married with kids, so for each individual we would have invited in our younger years, we now have to invite between 2-5 people (unless we get into having a child free wedding and I don't even want to open that can of worms!!) or we have to get artificially selective about which friends from our friendship groups are invited (another can of worms right there)

So what could have been a small, reasonably inexpensive wedding 15 years ago now becomes a much larger, much more expensive affair just because we are older

The alternative is to invite no one but immediate family - which means that it's cheaper but we don't get the wedding we want which absolutely isn't about the 'fripperies' as a pp said (we aren't doing wedding cars, photo booths, big love signs or any of that) but about the people we love and value being there to celebrate with us and there doesn't seem to be much of an in-between without upsetting/offending half the guests and getting judged for doing that.

Apparently whatever you choose to do at a wedding these days is going to get judged by someone, so I say fuck all the judgemental buggers on here and do what will make you the most happy - in our case it will cost more but we are ok with that 🤷‍♀️

I completely agree with flamingofridays.

What about people who’s parents pay for the wedding and can easily afford it but weren’t going to hand over the cash as an alternative anyway.

We are going to a wedding next weekend and the Accomodation is available at a special REDUCED rate of £360 per night!!!

In real life, mine anyway, most people have middling weddings. Lots of guests, because lots of family and friends, but minimal fussing over chair covers, favors etc. Cost about 10k due to number of said guests, who we all actually like, and yes, a few to please parents, who we also actually like. Almost all couples of my generation are still together after nearly 20 years, and all of my parents' generation after over 40. I think many are like this but just don't post because not extreme!

Big weddings are not traditional. It's only in the last 20 years the wedding business has become a thing and people have been spending well beyond their means. Even wearing white is a fairly recent fashion. If you want a traditional wedding then get yourself a smart skirt suit and hat, get married in the local church or registry office then back to your parents bungalow or the church hall for sandwiches and tea.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that we also have no intention of stag and hen do's and have looked for a venue with a good selection of local accommodation at varying price pints so people won't have to shell out loads to come!!

Most of the comments I've seen have been critical of people who put the posh venue over their guests. E. G. Expecting guests to take two days leave, pay for extortionate accommodation etc. Or people who think an invite to their wedding is 'an honoir' because they've spent £x a head.

My wedding was just DH & I. We got married abroad in a 20 minute ceremony outdoors (in our fave hiking boots!) and we had an incredible 3-week long honeymoon (USA roadtrip), I loved not worrying about a thing and enjoyed every second. It really reflected us as a couple. We talk about it all the time too :)

I'm not jealous of someone spending £25k on one day, and I could of afforded it.

I think people who do are funding a wedding industry that dictates your wedding to you. Sadly there's probably very little that will be unique about your day, it becomes about 'the show' rather than reflecting you and your partner's union.

We spent around £17k on ours, no debt and no need for house deposit or contributions from family.
Local church, walked to no cars, local pub also walked to no cars and a mid way stop for nibbles and drinks at our house.
Garden was large and friends camped, SIL pitched caravan!
Budget was spent on flowers, music and clothes for ushers bridesmaids etc
Yet STILL guests (family who all live within a 5 mile radius of each other but 90 minutes from us) complained they had to travel too far !!!
Another complained it was too close to another family members wedding.
Another complained it clashes with an operation
Oh and one complained it wasn't all in one location and there was half a mile between all 3 venues despite a midway stop!

Lesson learnt, people will always complain. As long as you're happy and not hurting anyone bollocks to the complainers, they don't have to come.

I think not agreeing that it's ever worth 20k+ isn't the same as abusing people whose choose to spend that. I didn't have my tiny register office wedding to make a point, I did it because that's what I wanted.

I find it hard to understand why people would ever think other people are even remotely interested in standing around watching them make a big show of their relationship. That's what a wedding looks like to me. I do however know that that's just me, as plenty of people do indeed like doing that and I know for example MIL (very sweetly and quietly) was sad not to see our vows. But that's how I perceive it and I guess the more expensive and showy it is the more distasteful I find it. It feels like putting on an event for others to celebrate me. Same reason I've never had a big birthday party which shows how much it's my own weird way of seeing things. I don't care what other people do and don't think my perception is necessarily good or true, but I could never be the centre of attention that way myself.

And I do find myself wondering quite why people need to make such a song and dance of their relationship because it suggests insecurity to me. I think the reality is people just get a bit carried away though.

Driven by jealousy or mean? How old are you?!