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!

As someone from an Indian background where weddings are 500+ guests and expenditures over the 60k mark...i tend to stay out of these threads
(Yes i had a big fat Indian wedding)

I don’t think it’s big wedding as such, it’s the fact people are talking about borrowing money to pay for them.

There was a thread where a couple wanted to ask guests to pay for their meal afterwards and some posters thought it was a awful idea and said they would not attend. I think it’s a great idea, instead of buying a gift, buy your own food so you can celebrate your friends wedding.

I know many couples that are still paying for their weddings and are now divorced. Why get into debt for one day? If you can afford it then that’s great but if you can’t just don’t.

My wedding will be 20 people at most and it's costing me £20k.

Troubles, I am in my 60's, been married nearly 40 years first marriage. Both siblings married over 35 years first marriages. Parents married nearly 70 years first marriage. Same with all my aunts and uncles and out of 9 cousins only 1 is divorced, all the rest married at least 25 years and all first marriages.

If couples can afford it then its up to them if they spend a huge amount. I do think though getting into debt is a bit silly.

I know someone who about 20 years ago spent a fortune on her wedding and, at the time, was renting a flat in a pretty horrible area of London. She moaned and moaned about the flat, about the fact that the area wasn't safe but when people pointed out that what they spent on the wedding would have be more than enough for a deposit on a flat or house she got annoyed.

One of my family had an expensive wedding a couple of years ago (around £30k) and it was lovely. The food was actually really good and all drink was free. It wasn't at all flashy just really nice.

A work colleague had an expensive wedding. Loved telling us how much it cost and all the things she was having. She even had crockery made with their initials on. Guests had to pay for all their drinks though. So money to splash out on unnecessary items but not for guests' enjoyment.

I love the hateful threads against "big" weddings, they are hilarious. The "more you spend on your wedding the lest your marriage last" brigade is relentless - but proven wrong so many times

who cares what people think? What I hate is show-off weddings: paid bars because the couple can't afford to host the amount of guests they invited (totally different from a byo friendly wedding, been to a couple of those recently , they were lovely).
Expensive flowers and photos and crap food, but mainly hours of hanging around whilst the happy couple has a photo shoot and everybody else is just left standing like lemons.

Expensive weddings you can afford, go for it!
Not everyone lives in their childhood village, so for many couples most of the guests have to travel to a venue anyway.

I don't understand why people cannot comprehend how easy it is to have more than 100 guests, not for show, but because you have people to invite! 100 guests is 50 for bride, 50 for groom, that's 20 couples each if you also invite children. I have a lot more family and friends than that - which is why I had quite a big wedding.

My wedding was a big expensive one, no regret whatsoever, so glad we were able to have that one special day and an amazing honeymoon. We have the rest of our life to host smaller parties anyway, we only have one wedding. (and I changed my name too )

I think it's rather narrow minded to assume that just because someone is having a big wedding, that they're only thinking of the wedding, not their marriage. And I say that as someone who's having a relatively cheap wedding at £8k. Congrats OP in your 2019 wedding!

We had a big (250 guests) but relatively cheap wedding because we did much of the work ourselves and went without some of the extras like cars and a florist for the church and reception. It was a fabulous day that marked the start of our married life together. We enjoyed the day and have few regrets 30 years later. If we had regrets it would be that we didn’t save enough for a professional photographer. Still, we have many good, informal amateur photos.

Enjoy the wedding you want remembering it is a huge day; you are committing yourselves for life (in theory, at least). That should be marked properly in the way you prefer. It matters not a fig whether the wedding breakfast is a campfire and gazebo in your back garden or Clivedon. What matters is that it makes good memories for you and those you love.

We’re fortunate to be hosting our daughters wedding next year. It’s lovely to be able to provide all the things we couldn’t afford. It’s lovely that they want our support and involvement. There’s will be quite a big wedding (150 guests approx) but is limited by the size of the church. Costs will include transport for guests and some of the guest accommodation- the venue comes with 20 bedrooms and ten glamping yurts. There’ll also be a field available for camping and plenty of local friends offering accommodation.

I think the problems start occurring when bride and groom start making silly demands on guests that cost huge amounts and aren’t in line with the budgets of their guests. My daughters wedding will be morning suits for all but most already have or can afford to hire. There would be no sniffy noses if someone turned up in a dark lounge suit. It’s hen parties in Rome for three days in a five star hotel, guests having to subsidise the wedding by booking accommodation at the venue and no children rules that complicate things for everyone that cause resentments.

I was prepared to do the whole registry office thing, but my in-laws offered to pay 3k for the wedding and then my mum and aunt both contributed 1k. So 5k was paid and the other 5k came from us (3k for a honeymoon).

We got married in a nice hotel, spent a lot on food and a good band. BUT we saved loads on only having one best man (BIL), I had one bridesmaid (my sister), one flower girl (my DD) and one page boy - all could choose outfits from their wardrobe. There was no favours, expensive cars, seat covers, there was no extra frilly stuff (photo booths etc) and we only had 70 guests. We hired no photographer, a friend (experienced photographer) offered to do the photos on her good camera, my mum made the cake.

I do love the big expensive weddings but also pub type ones too, so long as they provide good food and entertainment. People make choices on what to spend on their money, some people see flash weddings as a priority but for us it was more money towards the mortgage.

I hate weddings. Really hate. Not all of us like "class and elegance" either, OP. I find them disgustingly indulgent and excessive. It makes me sick to see someone spending thousands of pounds on alcohol, food, bits of material etc for ONE DAY when there are so many people suffering in our world. It says a lot about the people participating.

I realise that people can spend their own money on what they want, but in today's throwaway culture, it's very sad to see huge, expensive weddings.

@MrDarcyWillBeMine YANBU. It smacks of inverted snobbery. That’s fine if people don’t want to spend 10k on a wedding but it’s the way they tend to derisively go on about it that is annoying and disingenuous.

but if you don’t you aren’t fooling anyone by hiring one. I just makes you look common.

what a ridiculous comment, what's the different between a castle, a barn or an hotel? No one thinks you own either, it's just a rental for the day - it's amazing the pettiness and ugliness of some people!

I think it's odd that people go into debt for it.

Then again that's their choice!

Spend what you like as long as you can afford it.
There’s no excuse for nastiness but MN is a discussion board and you are going to get differing views on everything.
It’s fine for some people to think big weddings are a waste of money and to say so. It’s fine for you to think they are worth the money.
It’s not fine for people to say people who have big weddings are at stupid and crass and it’s not fine to say people who have small weddings are mean and cheap.
Opinions yes, personal attacks no.

what baffles me is the amount people spend in order to have a wedding that is absolutely identical to everyone else's

Yes! This too! Same white/ivory dress, silly little favours that get chucked in the bin, bridesmaid dresses, suits and ridiculous waistcoats, flowers and invites and tacky photobooths and those giant light up letters that seem to be the "in" thing at the moment. Baaaaaaaaaaaa

@BunsOfAnarchy The pictures from that must be amazing.

@itsbritneybiatches What do I have to do get an invite?

I don't think it's jealousy or meanness, I think it's just disbelief regarding the wastage on one day. Got 20k today, gone tomorrow! I've been to one of these weddings and it was nice but very over rated.

A- people having cheaper wedding are generally meaner
Or
B- the abuse of large weddings is actually driven by jealousy!

So, how is that any different to people saying:
C- people who have large weddings are intentionally flash.

D- the abuse of small weddings (see A) is driven by those actually, you, op, who seem to have a chip shop on their shoulder.

Maybe they regret/felt pressured into spending so much, knowing that they couldn't really afford it.

OP, you're mocking people who have had small weddings, because, presumably, you have had/are going to have a 'big' wedding. How does that make you any better. You're doing the exact same thing, regardless of whether it's reactionary?

Interesting thread.
In my experience, the view that big weddings are vulgar / a waste of money is one that comes with age and hindsight/ experience.
I got married at 24.. 13 years ago and had the big country house castle dream.
C£32k was spent all in and at the time I thought it was all so classy and lovely.
My dad paid £15k, we paid about £10k ourselves and PIL's paid about £7k.
It was a beautiful day and a dream come true but honestly, knowing what I know now about life, I'm absolutely ashamed. Ashamed at the sheer indulgence of it all.
But no one could have told me this at the time.. I knew best!

Not read all 7 pages, but yanbu. There's a recent thread where someone us asking if it's ok for guests to pay for their own meal and it's full of people being slightly unpleasant over it. It's crass, you can't afford to get married, don't get married etc.

Personally I don't care how much you spend, but having been to some very lovely, obviously expensive weddings, and listened to the 'jokes' about how long it would take to pay off, when we got married we made sure we didn't go into debt for it. Our choice, other people make different choices and that's fine.

Someone's been sucking lemons for breakfast.

Wow, you sound rather joyless WhyDon't.

I like a good wedding, especially family ones. It is nice to catch up with rarely seen family members.

Why is it joyless to dislike excess consumption?

I don’t agree that any opinion about big weddings are driven by jealousy. I had a big but by today’s standards simple wedding. I do think that today’s weddings have a lot of unnecessary/ expensive stuff such as magic mirrors/ photo booth/ donut stands etc etc all of which just seem to add to the stress of organising the big day .

OP if people are being rude to you in RL about your wedding just call them out on it.