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!

I think it could be that we Brits feel that it's showing-off and no-one likes a show-off. Simple as that, really.

Big weddings are quite boring and 100% a waste of money. That’s my opinion. I fancy running off to Vegas to get married.

I think the change in weddings has come about since venues other than churches and register offices were allowed to hold weddings.

I was going to get married not long after it changed and hotels etc were just starting to put together wedding packages. At that time I lived in Surrey but even as someone on a very limited budget a nice hotel was within my grasp.
The wedding magazines were just starting to put out the idea of wedding favours and other stuff like that.
Also there was no Pinterest or the like to give you ideas. Just bridal magazines.

This was nearly 25 years ago. A lot has changed since.

Meh. We had a tiny wedding because I (generally) don't like weddings and I'm massively introverted so the idea of having a big day made me want to turn inside out. We'd also been living together for 5 years and had 2 DC. DH had been married before and I definitely didn't want a wedding day that would draw comparisons to his first one, which was a big white dress/fussy type one and was clearly wasted money.

I'm also quite glad that we didn't spunk more than what we did - £1k - up the wall for one day when we actually have the rest of our lives together to fund. Anything that's house deposit money is a bit irresponsible in my view if you aren't already home owners.

Enjoy your wedding OP. In all honesty, I am still torn on this one. I didn't want the whole "pantomime wedding" to show off to people, but DH did want it. I agreed on the understanding that he plan it himself, which he did. We could afford it & my dad chipped in too, so money wasn't an issue. I didn't have a hen night or request expensive gifts, & we considered our guests in the amount of food, drink & entertainment we laid on, so kept their own costs to a minimum. It was an amazing day that we & our guests will always remember.

The downside being, people show their true colours with a wedding. The number of people we are now NC with is crazy. DH's sister had a face like a smacked arse all day & didn't say a word to me because I didn't ask her to be a bridesmaid. His mum was a nightmare. We didn't involve her apparently.. We tried but she was always busy, so we stopped asking. We didn't invite obscure relatives to the whole day, didn't have her DD as BM etc. DH's cousin didn't go because we refused to invite her new DP. We wanted her 3 DS to be page boys, but numbers were limited so no randoms allowed. DH's lifetime now ex best friend agreed to come on the understanding we drove him to the venue, paid to put him up in the hotel etc. Err no! I could of spent the money in a much better way than on those arseholes, but nothing takes away the fact that it was a wonderful memorable day!

We spent about £25k on our wedding, plus an £8k honeymoon, 2.5 years ago. Loved it best day ever.

I’ve been to roughly 20 weddings in the last 8 years. All have been £5k plus dos id guess with most being more like £15-30k. It seems to be the norm in my friendship groups/area.

I wouldn’t worry. People on mumsnet are from all different backgrounds, ages, cultures...the opinion isn’t going to necessarily match your experience of life.

I would note however that it’s also the norm to be settled with a mortgage, both partners in a well established career and usually no children - if people are yet to buy a house etc and are borrowing to have a big wedding then that i don’t understand. Our only budgeting rule was no debt!

I think if people can afford it, they should have whatever kind of a wedding they want. Some will choose big castle weddings (lovely), some will still choose small intimate weddings (lovely).

But a lot of people get into a lot of debt, and pay it off over years, in order to have a big wedding, and in those circumstances the cost feels obscene.

Big traditional weddings are tacky, impersonal, sexist, an enormous waste of money and a vulgar display of wealth that in reality the couple often don’t have... I could go on. Yes I do judge the unimaginative people who have them. They’re proof money can’t buy taste

I think there's a lot of hyperbole both ways about weddings.

I.e. some newspaper article will talk about the cost of weddings being X, and everyone will hand wring about spending that money on 'just one day', but actually they are including the cost of jewelry (worn for life), photos, honeymoon (not one day!) etc.

Or people will talk about how their wedding only cost x, but then you realise they aren't including anything but the registry and the clothes they wore. But then they'll tell you they did have a 'party' to celebrate after (but it wasn't a reception so they don't include that cost), a honeymoon later that year (again, costs not mentioned) and so on.

Competitive non-spending at one end, and comptetive spending at the other.

It would be nice if everyone could just spend what they want without making it a competition or being judgemental, but humans aren't built that way I guess.

First of all, expensive means different things to different people. For me £30k might be a shitload and for someone else it might be pocket money (I do know someone who couldn't give a shit about £30k)

Secondly, I don't like big weddings myself, I wouldn't do it myself, and the big weddings I attended were nowhere near expensive (I mean by the looks, food, etc) and a bit tacky.

Thirdly, we'll have a 100 people roughly wedding and we'll spend about £15k (not in the UK though). However, we obviously think is a big amount but we can afford with no debt/help.

Oh and we provide transport and accomodation where is necessary, so I we're not inflicting the costs on anyone else

Our wedding, a few months ago, cost about £250. That included the registry office fee and reading of the banns, our marriage certificates, cake and champagne at our house, and lunch out with the two witnesses.
We didn't buy any new clothes, have a honeymoon, or anything else. Only cost not included above is cost of petrol to restaurant, no more than a few pounds.

we had an expensive ish wedding. about £15k and that was 8 years ago. all our parents chipped in as did we and it was amazing, (apart from my dad dying from cancer during the planning and being too stuborn to let me change the date).
we didnt need guests to pay out lots as we hired out a restaurant, put on transport and there was avery affordable range of hotels.

it was great and we are still very much in love

i have attended more expensive weddings and also weddings on a tighter budget and i loved them all.

just do what feels right for you and what you can afford OP.

I’m not sure what the point of this is. You can’t control what people think about anything.

There will always someone somewhere who disagrees with the financial priorities of another be it the cost of a wedding, a holiday, a handbag, private education, shopping in Waitrose etc etc. And on an anonymous site those opinions will be voiced more acerbically than in RL. But OP you must do as you wish and not care what anyone thinks.

We had a reasonably large wedding but it was 25 years ago (we’re still married). I suppose it did follow the traditional wedding format because back then there wasn’t much scope for another way. If I was doing it now it’d be smaller, more informal, less formulaic. I think it’s nice that alternatives have evolved, especially as the expense of a big wedding now seems frightening to me. I’d hate to begin married life paying off a debt with nothing tangible to show for it.

Also back then hen and stag dos weren’t what they are now. The expectation on those nowadays amazes me as they seem to have morphed into hugely expensive side events.

One thing I do know is that although it seems all consuming when you’re in the middle of wedding preparations, it really is just one day that fades quickly away and that ultimately it’s what follows that’s the only important part.

The worst wedding I went to is when they wanted a big lavish wedding but couldn’t afford it (I think the venue pictures and status of the venue were important).
Very few guests in an enormous room, very little food, no atmosphere and no drinks. Most people were only invited to the evening do (including me, one of her closest friends). It was actually a very depressing evening of very few people in a huge room with a loud disco not drinking (because we all had to drive).
They will tell it it was the most amazing day ever though.

If I had the kind of money some people spend for a wedding, I would go on a long, once in a lifetime type holiday. That for me would be a much better, more special experience than a one day party.

We had a 'big' wedding after a long engagement so had plenty of time to save. It was the best day of our lives and I wouldn't change a thing. We married because we intend to be together forever so I don't regret a single penny. I do realise now that some of the suppliers really did take the piss and cheaper alternatives would have been absolutely fine but if you're able to afford it what's the problem? So many people getting grumpy about weddings, they're meant to be fun!

Agree, Sloth.

Morning everyone. We're happy for the thread to continue as long as it's 'inspired by' other wedding threads and isn't just a thread about one thread. Can we make sure the discussion remains general? If it becomes a raking over of an old thread we will have to delete it. Thanks.

I'm not sure what a tacky or lavish wedding is.
At 50 I've been to loads including some that must've been very expensive; The Ritz and Clivedon, but both of those were absolutely beautiful with amazing food, drink, flowers and location. Just because they cost the B&G a fortune doesn't mean they were tacky.
Who wouldn't want to be a guest and an amazing, happy celebration?

Well I had an expensive wedding and it was on a Saturday, no annual leave required, you could stay where you like and presents weren't obligatory.

How can a wedding in a London pub be cheaper if you loves nowhere near London and need to travel and/or stay over. Not a good example.

Live nowhere near London

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

Wow. Not even the older generation in your family.