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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to feel totally drained by weddings?

19 replies

GetTheTrainAndGo · 01/07/2019 23:07

I'm well prepared to be told that I'm being self centred and ungrateful after being fed and watered at a posh hotel (at no doubt considerable expense).

But I feel shit. I've to go to five weddings this summer and I'm brutally single. I'm periodically dipping into OLD but it's not easy. My social circle is getting smaller and smaller because they're all coupling up and settling down. They're at a different stage in life to me and I want so badly to be there with them.

I sat through all the speeches about soulmates and best friends and the rest of my life and I could genuinely have wept.

OP posts:
Whatjusthappenedthere · 01/07/2019 23:27

I’m only trying to help you look for a solver lining. I’ve never had a wedding frenzy of non stop wedding invites . I very been to 2 in my whole life. Could this be a reflection you have a great circle of friends you don’t always appreciate because they are always there? Other than that, I can understand it might be a bit crap. Flowers

ScoopyDoo · 01/07/2019 23:28

No, you're not being U. But also, you're not brutally single, you're single. There will be couples there who are happy, struggling, miserable, grieving, living amazing lives, ill, stressed, blissfully in love, and the rest. People worried about their jobs, bored with their partners, or celebrating running a marathon. Regardless, everyone has their shit and their blessings.
I don't want to dismiss how crap weddings seem when you are single and wish you weren't but honestly, go and celebrate your friends' weddings with all the joy you can, because not doing so will make you feel worse. When you're single I think you need friendships more than ever. Your happy times may well come soon and hopefully your friends will celebrate just as hard for you.

That's not to say it's not hard. It is.

Supersimpkin · 02/07/2019 20:19

Not a naff wedding bouquet, gorgeous wild bunch of your favourite Flowers just for you.

Total sympathy. It's awful. So have my best mates. To the extent that we all, at separate occasions, sat in front of the congealing pate feeling worryingly awful. There's nothing like a big wedding to bring out one's inner suicide victim.

Or inner serial killer, if you get as bored with the endless length of these dreary parties as badly as me Grin.

Accept it. Weddings are a chore for a lot of people. Not just the single, but the divorced, the widowed, and worst, the already-regretting-its. You are not alone.

And you have a lot of friends, given the appalling run of expensive invitations you are faced with. Friendships last, by the way.

This is what I did as a permasingle (or so it seemed) through the years of boredom, sadness and expense: only go to weddings of really close mates.

Do something else the day before and the day after, and don't get locked into the rehearsal-rehearsal-brunch-and-bowls-match. Ceremony, reception, leave.

Arrange with a mate to have them jab you with a stiletto if you start looking too glum. You will probably have to return the favour first. Don't be bothered about being a misery, just bother about if it shows.

Word of warning: after the weddings come the christenings/namings/whatevs. I stopped going to these after the second child per couple.

Never accept an invitation to view someone's wedding photographs. There really are limits.

bridgetreilly · 02/07/2019 20:34

You don't have to stop being friends after they get married, you know.

Vanderlylecrybabygeek · 02/07/2019 21:11

I’m happily married and bloody hate weddings.

You can still be friends when they’re married. But take up some new hobbies and do a bit of travelling and studying while you’re single

MyOpinionIsValid · 02/07/2019 21:14

Tell your couples to make single tables at the weddings ... what use is a wedding if you don't get to mingle with other singles?

CollaterlyS1sters · 02/07/2019 21:21

Accept it. Weddings are a chore for a lot of people. Not just the single, but the divorced, the widowed, and worst, the already-regretting-its. You are not alone.

I'm married and don't regret it. I think weddings are appalling, absolutely terrible shit way to spend a day.

NameChangeNugget · 02/07/2019 21:25

Happily married for 30+ years yet I find weddings boring. I’d happily just skip to the evening reception, that’s the best bit.

You have my full sympathy OP.

StealthPolarBear · 02/07/2019 21:28

I love weddings

GetTheTrainAndGo · 02/07/2019 21:35

Oh please, no, no the singles' table Shock I want to sit with my friends and try and enjoy the day. I do usually enjoy having a gander at the outfits and dancing. It's the horrible thought of a societal milestone I don't know if I'll reach.

You're definitely right about having friends, which I was taking for granted.

OP posts:
Maronchilich · 02/07/2019 21:50

I loathe weddings unless you are really closely involved, time goes into some sort of special slowness..

BadLad · 03/07/2019 04:09

Opposite problem here. I want to go to at least one wedding before I die, but nobody I know well enough ever gets married.

I feel like I'm missing out on loads of amusing drama.

mrbob · 03/07/2019 04:55

I feel you OP. I remember when I was younger weddings were an opportunity to get really drunk and snog boys. Now they are an opportunity to sit alone in the corner while all the couples dance! I haven't been to a wedding with a single male guest in several years now!
Don't get me wrong I have had some lovely times, hung out with nice family and friends and have enjoyed seeing my people settle down with the ones they love. But it IS brutal. A huge big YOU ARE SINGLE sign to yourself just exaggerated by the displays of affection (and yes I KNOW some of the couples at the weddings are actually totally miserable etc but it doesn't help)

PregnantSea · 03/07/2019 05:37

I think that unless you're very close to the couple (immediate family, best friend) then everyone loathes weddings. They are boring and expensive and it feels like a formal party with a bunch of people you don't know very well and you can't leave if you get fed up. Weekend gone, just like that.

WishingILivedOnAnIsland · 03/07/2019 05:50

Thanks for you OP.

If it helps you, a lot of what is said at a wedding is likely to be bullshit. I can't believe how many times I've seen a friend of mine in a white dress tearfully proclaim things like how her in laws are so wonderful and she's always felt so welcome and loved by them...when I've sat through dozens of brunches where she's compared MIL to the anti christ and explained how she wasn't allowed in the house for months because she wasn't Jewish enough or whatever. Or how she 'knew as soon as she saw DH that he was the one' and I get to sit there recalling that period in which she was actually dating multiple people and thinking about dumping DH for being too dull or whatever.

It's all marketing nonsense! Don't fall for it! They don't have their lives any more sorted than you do.

Fluffymullet · 03/07/2019 06:19

When I was around 30 there seemed to be a wedding explosion where we went to 6 weddings a year for about 3 years. Then around 2 years later about 6 christening etc. I'm now in my late 30s and hitting break up/ divorce season. It's all very boring and predictable at this stage of life and attending weddings hen dos is expensive.

The more interesting people I know have had more varied paths in life, often travelling or having unique jobs and interests. They have tended to settle later and follow thier own timeline.

I understand your annoyance but please don't let your single status define you, it's a tiny part of who you are. Hope the weddings aren't too painful

MirriVan · 03/07/2019 06:27

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

myusernamewastakenbyme · 03/07/2019 08:48

I dread being invited to a wedding...im a lone parent to 3 kids that i have to kit out in suits etc....it always costs me a bloody fortune....

Jeremybearimybaby · 03/07/2019 08:58

Even as a smug married (I read Bridget Jones!) I despise weddings! They're so bloody boring! And I include my own wedding in that! Obviously it wasn't boring for me, but I'm sure it was for everyone else!
Try and treat it as a really fucking expensive party where you get plied with free booze? (hopefully?)

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