....to think weddings are (mostly) ridiculous now?

[TalkSomeSense2]

Or perhaps I'm overly invested in the dramatic wedding chat on here sometimes! 😁And then with the whole dragging everyone in to all the chat/decisions/drama/flouncing. It's just all so much!

The more expensive and flamboyant the wedding, the shorter the marriage. Agree or Disagree?

YANBU

My brother is getting married in August, not his first wedding, and honestly you’d think they were the bloody Beckhams. If I have to hear “Nothing is going to ruin Laura’s special day” once more I’m gonna shave his eyebrow off or something for the special day.
Which you might think ‘fair enough’, but these are Things he believes are going to ruin Laura’s special day:

• Children being present. They might make a noise in the ceremony you see and it’s important the ceremony is perfect. I know no one has to invite children but my brother’s actual 10yo son from his first marriage is only invited to the night do to ‘keep it fair’


• The outfit my mum chose. Beige is too close to white, so my brother told her to change it so she doesn’t ruin Laura’s special day


• The fact my great aunty is a vegan and coeliac, apparently this is very stressful for Laura because she has to give the caterers specific instructions


• The fact that some people have said no because it’s not feasible to attend a wedding 6 hours away when you have a 3 month old baby. Selfish bastards, apparently, poor Laura


• The fact that when my brother rang me to say “Are you wanting a room in the hotel, we are booking them right now”, I couldn’t give a straight answer because we hadn’t yet found sitters for the kids and also I was about to go into a meeting at work and only answered in case something bad had happened. I was apparently being difficult.


• The fact that neither me nor my mum want our make up done professionally for the day (been there, done that, every time came out looking like a clown) by the booked make up artist, which apparently means Laura is now paying for 8 people but only 6 are getting their make up done so it’s a waste of her money

Thing is they’re both in their mid-40’s, not a pair of 23yo influencers, and they’re behaving terribly. I love an extravagant wedding, IF (and only if) the B&G don’t behave like entitled dicks. I love a small wedding as long as the B&G don’t behave like entitled dicks. But when you get people like my brother - who seems to have a white knight complex in that ‘my darling Laura must have everything she desires, you won’t stop me you peasants’ when no one is in fact trying to stop that - who take it as an opportunity to fly their twat flag under the guise of ‘our special day (so we can behave how we like)’.

I require you to start a thread right now and update it every single time he opens his mouth from now until the wedding because i am sorry but your misery in dealing with them Is going to be comedy gold

The last few years have been shit give us all a laugh..please

I think a lot of people seem to feel that the goal is to have a bigger and better day than anyone else. Which is ludicrous. Just get married. If you want, invite everyone for a meal. You don’t have to invite everyone you’ve ever met, or indeed everyone wahose wedding you went to. You don’t have to be a princess for a day. You can just, you know, get married.

Seconded.

And your brother is a complete dick that he either suggested or agreed to marry someone who suggested that his own son should not attend his wedding.

Laura needs kicking to the kerb and he needs to stop thinking with his dick.

We had a big fancy wedding and I hated it. If I could go back and do it again, we'd have a much more intimate do with a few close family and friends.

Years on I'm still very much madly in love with DH though. He is my best friend and the love of my life.

We had our children before we got married and neither of us were bothered about getting married. My parents and everyone else kept telling us it was the right thing to do blah,blah,blah and I think in the end we did it to shut everyone up. There was no engagement or anything like that. It was very small and we just grinned and got through it. It’s now 25 years later and I still just don’t understand what the point of it is. We’ve stayed together but that has nothing to do with having a certificate. Our relationship means a lot to me but the actual marriage means nothing

Whereas I can’t think of anything more sad than getting married in an identikit hotel which like a crowne plaza which is a “conference room B” type set up with dry chicken, warm Chardonnay and an 80s swirly carpet and a load of other parties going on in the same venue. The other option is a luxury hotel in the middle of nowhere (like penny hill park) which is beautiful but the rooms are £300 a night. MN wouldn’t be very happy about that now would it.

id much prefer a barn wedding where you’re the only people there and if the food is rubbish at least you’re eating in beautiful surroundings. The relatively small cost and hassle of a taxi to be able to stay wherever you want and to give guests options to suit lots of different budgets is absolutely fine with me.

Yes! Funny how, whatever the wedding, the poster always swears blind that theirs is the best wedding they’ve ever been to and that the guests have all said the same. Why would that be…

That sounds very like my brothers wedding happening soon… in Ireland… 😂

Genuinely don’t recognise any of these horrid stories from real life. I bloody LOVE a wedding and as PP have said what matters is the attitude of the married couple

ALL the weddings I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to an attend have been brilliant, no matter where or how much money or what happens. I’m bloody honoured to be invited to witness two people I love declaring their love for each other and having a good dance and seeing friends. Even the marriages that have ended in divorce were brilliant weddings.

what a miserable bloody thread based on bullshit - or you all need to find new friends!

The more expensive and flamboyant the wedding, the shorter the marriage

This nonsense is often trotted out by jealous types who would love to be able to afford a big wedding. My wedding was the traditional ‘big white wedding’. Five years on, DH and I are blissfully happy and more in love than ever with a baby on the way. We often reminisce about the wonderful memories we have of such an incredible day. No debts incurred, either.

The "importance" of weddings oddly seems to have an inverse relationship to the "importance" of marriage.

Weddings have become more and more performative and less about the actual marriage.

My marriage lasted 6 months. It wasn't a big flamboyant showy one though TBF. Biggest costs were
£1000 dress
£1500 bridesmaids outfits
£2000 venue
£900 photographs

Food and such the family all did.
Shortly there after the ex decided they preferred the excitement of sleeping with a colleague.

weddings are such a money spinner
wedding planning companies are recuperating their losses from the pandemic

My wedding had 150 people, a country church, a sit down meal and a disco afterwards. Cost a lot but was bloody brilliant. Celebrating our solver wedding anniversary next month.

Being able to marry somewhere other than church or registry office created the wedding craziness. That and social media.

I think that the notion that the more expensive the wedding is the shorter the marriage will last because anything which involves such a lot of money/pomp and circumstance such as e.g. 10 bridesmaids. And ice sculptures and swans has very little to do with the couple wanting to be married.

Reality is that you can spend £150 or £150000 on a wedding and the end goal is still the same, so what exactly does spending that kind of money achieve other than to look showy and potentially end up in debt or beholden to your family.

some people spend so much time and effort on the wedding that they seemingly forget what it’s all about.

Planning the wedding becomes like a full-time occupation, and then when it’s all over it’s a massive anti climax, which is often why these marriages don’t last because any doubts are hidden by the need for extravagance.

And anyone who pays thousands for a wedding needs to shut up about how they’re being affected by the cost of living when they’ve pissed so much money up the wall for the sake of one day.

Thirded!! If that's actually a word :-) Reading some of the posts here, I'm not saying a wedding ought to be an Asda dress in the garden with digestives and water for afters but, really, the showboating and entitlement sometimes takes everything to a whole other level. And sucks the life out of what ought to be about two people GETTING MARRIED. Making a lifelong commitment to each other, for each other. Not because you wanted to fly in Elton John to warble a version of Your Song and live off beans for 20 years to pay for it all.

There are always going to be 'happy-we've-been-together-for 63-years' examples in either direction: £80,000 for the day with the bride crying in the loo because her great-uncles new wife wanted to sit with him at the top table or we got married, had everyone we wanted and still had change from a pound.

I think the whole 'the more expensive the wedding, the shorter the marriage' was said by a divorce judge/solicitor or someone.

I am very working class my friends and I were what some people would call Chavs back in the early 2000s. One of my friend group started his own business and did really well, he and his girlfriend (also a long time friend) had this huge extravagant wedding at a fancy hotel with a free bar. They had a wedding planner and everything (this is utterly unheard of in my circles).

Anyway it was fucking brilliant. It was nearly 20 years ago now and the friendship group has drifted apart over the years but when we meet up it always comes up. Everybody had such a good time, indeed the bride had told the planner the main thing she wanted was her guests to enjoy themselves. It's genuinely one of the events I ever attended and the best social function by far. They're still happily married and all of us remember their day so fondly.

Anyway that kind of makes me understand it. It would be so cool for hundreds of people to remember your day so well and with fondness. That said most weddings I hear about seem to go out their way to piss off their guests, not really sure what the point of that is.

Really!? A miserable bloody thread based on bullshit? At no point have I said I don't love a wedding. I've been invited to many at different ends of the spectrum. And been happy for the B&G. But - and this is a big BUT - the come down for the couple at some of the huge events has been massive. One split up within a year despite having been together for over 10 years before the day. The stress of organising, paying and everything around 'the big day' really took it's toll on the relationship.

I'm waiting for someone to come on and tell us that their wedding was so great everyone still talks about it now, 15+ years on.

I suspect the reality is that it's only ever discussed in the Poster's presence as there isn't much else to talk about.

Like what? Im really worried about money.

I definitely have attended weddings that were just so fab and absolutely memorable. Others have just been a massive chore and everyone looks like they have a face like a slapped arse but not on the photos 😂.

The stress of organising, paying and everything around 'the big day' really took it's toll on the relationship.

That's why big weddings cause divorce. It's not the cost, it's the couple going nuts and paying for something they can't afford. They were stupid and forgot they were basically already married, just didn't have it in writing. They wrecked a relationship of 10 years over a party. That's all a wedding is after all, after you do the ceremony, it is just a party.

A big wedding for someone who can afford it won't always end in divorce. It's the ones who go crazy, demand perfection, want stupid pointless stuff for the wedding etc that they need bank loans for, those marriages rarely last. Because its all about one day and ruining your life for that one day as you'll be in debt for a long time to pay for it.

“The more expensive and flamboyant the wedding, the shorter the marriage “

No, I don’t agree. This is a ridiculous comment and it’s laced with jealousy. I know quite a few people who had expensive weddings and all of them are still together years later. On the other hand the two simplest weddings I’ve been to ended in divorce.