To think people are getting grabbier?

[ComradeLaika]

With all the expectations of celebrations for life choices?

Outrageous hen/stag do’s
Ridiculous Weddings and gift expectations
Baby showers
Gender reveals
Engagement parties
Divorce parties
Over the top kids parties (they’re 1, they have no idea it’s their birthday)

It’s getting very expensive to celebrate others. Does anyone else think it’s gone over the top? What next?!

(and before anyone asks, I haven’t done any of the above, just a very cheap wedding!)

Engagement Parties/Weddings, fine, fair enough. I absolutely hate baby showers, gender reveals etc. My hen do was a few drinks around town and I was home by 11:30pm

There is a risk that Gender Reveal parties may become an annual event now as people flip-flop between the multitude of options now available eg man, woman, shoe-horn, llama, bread-basket, corkscrew, etc., etc.

It seems to be becoming what younger people expect because they see it as normal through their social media.

YANBU!! I’m at the age where each friend is having one event after another and it’s so excessive and expensive, it’s not the gifts per se it’s the extras like gift bags for the hen then cards and balloons and so on. I’ve usually said yes to attending an event when these costs crop up so I’m tied in, it causes way to much aggro to be the one who doesn’t want to pay so I usually go along with it. I’m happy to go to events and have a big party but it always seems to involve a venue in the middle of nowhere or loads of extras.

I think it’s the ones that make demands of people which are unreasonable. No problem with a wedding gift or a gift for a baby.

It’s the lookbooks for weddings etc that get me. I’ve come across weddings where people attending are expected to buy basically a whole new wardrobe to fit in with a colour theme or florals or regal or some shit etc for festivities over a few days. Especially during wedding season its a pain in the arse.

😬

People always used to have engagement parties, I guess now they have to be Instagram worthy engagement parties!

Back in the day when fewer people lived together before getting engaged, it was the thing to have a big engagement party.

Showy, shallow often vulgar. You only have to look at a certain attention seeking thread, recently to see that. Thank goodness MN admin shut it down. The value if such events are eroded by pretension.

No one I’ve known had engagement parties, none of my parents or my in-laws or any of my parents’ friends. They just got married!

I went to a few in the 80s.

Got to look good for the 'gram, hasn't it?

It must be bloody exhausting to be honest. I'm starting to feel more and more sorry for people who think they need to do it all for social media. More money, more extravagance etc. = more love and all that.

It's not even just parties.

The other day, I was on the beach.

There was a woman, her partner and young daughter of about 18 months walking down the beach. She stopped, ushered her other half halfway down the beach and I heard her say, "no, just do videos, videos!" Her little one was so desperate to run, to just be a kid. Yet she held her back for a good minute or two until her partner was 'in position,' at which point she playfully pranced along with her, whooping and yaying every so often to make it seem real life, like.

I remember thinking, how terribly, terribly sad that this is how life has become for some people. The irony is, I don't envy them one bit.

Me too..plenty of lager and black, pernod and Agadoo. Not to mention Oops Upside Your Head 😉😂

I don't think people in general are getting grabbier.I mean, if we look historically, there are plenty of life occasions of the wealthy that had some elaborate gift giving and expectations.

It's not new. Even if more can do it, they're still a small minority. Most people aren't expecting major if much of any celebration of life choices.

And as an American-Brit, I agree it's weird how some traditions from parts of the US come over to the UK and what we see is the version that's entirely focused on the most material, flashy versions of them. Primary proms creep me out.

People can be offended over not going to every event.

I'm with OP it's very uncessary to be having parties each year. What about a day trip out and creating memories? I honestly think some people need to get some depth.

I completely agree, and noisier and more ridiculously, pathetically, showy, wasteful and often vulgar.

I have never had any of those 'events' and refuse any invitations to them.

I hate what Britain has become and if there was any way DH or I could get citizenship of another country I would and we'd move.

Everything has become a bit of an expectation.

I genuinely couldn't afford to be a wedding guest now - no nice outfit and no money to buy one and definitely no money for a gift.

My parents forced me to have a biggish wedding with all the trimmings. Such a massive waste of money. Me and dh wanted to go to a registry office and holiday together after. Our marriage was built on love and we didn't need all that pointless flounce.

Celebrating your life events and paying for them yourself- fine. Expecting others to pay for your baby shower for child number 5/third wedding in Bali/end of nursery graduation- ridiculous.