I'm the Victor Meldrew of Weddings!

[BumbleBee75]

Does anyone else dislike weddings?

I think I've been to that many now (in My 40s) I'm a bit jaded.

I find them a loooong day, forced to be jolly and make conversation, usually costs a small fortune with gifts, new outfit, the dreaded hen do's, more often than not an overnight stay. The loooong part between day and evening at a Wedding seems to drag on forever.

I could just decline obviously, but some are harder than others as can be family members who really I want to be there to see them married etc (but ideally then go home and get into my jama's 😂)

I'm sure DH thinks I'm odd an that all women apart from me love a wedding.

Any other Victor Meldrews out there???

Don't forget the fond reminiscence of your own wedding where you got married in a binbag in a local carpark (off-peak time) for the grand price of 50p, and everyone said it was the best wedding they had ever been to.

I often wonder if anyone has done any research into the scale and length of weddings and the percentage that say after 10 years have ended in separation or divorce? The two couples I know who had a registry office wedding with two witnesses and no elaborate do are still together over 20 years later.

I absolutely HATE weddings with a passion and decline whenever it's safe to do so. Sometimes it's not avoidable but mostly it is and I'm ok with that 🤷🏻‍♀️

I love them. I'm the same age as you and not been to any ages which makes me sad because I love them. All my friends are married now and don't have very large a family. I'd love to take DC to one. They are at just the right age to tear up a dance floor.

I like the ceremonies, I like seeing new churches or nice hotels, I like seeing what dresses brides choose, I've always had good conversations over dinner and mostly laughed a lot. I like the excuse to stay overnight in a nice hotel.

I like seeing friends in big groups that wouldn't otherwise get together.

Gosh OP - you've made me realise how simple the weddings of my youth were!

Yes - I agree. Old-style weddings were MUCH less boring and stressful. They usually followed this pattern:

*Hen and Stag dos were a round of drinks in the pub or a restaurant meal for a few friends.

*Church service comparatively locally (people didn't move around the country so much for work etc in the 60s/70s so often married a local)

*The photographer took about 40 mins to do a few pics of the couple, the families and perhaps a couple of guest groups. All in front of the church - no fancy business half-a-mile away. They they'd head off to do the next wedding.

*Off to local hotel or village hall for either chicken dinner/ham salad or similar.

Toasts and short speeches, telegrams (remember those!) and then the bride and groom went off to change for their departure (going-away outfits were a big deal). They would drive off in a car festooned with embarrassing rubbish and a sign that said 'Just Married'.

*All done and dusted by 5 pm. Guests free to clear off home and put their feet up.

When I think about this I think the world's gone bonkers - the over-blown Hollywood productions which go on nowadays - real endurance tests for the guests. I for one would have to decline.

It strikes me that far too many couples make weddings about the photographs rather than the enjoyment of the occasion.

@5128gap your summary of a significant proportionof mumsnetters is spot on

I love a wedding.

I also hate weddings. Tedious, far too long, enforced time with people you either don't know or don't particularly like, ridiculously expensive.

I decline these days.

A family member is getting married abroad soon and I'm not going.

I'm a miserable cow and I don't care.

One of the best things about MN is how much posters slag off other people’s weddings but always say theirs was the best wedding anyone had ever been to

Your guests are gonna hardly tell you otherwise now are they?!

I hate weddings to the point I doubt I'll ever attend one again.

@RampantIvy on this note, the most recent wedding we went to a few weeks ago, the photography part was INSANE. The wedding party spent a better part of 2 hours having the same staged photos being taken over and over again whilst we waited for the bloody dinner. And then throughout the rest of the day, the photographers kept herding people around and moving them out of the way to get 'the angles'. Aren't they supposed to blend into the background and capture people having fun?!

You bunch of miseries.

I LOVE a wedding, as long as I'm among friends. A party with good friends, in a lovely location, with free food and booze...what's not to like? I wouldn't go to a wedding where I didn't know anyone though, I'd feel awkward and the day would drag.

I do agree that weddings in far flung or really remote locations are an expensive pain in the arse though.

I think we need an amnesty for those of us who just don't like them, admittedly because we are grumpy egotistical bastards. It's all very well saying you should decline but it's honestly quite difficult to pull that off, especially when they ask you to save the date a flipping year in advance. The two weddings I've been to recently were of people I'm relatively close to, I genuinely do wish the best for them. I would have been fine declining if I could have been sure I wouldn't cause offence by doing so, but I suspect I would have.

If the long term trend is for weddings to get ever longer and more elaborate, can we also have a more relaxed attitude to people who just don't want to come - a generous acceptance that declining doesn't mean we don't appreciate you or want you to be happy? A standard 'sorry but I don't like weddings' box for people to tick on the invites? I'll even throw in an expensive gift and you can save around £100 on the food and drink that I don't want.

I've never had a wedding myself so I'm not even being a hypocrite here. They just involve so many things that I don't like (socialising, limited food choices, standing around, day drinking, uncomfortable shoes, not enough opportunities to sit down and read a book...)

Why do you need to tell people you don’t like weddings instead of just politely declining?!

@ShirleyPhallus is it ok to decline without a reason? (Genuine question.) These are people I know quite well so they would probably ask why, and the save the date thing means it's difficult to lie and say you're on holiday (although that's a possibility I suppose)

My family are quite scattered, and I love seeing them. We had a family wedding earlier this year and it was lovely to meet up with everyone. Even my deeply unsociable DH enjoyed it. However, we don't do ostentatious Instagram weddings, so it was perfect.

Oh me too I hate weddings. I only now go to ones of close friends and family members. I'm so happy I'm now mid forties and the endless flow of weddings has ended. The worst weddings are when the only people you know are the bride and/or groom. 12 hours of painful small talk generally while desperately wondering when the food will finally arrive. (Wedding that started at 10 and no food until 5 was a particular lowlight).

Was this about 15 years ago? In the Cotswolds?

I love a wedding but in my head I'm usually thinking "how many years until the divorce" 😆
But I enjoy them, seeing people and getting dressed up. But for most people it's a temporary chapter in their lives

I hate weddings but I take great pleasure in many other things, not sure that makes me a misery really.

About the right time but in Suffolk! The bride and groom brought themselves a packed lunch 😡

I'm not a fan of weddings generally either. They can be nice if you know a lot of people but otherwise can be very boring.

Went to a lovely one at the weekend. Local, nice ceremony, bop in the village hall, tucked up in bed by 10.30. What’s not to like?

I have ALWAYS hated weddings. My friends and family are fully aware of this and thankfully I've only been to 3. Three too many in my opinion!

I can outdo the 50p in a bin bag car park wedding mockingly mentioned above - I didn't in fact have ANY ceremony whatsoever. In fact, at the exact moment of my marriage I was at work. It was all perfectly legal (but obviously not in the UK!).

I wouldn't inflict a wedding on people.

Wow, I wish the weddings I'd been to were like that!