Are weddings actually seriously uncool? Naff as anything?

[comoatoupeira]

Light-hearted! This is about taste and fashion and society, not about the institution of marriage or the spirituality of the wedding ceremony.

Just reading the thread about the bridezilla who wants her sister to change her haircolour to be her bridesmaid, just the ultimate in deranged and self centered behaviour.

I've been having these twinge thoughts in the back of my mind for a while now, and I'm finally putting it out there: are weddings "over", meaning that they are actually naff and bad taste now?

What I mean is the classic wedding: overdone and over-achieving bride, matching bridesmaids in pastel satin, expensive everything. Men in expensive tailoring but who manage to not look elegant?

I think elopement and queer (in the academic sense) ways of getting married are in? Or just quietly in the registry office and then a party?

Taste arbiters, tell me your thoughts!

TLDR:
"When Lauren and Jackson England tied the knot with a safari wedding in Ranthambore, India, in January, they wanted the dress code to reflect the surroundings. The mood they communicated to their guests was “classic heritage Ralph Lauren.”

“I am an aesthetic person, and we had a clear vision for the hero image we wanted to create on the safari Jeep,” Mr. England, 37, said, referring to their primary wedding portrait. (He and Ms. England are founders of a content and production company in Sydney, Australia.) “It was important to me that guests followed our color palette.”

In the end, “our creative friends had fun with it, but our mothers were a bit overwhelmed.”

Ohhhhh I LOVE weddings!!!

If I'm at a wedding it's because the people getting married are important to me, and - crucially - I probably really like them! So whatever they do - big/small/industrial/DIY I am THERE for the couple!

I had an 'industrial' wedding (absolutely loving this expression) because I couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery and needed help, but I I didn't feel very bridezilla-esque. I certainly wasn't dictating hair (I didn't even dictate dresses), and the party afterwards was EPIC. Huge respect for anyone doing it differently!

I've always hated the snideness of these convos. I hope we can all just be cool that every couple hopefully love the choices they made.

And PLEASE if you hate weddings and are going to bitch about it afterwards - just don't go. It's not just a party, it's doing this really cringey legal thing in front of all your friends and family and it's horrible to think people there going 'urgh this sucks'.

Obviously I could be wildly wrong, but I suspect these brides were more affluent than most. I think it takes a lot of economic self assurance to get married barefoot, and then to have party in your parent’s garden that’s big enough for a wedding

Yes agree with this.

One of dh's friends got married a few years ago and if weddings in general ever come up both he and she will say 'oh we just had ours in mum and dads garden and we had a BBQ in the evening'. Which is technically correct - and it was a lovely day and actually fairly simple and totally without a lot of the frills and fuss of many other weddings. Only one bridesmaid and the Best Man, no fancy cars, no three course meal, no OTT decorations or a wandering caricaturist or whatever.

But the fact that mum and dad had enough space in their 'garden' to host a marquee and event for 150 people (along with enough parking on their 'drive' for a couple of dozen cars at least!) tells you all you need to know really.

I don’t know how much never being likely to wear a big dress or throw a big party again has to do with it. Surely a lot of it is just doing ‘the done thing’ and wanting the same as what your peers have had?

It takes confidence to break the mould for sure.

@whynosummer this is my take on it as well.

Most weddings are bonkers. The one-upmanship and insane budgets.

For a variety of reasons we chucked out convention when we got married. A quiet registry ceremony and lunch out with a handful of very close friends (absolutely no family). Then a big all-day party much later in the year for family and our wider circle of friends.

As well as enough bathrooms/loos in their house for everyone! I’ve been to one “marquee in the garden” wedding and the hosts were extremely wealthy.

I disagree on your take of them being dated.

I've read the bridesmaid thread you are talking about, but thats never been my personal experience. I've been a bridesmaid 6 times, none of my friends /family have been bridezillas. Nobody has ever tried to dictate how I wear my hair, makeup etc or just generally been horrible in the run up like some of the stories you hear on here.

I love a wedding, any type.I've been to big lavish affairs at stately homes , small homely ones in a field, a destination wedding. All very different , but each one has been amazing.

The small, less stressful, non-anal ones are awesome.

ah the “we just had a party in the garden” - size of venue would cost £5k to hire before anyone had eaten anything if you were having to hire this as your family don’t have “grounds”

I would have attended in an elephant suit.

I like a wedding that starts quite late in the afternoon. Absolutely no dress codes. All held in same venue if possible. Venue in or near a place with good transport links, lots of places to stay and easy to get to, Meal afterwards includes speeches that don't go on too long. Evening music not too loud so you can still chat to people. Lots of bar staff. If your hen party is being held abroad count me out. I've been to lots of great weddings, I love them.

we had an elaborate wedding 25 years ago. If I ever do it again, it will be pie and beer in the local parish hall.

I don't think the majority of weddings have ever been cool have they? General naffness is a key part of planning a wedding aimed at a range of guests of all ages. Tbh the naffness is part of it- the difference is when the couple understand that or not

I love seeing my friends get married as much as anyone. I am grateful that my friends got married in an era before they tried to dictate clothes worn to the wedding events, like I posted in this article, as well as expensive hen dos. Well - I've been to one hen do overseas but thankfully it was before I had kids. It was just at the start of that sort of nonsense....

I do think now that people are getting married that little bit older (30s), they are generally more low key than folk that got married in their twenties.

I also think covid and the cost of living crisis has made people re-think and choose less elaborate weddings!

There’s a lot of snobbery here. As pp said the seemingly try less hard ones rely on Mummy & Daddy having an orchard etc or an eye for the arts, which let’s face it, is usually those who can afford to have creative careers.

The best weddings I’ve been to are the ones where people are happy. Where it’s a big old mix of family from both sides, friends, colleagues. People should spend their money on what makes them happy. If that’s 3 bridesmaids in matching pistachio so be it.

My wedding day 20 odd years ago was pretty trad - fancy old London pub, black cab to venue, £20 wedding dress but I spent £££ on food, wine and DJ, because that’s what I value! I hope that people remember it as a happy day where they met some nice people they hadn’t met before.

I like the relaxed weddings in a pretty open air spot, gardens, or a beach. I love that more and more places are being opened up for wedding services.
Twenty or so of your nearest and dearest attending and a pub or restaurant meal after maybe. Don't even mind a buffet.
You can still do the little things that make a wedding special, flowers cake and so on, but just on a smaller scale. Save the money you would have spent to help set you up in life.

We have just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. Friends still comment on how much fun our wedding was.
We married in a local hotel with just our closest relatives. Had a laid back meal ( just 20 of us) in a private dining room, then relocated to a venue beside a river where we had a massive party for around 200 friends and family. We had one rule and that was that the disco was background music until 10pm so we could chat with everyone. By 10pm the guests were begging the DJ to ramp it up. The dance floor was packed and everyone danced the night away. It was well after 4am before the last guests left.
We had no photographer, no strict timetable, we just had immense fun celebrating with everyone.
My DSis still maintains that it is the only wedding that she has been to where the dance floor filled up as soon as the DJ started. That may have been down to the big social group we were part of which was associated with a sport well known for partying.
Neither DH nor I wanted the “big wedding”. I had been to so many weddings where as guests you spent so much time just standing around. Photographers often ruin weddings.
All the picky little details are just so unnecessary. No one remembers the table decor or the favours or whether the bridesmaids hair colour complimented the bride’s.
What they do remember is whether they had fun, enjoyed the company and that they were well fed and watered.

When my DSis got married she tried to dictate colours. She asked that people didn’t wear pastel. Of course most of her family and friends told her not to be ridiculous. She asked my DSis not to dress her two DD in crochet ponchos ( the trend at the time), that was red rag to a bull and of course they wore ponchos to the ceremony.
She laughs about it now and admits that it was ridiculous to expect us all to conform. She had become the classic bridezilla. More concerned about what everyone else thought rather what she really wanted.

I love a wedding and don't care if it's naff or not but I do think there are a few things that are going out of fashion. Mainly the matching bridesmaids dresses and hair, the first dance, the big wedding cake and the insistence on everyone being suited and booted. Some of the "cooler" weddings I've been to recently have left that stuff out.

I agree. I think there's a fussiness and rigidity to the 'traditional' wedding, even the most tasteful ones, that people are starting to push back against (or see as unfashionable). Most of my friends have got married in the last few years and the ones everyone enjoyed best were very small, informal, at unusual times or otherwise non-traditional. We've had registry office then a catered dinner party at someone's house, a 9am town hall wedding then brunch in a beautiful coffee shop for 12 of us, a brewery wedding with everyone instructed to wear their normal clothes (inc both brides), etc. This is probably somewhat to do with the type of people I'm friends with, but I've definitely seen a reduction in the number of traditional weddings and a shift in what people think is fashionable in weddings.

I hate them 😀 Been married twice, never in a church, no white dress, no cake, wedding favours, bridesmaids or hen do.
I avoid them .

*TLDR:
"When Lauren and Jackson England tied the knot with a safari wedding in Ranthambore, India, in January, they wanted the dress code to reflect the surroundings. The mood they communicated to their guests was “classic heritage Ralph Lauren.”

“I am an aesthetic person, and we had a clear vision for the hero image we wanted to create on the safari Jeep,” Mr. England, 37, said, referring to their primary wedding portrait. (He and Ms. England are founders of a content and production company in Sydney, Australia.) “It was important to me that guests followed our color palette.”

In the end, “our creative friends had fun with it, but our mothers were a bit overwhelmed.”*

I hate Lauren and Jackson.

I think this is a stretch. Wearing exactly what you want to wear is more of a feminist statement than feeling like you have to have something plain, classic, boring because you see wearing a white princess style dress as childish? The fact that you can’t see any witty or smart women in a white dress shows that you are failing to realise how multifaceted women can be. Women are completely able to be smart, witty, have fun with fashion, to want to wear white as part of a tradition in whatever way they choose, wear a veil….

I hate the idea that for women to be taken seriously we should have to tone down our femininity and conform to male standards. If I have a daughter I would like for her to grow up in a world where she can be respected for being herself.