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!

Weddings are a bit like Christmas, in that they are completely uncool but still fantastic and attempts to make them cooler just make them worse.

I love weddings, especially the ceremony and the speeches and having a knees up. Couldn’t care less about any of the fripperies.

I think they are sooo over.

I think as well as some the things already mentioned it's partly social media to blame for what I call, Pretty Staged Event Fatigue

There's just way too many curated images and videos of celebrity and joe blog weddings, and people putting their pictures up on Facebook, Instagram etc. Everything looks the same now. Everything. Nothing is original. It's homogeneity through and through.

You've seen the same dress a thousand times. And it's all the same dress now, whether it's pared back country peasant pastoral or big over blown Disneyfied balloon gown. It somehow is still all the same.

You've seen the non-matching ditsy floral, gingham bunting, the tied ribbon streamers.

You've seen the glass jars and tea lights

How many more oh-so-deliberately-not-matching wooden chairs or covered satin ribbon chairs can you see without yawning?

Happy brides in white. The matching or matchy/not matchy satin bridesmaids dresses.

I'm tired.

I saw some images of a couple who did a whole goth wedding. That got my interest.

And it is also bad taste in a cost of living crisis to issue a wedding list with demands for stuff when you're both working people who have been living together for ages!

I think someone was saying the new thing that will take off in the celebrity world will be no images allowed to be posted on social media or taken at big events including weddings. Phone taken at entry. Once this takes off at the normie end, weddings may be exciting - and unique - again. I actually used to enjoy going through the wedding book with the couple afterwards.

I read somewhere that celebs are doing it quietly these days.

But yes, I think the whole thing is naff and I say that having wasted a huge amount of money on the big wedding for my 1st.

My second being a registry office do with 4 of our closest friends, a slap up meal, drinks in the garden at ours and then a fish supper at the local was by far and away the better wedding and most fun.

I'd have been wishing for the wanky twosome to have been eaten by hippos.

"... tragically co-opted by the romance-industrial complex".

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/4050aacd-b8c7-4a65-9990-9818d491bea7

Meh. They're clearly creative types, with a similar circle. I can't access the NYT article but I found a similar article on Conde Nast. They're literally in the business of being content creators for travel brands, so it's not surprising the aesthetic was important to them. It was a destination wedding and they had 30 guests. If guests didn't want to go and weren't happy to go along with the dress code, they didn't have to go. Good for Lauren and Jackson pleasing themselves, I say. Some of the MNers who love an informal wedding should be big fans.

their primary wedding portrait

Tee hee!😁.

I don’t like or enjoy them. We have passed up 3 weddings from acquaintances this year because they are wasteful, long and expensive to attend.

And yes, they’re mostly tacky and overdone. Santorini is not romantic - it’s a European Disneyland for the fur coat no knickers brigade.

NO SPEECHES! No way, the speeches are the highlight for me. It’s a comic interlude and at 99% of the weddings I’ve been to, very funny and a kind of ice breaker that leads to lots of further interaction between guests. When you find out a funny university story about the groom and his mates it gives you something to go and chat to them about.

I can only think of one wedding where the BM stood up and thanked everyone for coming and that was it. Rubbish.

I often think with these threads on MN where posters slate weddings, that you’re just going to shit weddings, because I’ve always immensely enjoyed myself at them.

I just can't believe people are prepared to fork out the best part of their annual salary on a party. I am far too cheap for that.
My aunt got remarried last year and they had a ceremony in the registry office and then a buffet in a local cafe for 25 people. It was a lovely family event, very low key and hardly cost anything at all.

@fruitbrewhaha My partner HATES being the centre of attention and public speaking is just a massive no, I'd hate for him to not enjoy his day because he was so woried about doing a speech!

If My dad wanted to do one then fine, not banning them - but nothing would be essential. Whatever makes everyone happy!

I can’t think of a bad wedding I’ve been to. Apart from an evening do invite to someone I didn’t really know very well from work and it turned out the people I liked from work hadn’t gone….and it was his side of the family on chairs one side of the dance floor facing her family. No mixing. I made a French Exit.

Weddings have gone mad, and madder by the day. Huge shows, for show- and the meaning totally lost in the middle. In my experience the flashier and most showbizz wedding = the most disastrous marriage. Totally bonkers, and saddling couples with huge debt so often, putting pressure on relationship and making it impossible to save for flat or house.

B O N K E R S

We did similar. Two witnesses, no guests, rings, flowers, poems, songs, kisses. Just us giggling that we were actually doing this after being together nearly 40 years. Afterwards we went out for a pizza with our witnesses and then went home. It was lovely. Cheap too. The day, including taxis cost £300.

It’s all utterly ridiculous.

People getting married in a church who have literally never been to a service other than Christmas in their life, people getting married in white and having a wedding list even though they’ve been living together for 10 years and own a chic townhouse and 2 cars, people expecting friends and family to trek halfway across the world to see them get married even though they actually got married in a registry office in Maidenhead because who wants to get a Spanish/ Italian divorce! And don’t get me started on women taking men’s names, bridesmaids, all the menfolk doing speeches whilst the women sit and clap, kids being excluded and all of the bridezilla rubbish about dresses, 3k hen weekends, hair colour, weight, pregnancy etc

To me it’s all a horribly outdated money spinner and I would genuinely be happy to never go to another wedding again apart from an Indian one because it’s worth biting my tongue for the food.

I’ve been married 27 years and have daughters aged 23 and 25. I genuinely don’t care if they get married or not. In a time when saving for a house deposit is impossible for many, the thought of wasting all that money on a day appals me.

@Heronwatcher I agree with every word you said

Have you ever been to one with bad speeches though? Awful! I went to one with 5!! speeches (the bride and maid of honour spoke, as well as the usual groom, best man and FoB). It went on for almost two hours, everyone was well past ready for their dinner and most of the guests were completely fed up. The poor best man actually had a good speech but because he went last you could tell he knew everyone was over it.

For me you can tell when the couple have prioritised the look of the day over their guests enjoyment of it, and those weddings are tedious. You can’t help thinking- I wish they’d gone without fussy themed favours and chair covers and flowers on every surface, and someone playing a harp for 10 minutes before the ceremony starts, and just spent a bit of that money on some food while we all stood round waiting for photos.

I am 29, so definitely not in the life stage of being ‘over weddings’. I’ve only been to five in my life. I find them boring as hell, formulaic and really lacking the personality of the couple. If you put all the weddings I’ve been to into a hat and picked them out, asking whose was whose I couldn’t tell you.

DP and I are getting married abroad, in the country we had our first holiday. Then we will have a massive party here with all our friends and family.

Ive only ever been to one wedding in my life and it was my mother's to my step dad.
It was the worst I've seen I couldn't control my laughing 🤣.
It was a register office one but I got the giggles so bad.
I was not the only one even my nan had the chuckles.

We're going to a wedding in a couple of weeks. It's going to be low-key, in the church the bride attended growing up, with the reception in a village hall.

I love weddings like that, where the purpose is that the couple are getting married and want to celebrate with friends and family. Sometimes they're in plush hotels, but that doesn't change the vibe.

The ones I don't like are the ones where it becomes all about matching everything and pointless expense (zero interest in music but can't have the church choir, must pay for an expensive soloist; expecting the parents to bankrupt themselves to provide actual champagne, that sort of thing).

@VivaciousRadish they can still get married - just not pay ££££ for a wedding.!

Went to a fancy wedding end of last May. The ceremony was held in sort of beach hut thing in a hotel garden and the guests were sitting in rows facing the action. I got restless and started gazing around the garden and it occurred to me that the weather, hot and still, was perfect bee swarm weather. I sank into a glorious reverie where, first the sound of the swarm became apparent and then the long train of thousands of bees appeared over the tree tops. They'd circle in a massive swirling cloud before taking refuge in the rafters of the beach hut. The bride and groom would rush out screaming, followed by the terrified guests, all of them shrieking and running for cover, shedding shoes, hats and bags as they scrambled indoors, while and my Dear One would stay to admire the bees. Sadly, it didn't happen but it was a very entertaining fantasy.

Pardon my ignorance, but what does "queer (in the academic sense)" mean?