To think that couples getting married are overly criticised by other people?

[DebateWithMoi]

I just feel like couples getting married can't get anything right,

Before the day the guest list is scrutinised, the wedding party, the delegation of work, where they've chosen to get married, the cost etc ( this is a big one, lots of guests moan about the cost to attend a wedding but would they rather not be invited then? It's a wedding and it's costing the bride and groom or bride and bride / groom and groom also ), the food variety etc when asked to pick a meal. I am at an age lots of people are getting married around me and I have also and people can't help but make comments. Often they aren't directly to the couple but around them, to others etc. It seems what is meant to be such a lovely day is often picked apart for no good reason. Out of interest have you ever yourself or ever heard anyone moan about the following:

-the food
-kids / no kids
-which part of the day you're invited to
-the choice of wedding location
-the cost
-the seating plan
-your or someone else not being a part or a wedding party when you suspected they would be
-rhe music
-the weather ( this one gets me! )
-the temperature of the venue
-the seating plan
-hiw the brdiesmaids looked
-the order of the day
-the organisation of the day
-anything else

I list the above because they're all moans I've heard!

Yeah, I think some people just don't like wed dings and kind of go looking to pick holes - takes all sorts I guess. I like a good wedding and am a bit sad there are no more on the horizon for a long time yet and generally find the positives in all of them.

Yes @FancyBiscuitsLevel !
Don't get me wrong, I love a roast pork bap but this was just shockingly stingy. My BIL asked for some extra pork on his and they said no 😂
Just do a £7 a head buffet/don't invite as many people or cut out some of the other crap. Just please don't keep your guests from 2 till 11pm with virtually no food. I ended up buying my kids crisps from the bar!

Well, most of the point of socializing at a big party is to meet and converse with new people; you could sit in your lounge with your friends. Being able to chat and get to know others is part of the duty of any guest.

You’re confusing ‘people marrying’ with ‘people having a wedding’. Perfectly possible to do one without the other.

You don't have to invite people to be with you when you get married, but if you do, then you should treat them as guests, not an audience.
The forced formalities of weddings are quite unnatural, and honestly a bit cheesy. Why on such a happy day, do we expect our loved ones to wear their most uncomfortable clothes, travel miles, sit in allotted seats, eat luke-warm food and generally behave as if George V was still on the throne?
Why does it have to big a "big day" ? Wouldn't a happy day, or a fun day be a more appropriate way to mark the amazing joyous optimism of two people agreeing to be each other's family for the rest of their lives ?

Did you actually go into debt for your £18K wedding? If you did, you should have said “sorry, we can’t afford to invite everyone”. We did. We didn’t go into debt. If you’ve gone into debt for fear of not inviting people, you’re a people pleaser and so throwing a wedding (and in life generally) you needed to accept that you can’t please everyone so you crack on and do what works for you.

I lost a very close relative shortly after my wedding. At my wedding they were in remission and we were celebrating that they were cancer free. The cancer came back so quickly that they were dead 3 months later. My grandparents were also growing older and frailer, I lost two within two years of my wedding, so I get wanting a wedding and something to celebrate with family. However, it’s also why I think if you’re planning a wedding you should think about your guests. It’s partly why we had ours at a budget hotel chain, the type that many people on here have complained about. I don’t care though. It had cheap rooms because people needed to travel, booze was cheap, it was accessible for my grandad in a wheelchair. I took my guests into consideration when planning my wedding and genuinely think I did the best I could with the budget I could. I’m not really bothered if someone found fault with my wedding day - there were faults with my wedding day! If someone complained to my face, they wouldn’t be getting invited if I got married a second time but if you’re complaining to someone’s face you don’t want to be at that wedding, let alone any subsequent ones.

We spent what we could afford. It was, still is, a lot of money but we are happy with that amount. That money bought me memories with relatives who were gone a short time later. It gave me videos of my relative dancing like they’d just been declared cancer free and when the images of them dying floods my memory, I try to focus on them dancing just 3 months before. It took a lot of time and effort to plan but honestly I couldn’t care less if someone has it on the best wedding list or not. I enjoyed the day and I had the people I wanted there.

I've been to many weddings, large and small, traditional and contemporary, formal and casual and loved pretty much all of them.

The only one I've really moaned about was badly planned. There was a full church mass at 12pm, so realistically with travel the latest we could eat was 10am. They then had the reception at an over-priced hotel an hour away in the arse end of nowhere and left guests standing around cold and hungry until 8pm with no clue about what was going on. The happy couple themselves buggered off to a pub en-route with immediate family, and then for scenic photos and didn't join the reception for hours. Most guests weren't staying there because of capacity and cost so were just stuck standing around waiting for hours on end.
The couple only thought of the kudos of a large wedding and their own comfort and a select handful of people. They did not provide basic hospitality to the 150+ other people there, some of whom had travelled internationally at cost, and that is worth criticism.

I didn't regret going to that one; 1) because I got to meet some of DH's extended family and 2) it was an excellent (but expensive) lesson in how to not organise a wedding and learned some useful ideas for our own by doing the opposite.

(They were divorced 5 years later!)

Getting married and having a wedding are two different things.

I'd never marry.

I quite fancy a wedding. Just for the dress. But yes, all those parts of a wedding are picked apart. Especially on MN!

I love weddings and rarely moan as think they're great and I like all sorts from very relaxed to very formal! I've moaned about a few things on your list - though not publicly or to the bride and groom! Not smoked about most weddings I've been to and been to over 50.

I've never moaned about the actual food but the 12pm wedding where we got nothing at all until 7pm (then evening buffet at 9pm) i was hungry!

Seating plan - two have irritated me, one when we were all mixed up with randoms. I was pregnant so didn't even get to have wine to help! Was an echoey room so could only talk to the randoms either side. Another was child free so I left my children with a paid babysitter for 2 nights and happily went. We were sat with the only kids invited to the wedding - and their parents were on a different table! Was not impressed by that!

Don't think I've moaned about anything else on the list.

I massively regretted my wedding because of exactly that. So much judgment, I was under so much pressure and ended up hating the day. I had so many requests from various people. My mother and MIL are mostly to blame as they wanted to please their own families and instead of shielding me, they passed on every small comment and request and made me sort it out. I was too young (27) and too preoccupied with the nice photos, what everyone thought, pleasing everyone. And I totally overestimated how important it was to have a magical day. It was fucking stupid.

I have the most amazing photos, genuinely stunning. Never posted them anywhere and never look at them. I can't bear it.

I never complain about other people's weddings now. I genuinely enjoy them, love going to them and a part of me always feel extra sorry for how much work bride and groom have to put into it.

A friend went to a wedding where after the ceremony the chosen ones went for a meal and everyone else was sent to the local pub. The pub group all bonded over being pissed off about this.

I attended a wedding with DP and mil. Mil spent the whole meal complaining about the food and saying how she could cook better food than this 🙄

Another one where the couple went off for photos leaving everyone stood for over 3 hours, sat for another hour and then served food. The small talk between guests ran out far too early, there was nothing to talk about other than how tired and hungry we all were.

It is possible to make a good effort to enjoy a wedding and fully celebrate with a couple at the same time as complaining privately about bad food and the day being badly organised.

Sometimes couples spend a huge amount of money on wedding frills without giving their guest’s experience any real consideration. People can’t force themselves to enjoy something when they’re hungry and have to stand around doing nothing for ages or struggle to buy overpriced drinks.

I disagree. I think the problem is that a percentage of people are thinking too much about the perfect wedding rather than getting married. I have 100 people coming to my wedding and no complaints, the evening is anybody, kids , mum who lives with them etc. church is anyone, nobody has to pay for any drinks and most are local

You say "couples" getting married OP - well just imagine you're a 'triple' trying to arrange a wedding. Yes, I am being a bit facetious - just make your own wedding and politely fuck off any objectors.

I’m really selective about the weddings I go to now.

The majority of them are tedious for guests, especially when you’re in this season of life when there’s three or four a year to go to. Once you’ve sat in one hotel ballroom eating dry chicken and seen someone’s tipsy Aunty Brenda dance to Sweet Caroline you’ve been to them all. And they often are expensive to attend as well as being a bore.

Unless it’s someone I love very, very much, I’m only going to weddings that are a bit different, in a place I want to go, or where I know a lot of the other people that are going so I can catch up with friends or family.

Letting wedding guests get extremely hungry or bored by a long photo session is irritating, but I haven’t been to a wedding like that in many years. Most of us do not marry when we are young and so we have already experienced other peoples’ wedding pitfalls before we have our own.

I am usually pleased and feel grateful for whatever effort the couple have gone to. Most people are not professional event organisers and usually cannot afford a wedding planner.

It's not something I've come across in real life, but I suspect that is because the people I am close enough to, to be invited to their wedding, are not the sort of people who would demand their guests wear certain colours, or any of the other bizarre things I read about on wedding threads.

I think the issue is that for many, weddings have become a performance rather than a celebration, so the experience of the guests comes almost last when in reality it’s the most important if you want a fun joyful day.

From what I read on MN, I'd agree with this.

Don't get me wrong, if, as a family, we've been to a wedding, it might come up in conversation later "I like the way they did the tables for the meal / cut and served the cake / the bridesmaid dresses / {whatever} but wasn't keen on the fact we'd been invited for midday but didn't eat until 4pm" sort of conversations. but that will be amongst ourselves, we wouldn't send a critique to the B&G.
However if talking with someone close, about their plans, I might sometimes say "Have you thought about X" if something about their plan makes me realise it is going to be a problem for Grandad or whoever.

We got married five days before Christmas with just 17 guests. All sat around one big table and had a Christmas dinner as our Wedding breakfast. Best. Day. Ever. ❤️

I think the fact most weddings are planned with in an inch of precision and expense and spoken about for two years whilst th bride is run ragged - makes the whole day pointless!
It a huge money machine .

If you want to get married or sign a legal document - they book a room and get on with it.

Its the best day of their lives

Which does rather suggest that it's all downhill after that

I don't think the size of the bill for the type of party and trappings you've chosen should be in any way related to what people think of the do.

And yes, things can and do go wrong, and whereas you'd never mention it in RL, it's fine to talk about it (in the abstract, not reminding people that XYZ went a bit wrong at theirs).

Not least because the same themes keep coming up - treat your guests well, respect that they have varying budgets and amounts of leave (so choose places that have good transport options and types of accommodation), feed them at normal-ish mealtimes, have plenty to drink, including soft drinks and tea/coffee at no more than normal bar prices, have enough places to sit down and quieter places where you can converse. If those are in place, then there will be little to gripe about.

But in a world where people choose venues in the arse end of beyond and next to no local taxis, try to shove people in to paying for their room in an accommodation package, have dinner at 4pm (I mean who is accustomed to eating a main meal then?), keep them hanging round not sure what's happening next, etc, then yes there will be grumbles. And for most of those issues, I see the hand of the wedding industry, telling people that it's OK to do those things. It's really not

I do agree with above. My advice to any couple planning a wedding is to take what the wedding industry says or implies is ok with a massive grain of salt. In some ways you should just treat it like any other social events, guests want to be fed, catch up with loved ones. That should be the starting point.

The only thing I have ever heard anyone complain of is the cost of drinks at the bar - this was more than 20 years ago and said bar was charging £7 for a pint of beer, when you'd get change from £2 in the average pub.

I think the whole wedding thing is a bit out of control, but yes people should mind their own business.

However if you’re hanging around with people who bitch about other people a lot, then change who you hang out with.

Getting married used to be life changing. Literally starting a new life. It no longer is, but people still want it to feel as though it is.

One of DH’s cousins who we really don’t like (long back story!) invited herself to ours then complained to me on the day that it was too posh!! It wasn’t overly posh, it was in the university chapel but not over the top fancy in any way!