AIBU to think that this might be the end of Bridezilla-style weddings? [Contains spoiler for the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special - added by MNHQ]

[BarkLife]

In 1965 (bear with me!) A Charlie Brown Christmas was broadcast on US TV. It featured a rather anaemic-looking real Christmas tree. Sales of 'fake' trees plummeted in the USA.

Watching the Gavin and Stacey Christmas episode, alongside over 12 million others, I wondered if perhaps a similar fate might befall extremely 'showy' Instaweddings. Given that Smithy's jilted bride is now the most reviled person in the UK, might people now opt for karaoke and close friends/family Smithy-and-Nessa style, instead of a Bridezilla-ish 'big do'?

I think you're reading far too much into a TV programme!

God I hope so. I thought the show spiked the vile "who cares if you're happy as long as the photos look good" insta perfect obsession very well. People getting themselves into debt for one day and still paying it off as the marriage falls apart. It's so silly

Pretty sure there are already plenty of people who marry their on-off partner of 17 years down the registry office and take their close friends out for a meal.

Agree, but the 'fashion' is for OTT 'it's about the photos' weddings

I was saying to dh that I have been to dos like that and that those type of women actually exist. It was really good and healthy to highlight that vacuous existence.

I don’t think the show will have that much impact on bridezillas.

That second wedding looked joyous though didn't it?

I thought so! I had quite a 'big' do many years ago (in terms of invitees), but it was in a pub

I hope so. The day should be about the marriage not the wedding.

The logic in your first paragraph doesn’t make sense. Why would a sickly real tree cause sales of fake trees to plummet?

People felt sorry for the real tree, and it represented the 'true meaning' of Christmas (which is what the cartoon was about). People then shunned fake trees as somehow un-Christmassy: eu.greatfallstribune.com/story/life/2017/12/08/charlie-brown-aluminum-christmas-tree/927643001/

In this paradigm Smithy and Nessa will be identified as the lush showy fake trees and people will seek to be identified with poor Sonia jilted at the alter and alone in her showy spectacle, the poorly tree that represented Christmas better?

Likely that the Charlie Brown cartoon was commissioned and paid for by big agriculture to address the collapsing real tree
market in the US.

My DH and I got married and cost me £1500 all in. Still looked good in the photos.

My SIL is still paying off her wedding, ten years on. I couldn't be doing with debt like that, the way I saw it was it's a party and it doesn't need a bunch of debt to fund it.

I don't really like the narrative that if you have a big, aesthetically pleasing wedding then you automatically must be a bridezilla who is getting married for the wrong reasons.

I had a very large, expensive wedding in a Scottish castle which was graciously financed my my dad. It was a beautiful day, everyone seemed to be having a great time and looked genuinely wowed and well catered for. I also love my husband very much and would have married him in a registry office if that was the only option available to us. Fortunately it wasn't so we picked the options we liked best.

"Why are you wearing those shoes, where are your proper shoes? You'll have to change them for the photographs."

Not sure that Gavin and Stacey has that much influence 😂 Much as I’d love the trend to revert to a low key affair.

My niece got engaged on Christmas Day and I’m already dreading the invitation to what I already know is going to be a several day celebration half a continent away.

I got married in the summer to partner of over 10 years. Cost us £900 in total. Best day ever. Nothing against those who want the big glossy wedding but it’s not where I would chose to spend my money and certainly wouldn’t get into debt for it.

Smithy and Nessa’s day looked perfect!

I had a £200 all in wedding with just drinks in the pub afterwards.
The overwhelming factor in that decision was that I wanted to buy a house and wasn’t spending my entire deposit on a party.
I don’t see how a TV show would ever have factored in my decision making.

So wedding costing moe than £1k = vacuous idiots who don't love each other and just doing it for the photos, regardless of whether they have Insta or not. Divorce in a decade.
Wedding under £1k = true love, decent people, know what love is, married forever

Is that your logic op? And now cos Nessa and whatsit had the latter, everyone else will be elevated to their superior status and have a small wedding with a dozen mates and karaoke?

Oh gawd I hope so. Imagine a better world where guests are no longer demanded to wear certain colours, there are no hen/stag trips to distant destinations, the total cost of the wedding is under a couple of grand, you can take your kids along with no worries and, guess what, nobody cared and everyone still had a great time.

They had the same wedding as us! Registry office then meal at a nice restaurant for us all. We did have a first kiss though

We had to choose between big wedding and a utility room extension. Never regretted the utility room!

It would make mumsnet more boring.

I love a good unreasonable wedding thread

I can honestly say it really does vary, I host weddings (church) and whilst we do get the occasional bridezilla, the vast majority are not having showy weddings, very few have professional photographers of huge receptions with buffets at a local hall being the most common. I had a pub do myself recently. I suspect the insta weddings are a certain demographic!

@SleepingStandingUp

Not my point at all. I'm just wondering if a big TV 'event' can have lasting consequences for certain cultural fads.

I’m of the opinion that if you’re letting Gavin and Stacey influence your decisions in life, you need your bloody head examined.