to wonder why people think "weddings are all about families"?

[Elkat]

Okay, so if you have a church wedding, then I can see that but if you are not religious or of a different religion then its not surely...?

The legal requirements for a couple getting married are..

"In England and Wales the statutory declaration is:
I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful impediment why I, may not be joined in matrimony to

It is followed by these contracting words:
I call upon these persons here present to witness that I, do take thee, , to be my lawful wedded husband/wife.

There are also two legal alternative declarations.
Declarations: I know of no legal reason why I, , may not be joined in marriage to .
Or by relying ?I am? top the question: Are you, _ free lawfully to marry_?

These are followed by the contract:
I, , take you, to be my wedded wife/husband.
Or
I, _ take thee, _ to be my wedded wife/husband "

Now call me thick, but there is no reference to families there whatsoever.

I read a lot of threads on here where people seem to state that 'weddings are about families' and so X should happen or Y should be invited but why do people think that weddings must be about 'families'? Is it just their opinion? (In which case, that is just one view amongst many, and so cannot be projected onto other people or their weddings!)Or is there a more substantial reason? Cause to my mind, a civil marriage is about the legal joining of two people together. No more, no less. It just seems to be Mumsnet wisdom that 'weddings are about families' yet I do not understand this view and do not see why I should accept some random person's ideal of what a wedding is about without good reason. So all of you who think 'weddings are about families' please tell me the good reason you have for stating this view!

Ta.

can u tell the time yet custy?

Prior to my wedding, I would have said that given the decision again, I would have gone abroad. I was stressed and fed up with family, with a big "this is our day!" attitude.

On the actual day, the most wonderful thing was seeing all of my family and friends together in one place, having a wonderful time. I never thought that that would be the best feeling of the day and I was sad to realise that there would probably never be a good enough reason to get everyone together like this again.

So for me, it's about family and friends. Your honeymoon is about the two of you. But I'm not saying that's what is right for everyone.

YANBU - a wedding is a celebration between two people. Not an excuse for the parents of the bride and groom to have a family get-together which someone else is paying for If they want a family get-together they can organise and pay for one themselves.

we got married without telling anyone with just 2 witnesses and our DS - it was lovely day, just perfect with no stress beforehand. Having divorced parents made me want to have a very small wedding so as to avoid any awkwardness etc, and the more we thought about it, the more we thought the smaller the better! I couldn't bear the stress, different views of the entire family on who should be invited, who should sit where etc.
We both firmly believed that the wedding was about the 2 of us (and our DS) and everyone was totally supportive of this. Also, our vows were to each other, not to our respective families.
If people want a big wedding to celebrate that is their choice, but lots of friends have said that the build up is so stressful that they didn't enjoy it as much as they thought on the day which I think is a real shame

Yes YABU.

The reason people think that weddings are all about families, is because it is a hangover from the days when families and communities were geographically closer together and much more involved in the life of the couple. Also, pre-contraception, they were inevitably about creating a new family unit. Nowadays life has become more atomised for individuals, couples and families and so weddings can be whatever you want them to be, but old habits and assumptions die hard, so whether you agree or disagree with them, I think it's unreasonable to wonder why they exist. In a hundred year's time they might not, but at the moment we're still too close to the past to have got rid of the automatic assumptions that once would have been unquestioned.

Tutter, I get birthday cards from 'Mum and Dad' from my ILs.
[repulsed and creeped out emoticon]

My DH and I lived together before we got married, and he did propose several times before I said yes- not because I didn't love him, but because I didn't see the need for the piece of paper and I didn't want a big family wedding.

Once we actually married I realised that it's a lot more about how other people see you. It's about making a public statement, telling everyone that you are committed and in love.

We had a small (20 guests!) wedding. It gave his mother a chance to air her 'just been smacked in the face with a week old kipper' expression.

I read an article about a marriage service- I can't remember which religion/ethnicity it was about- that actually involved the wedding guests all promising to help the couple to sustain their marriage, which I really liked. I think that it makes sense for weddings guests to be the people that are involved in your life i.e. family and friends that you see regularly.

The idea of the wedding guests is that they represent the whole of society, helping you to sustain and uphold your marriage.

Which is why traditionally, the guests have been as important as the bride and groom. The wedding does not happen in a vacuum, it is something involving and feeding into society. Hence the modern idiocy of "their day" having emetic effects on some sections of the community.

Traditionally weddings have marked the bride (or very occasionally the groom) leaving her birth family and joining the family of her husband. So for one family to give the bride to the other. That's why it is the bride's family who have the party. The bride might well have moved from her family home to her new husband's family home. Then as time passed she would have moved from her family home to a new home were she and her husband would have started their own family. As women have become independent and as couples have more frequently lived together before getting married (and as the reasons for getting married have changed) the whole set up becomes a bit anachronistic.

I don't know about 'wedding being about families' but if you really beleive a wedding is just about the bride and groom why bother inviting guests? Why not just go and do it quietly somewhere with a few strangers as witnesses? If someone wants me to come and witness their marriage, I am delighted to go and do so, but I would prefer to think that they actually want my company, rather than just as a witness to how gorgeous the bride's dress is and how expensive the reception is. DH's neice is getting wed tomorrow. I love her to bits and her lad is a decent sort but it's costing us a lot of money to get 5 of us halfway across the country, pay for accomodation, not to mention the present, new clothes for the DCs. And it's going to be a long and tiring weekend. All of which is fine. But it wouldn't be fine if I didn't think they wanted us to be there to share their celebration. So I think that whilst it's mostlt about the B & G, it also has to be about the witnesses to the ceremony who care about the couple.

weddings are about the bride and groom -nowt else matters (honestly no matter what anyone tells you)

not the cake
not the dress
not the seating plan
not the guests
not fancy wee gift bags
not aces of flowers
not the crefully selected nosh
not the well chosen chilled alcohol

just it all can kind of gets lost and overlooked by fripperies

YANBU, but I think it is differnt strokes for different folks. Coleen Rooney appears to have made her wedding last for about a week according to OK magazine (who pretty much paid for it) but she still only invited close friends and family and resisted the temptation to have a full on celebrity do (good on her) If I had had such a budget I might have been tempted to do similar - especially liked the party on yacht bit!

But in the real world, me and DH had DD and 3 divorces between us. We picked a "special" registry office and splashed out a bit on staying in a posh hotel for a few days. We had our close friends as witnesses. It was still really emotional - and just as WE wanted it, followed by a nice lunch after which friends babysat for a few hours whilst we had ahem "a nice lie down for a bit". It was perfect for us and I will always remember it. Certain people were a bit pissed off not to be invited but we threw a bit of a party a couple of weeks later. My friend on the other hand spent a fortune and 2 years planning her special day. It was indeed a lovely wedding, but I think she was so wrapped up in the arrangements that she forgot it is only one day and humdrum day to day life once it was done pretty much killed the relationship off. She is now divorced. (Married for less than the planning time...) To some people the big day is everything, others like me, it's the "act" that is important. I do worry that so many people get so in debt for one day though!

People's weddings are about what they want them to be about. Bollocks to wedding traditions if they don't suit you - plenty of wedding 'traditions either involve abuse of the bride or are joking references to the fact that marriage used to be about using women (and their virginal fanjos and their wombs) as currency.
'But weddings are about family@ is a fuckwitted mundane statement that shows only that the person saying it can't get his/her empty head round any other way of living apart from what he/she would do. Even 'family' is a subjective term - it's not all about mummies and daddies and aunties, and not everyone's families make desirable wedding guests. People who grew up in care sometimes get married, you know. SOme people's families throw them out or threaten to kill them over their choice of partner, too.

Of course weddings are about families! The bride and groom do not come in isolation, they have parents, siblings,grandparents, aunts, uncles, great aunts, cousins etc. People who have been around since they were born and have loved them and been loved in return. They each become members of each other's family. No wonder people have trouble with MILs if they want to airbrush them out as irrelevant at the start!

You could never airbrush my MIL out of a wedding. The image of her miserable face is etched onto my retina. The way she couldn't even manage to look pleasant for five minutes for the sake of her son. The way she blanked my mother and I and physically turned her back to us in mid-conversation. The way she ignored the seating plan and arranged it so that her immediate family were the only people near her. The way she spent her own daughter's wedding starting every comment with, "Of course at her first wedding..."

crickey!she sounds like a right biscuit arse despite her did you have happy wedding?

Completely agree, OrmIrian.

Yes thanks Scottish! Afterwards though I did break down in tears, I think from the release of all the stress as much as anything- I knew it was going to be bad I just hadn't realised how bad!

On the plus side, my mother (who'd never met her before) used to think I was exaggerating about what my MIL was like. After the wedding she told me I was 100% right about her! Even my FIL apologised for MIL's behaviour.

For me personally it was important to have my family at the wedding (although there were one or two that I would have cheerfully crossed off the list ), because I wanted them to be there as I took such a big step. Because I'd invited them, I tried to be a good host and make sure that everyone felt welcome. On the other hand, if we had eloped, I would still feel as married to DH, and I don't think that families are an inherent part of the package.

I know that traditionally there was all the bollocks about two families uniting and that in the traditional religious ceremony you often have stuff about supporting the couple. That's a big source of problems in my book - most marriages would do a lot better if the families around would butt right out!

(I'm pretty lucky in this regard, by the way, family interference for us has been minimal, but there are plenty of MN threads and RL examples for me to be convinced)

Believe it or not one of the reasons I didn't want a big family do is that my ILs would have been completely overwhelmed by my family. Even if we'd invited every living relative of my DH there would've been less than 25 people. My first cousins alone, with their partners and children, would've been more than double that!

I had a huge party for my family after our honeymoon.

Yes, you could never airbrush my MIL out of the wedding either. Her photo of our wedding is of her, centre stage and actually stepping forward, in her lilac suit and over size hat, with 3 people on either side of her including me at the end in my white dress just about inside the frame. Just about sums up what she has been like ever since the wedding.

The recent Sex and the City film had it right IMO, it really is just about the couple.

pmsl at these insane MILs

Especially the one dominating the wedding photos and pushing the bride to the side of the frame...

What is with some people?

Thanks... some interesting views, though I have to say that I'm not convinced. It seems that the best argument is that we should continue to think that 'weddings are about families' because of our historical past. Yet, we don't buy that in other aspects. My dad always used to joke at my mum that he 'bought' her for 2 and 8 - yet this reflects an attitude of old - that at the marriage men literally 'bought' their wives. Should we accept that view today on grounds that 'its a traditional view'? Also, giving away of the bride, used to be that the father gave away his property (daughter) to the husband. Is it still acceptable to view the wife as the husband's property? After all, if is a traditional view? If not, then we must conclude that we are free to pick and choose which traditions we want to uphold and which ones we want to ditch (just like we've ditched the traditional views of the wife being the husband's property...). If that is the case, then seeing weddings as being all about families just comes back down to a matter of opinions again, with no substance behind it (and therefore leading inevitably to the conclusion, that weddings are not about families, because for many people they are not - just some people might ascribe that status to them?)

I think it is all rather sad if you have children and then are supposed to sever links when they get married on the grounds that the new partner doesn't want anything to do with you! I had always thought that you were gaining a son or daughter-not losing one! I find it most perculiar to say that it has nothing to do with families. I wouldn't have married someone if they were going to separate me from my family.