To think that the brides dresses and bridesmaids dresses in My Big fat Gypsie wedding are really tacky

[pigletmania]

Well they are! Nothing against the travelling community, they have good morals and attitdes, but imo the dresses were hideious! That poor baby in what can be described as a toilet roll holder thing . Luminous green bridesmaid dresses that look like Las Vegas showgirls, and brides dresses weighing 27 stone .

I have worked in a school with lots of traveller children over the last fifteen years. When i started the traveller children stuck out obviously due to poor attendance , difficulties in parting from mothers and no attempt to mix with other children in the school . Now it would be impossible for a visitor to the school to identify which children were from traveller families. Many of our traveller girls have completed education to secondary level, including one who recently trained as a hairdresser. I have also worked with two women from the traveller community who worked as learning support assistants. One of those had married outside the community.

Can't wait to watch this later on replay.

Sounds to me like the set up they have is much like the set up of mainstream culture in the UK a hundred years ago, or in our grandparents generation, ie marrying young to the first person you slept with, divorce not allowed etc.

I personally don't agree that this constitutes 'good values' as I don't think it's generally a good idea to marry the first person you feel sexually attracted to, and I also don't think that women benefit from a culture in which marriage is basically enforced. Somebody else mentioned abuse, which I can only imagine was rife, as it was when our grandmothers felt duty bound to stay married.

Men too - what if they are gay? Or just unhappy in the relationship? Lifelong marriage only means anything where there is a choice to do otherwise. It might as well be prison if it's the only lifestyle allowed by your community.

2old4thislark: " thought the programme was fascinating! I also would like to see a whole series of 'fly on the wall' programes about the gypsy/traveller communities. Maybe there would be a lot less prejudice if we had a greater understanding of their culture.
"

I second that.

I initially thought this programme would just be an excuse to laugh at silly dresses and bridezilla attitudes. I was surprised by how interesting a programme it turned out to be and I thought it gave quite a sympathetic portrayal of this community.

However, there was only so much they could show in one hour and I think I have probably learnt as least as much about the culture from the posts on here - particularly from runybottom.

Re the venues cancelling - while watching this DH commented that he had heard about venues being trashed but I wasn't sure if that was just another stereotypes. I guess from some of the posts on here it sounds as though that does happen.

Its unfortunately not a stereotype. As I said on another thread, massive brawls and fights are common at traveller events, and a few years ago in the west of ireland (the largest traveller community is near galway) a long running feud between two families repeatedly erupted, with shootings. A man was killed at a funeral and another at a wedding the same year. There have been many shootings connected to this feud going back 20 years.

I have zero prejudices related to travellers but if I had a hotel I'm afraid I would be reluctant to host a wedding, purely out of self preservation.

Wow runnybottom I didn't know life expectancy was so low.

I noticed no one was prepared to discuss the cost of the wedding outfits!

YANBU, they gave new meaning to the word 'hideous'

Agree with runnybottom re the violence. We have a traveller family living over the road from us who have a long running fued of some sort going on, I've seen out of my bedroom window the running battles in the street complete with baseball bats/setting fire to vehicles/trashing windows etc. Frightening.

See, I thought the violence was a bit of a stereotype...

Are travellers more prone to violent outbursts? Is this maybe where some of the prejudice comes in?

I hope nobody is offended by these questions - I'm genuinely interested.

There is obviously a great deal of prejudice against them and I guess I'm trying to understand where it comes from and whether it's warranted (OK 'warranted' is clearly a bad choice of word - I can't think of a more appropriate one, and hope people know what I mean).

I couldn't say whether travellers are more prone to violence, but its far more normalised than in the general community, and when you add that to the fact that they do not (if they can avoid it) deal with outsider laws and legal methods, infractions and problems are dealt with in certain ways.
Men are meant to be strong and tough and fight for their family and so on. Theres also the fact that bare knuckle boxing/fighting is a common "sport" or pastime. Its not really surprising that violence is more prevalent.

A really interesting programme.

I thought the women came across well TBH considering that, as Joan's mum pointed out, the only aspirations traveller girls have is to marry and have a family ( nothing wrong per se in that but its sad that hardly any education is evident).

I think it is the men who tend to tarnish the reputation of travellers. The brawling, for example. A friend of mine has a hotel that has had traveller weddings and the police have had to be called on a number of occasions. He will no longer allow traveller weddings as a result.

I watched the programme with interest and yes the dresses weren't to my taste but like others have said these are young girls who aren't the same as girls of 16 in the usual british society.

I live in a town with a big travelling community and used to do hair for a few of them, many very polite. Only the odd one wasn't and they were usually from out of town to be honest. They are quite in your face but my family are a bit like that anyway.

Billy Welch who was on the programme is a real gent. I remember he'd come into the salon sometimes and was a lovely man, very smart. He's the spokesman for the travelling community.

I also used to go to a local pub with a couple of the travelling ladies. They were really interesting people and not ignorant even though they probably didn't go to school as long as we do. I suppose life can be a good education. I found them to have a great sense of humour.

I wouldn't like to say if sex before marriage doesn't happen with the lads mind as I've heard different. I also used to be friendly with someone who was having an affair with a travelling man.

It is also true about the fighting and I agree with the poster who said they wouldn't want to host a 'do' for them.

OK, so.... I'm beginning to see where some of the prejudice comes in.

It was really sad to see Sammy-Jo and her Mum being upset at the last-minute cancellation of the wedding venue - but, I'm starting to think it's a bit naive of them to think that members of their community can go around trashing venues and continually expecting to be welcomed with open arms / not be subject to hostility - no?

OR - is it just a very small minority of travellers who give all the rest a bad name?

By the way - thanks for the education, runnybottom.

You're right Ziggurat, you'd think they'd learn?

I suppose when something is so normal to you, you have a hard time understanding others objections. You'd probably think "its a wedding, thats what happens, why are they complaining?", or think they were just being staid, or odd, or basically; other.

You're welcome Zig, though I don't know half as much as I'd like, I find the pavee really interesting.

Yes, that does make sense. I guess they're so insular, that they probably think all weddings / gatherings are like that, and they're being singled out.

Bit of a stalemate then, in that case!

I think it's a deeply patriarchal society, and this is where many of the problems with public order etc come from. There is a very traditional "macho" culture and a mistrust of outside agencies such as the police and Sicial Services (understandably), and when the young women are married off so young and end up having problems with their husbands, the response is to deal with it "in-house". Unfortunately this is often at weddings and big community occasions: drinking is involved, and somebody takes exception to how their daughter or sister is being treated, and BAM, all hell breaks loose.

While I absolutely do not want to see travelling people discriminated against, I am struggling a bit on these thread with the misty-eyed romanticism towards a culture which is extremely resistant to formal education and fundamentally oppresses women. It's no picnic for the fellas either: god only knows what happens if you think you might be gay...

There is no way on earth that I would want to live the life of an itinerant peasant or labourer from 150 years ago, which seems basically what the travelling life is: a complete anachronism.

OoOh BoF dont let Lucymummaof1 I think hear you say that

I don't think it is racist to dislike someone's clothes; I don't like lip plates.

What is racist and really ignorant is to keep pointing out that you consider the clothes tarty/tacky and yet the behaviour is not tarty as if that is somehow odd.

The clothes are only tarty in the eyes of certain people in out culture - they are not tarty in gypsy culture. The same is true in Cuba - the women dress in very short skirts but it is not considered tarty or tacky.

It is racist to not be able to understand that your version of 'tarty' is simply a construct of your culture and has no universal meaning. There is no reason why women dressed in a tight top should cause lust in men anymore than women in a speedo suit in a swimming pool would. It is simply their way of dressing.

I watched the last three quarters. My god those dresses were very odd! But at the same time I can understand it because it's like a peacock putting on shows and trying to be better than the others to get the best potential mate.

Very odd still though! But at least they have decent morals unlike the usual women who wear things like that!

My only RL experience with travellers is very negative. We've had the occasional group here who were very intimidating, stole very frequently and quite obviously and nothing could be done about their behaviour.

But that just makes me all the more curious about the stereotype and those who don't live up to it. We're very unlucky to have had the far end of the stereotype come here and most likely it's a minority of that group living the stereotypical traveller life.

We all know that most people don't live up to the stereotypes that the community gives them because we learn about them through programmes and getting to know them, so maybe if we could do the same here that would settle some peoples minds.

research starting to be conducted here about the lives of women in the traveller community.

This was not typical of the Romany gypsy family that I know and married into.Theae were Irish gypsys and I have no knowledge of that community.
My husband or his brothers were not encouraged to marry gypsy girls,my pil,s were happy to see them happy with their own choice of partner.
All my my dc,s have been through or are currently at mainstream school,I have one ds completed an apprenticeship,another in further ed,dd is at a grammar school,we could not be further removed from the families featured tonight.
This is why I get so upset when I see generalised hurtful comments against the gypsy and traveller community,yes there are bad uns but so are there in the settled community.
Some of us are bringing up their children to seize opportunities and make the most of their lives.
However with both some Irish travellers and Romany gypsies it seems that the bigger and the more expensive a thing is,in their eyes the better it is.

TBH I agree with piglet that the dresses were a bit tacky but hey, each to their own I suppose. What I would like to know though is how much do they cost? Seriously, does anyone have a good idea of how much they are? No-one was saying anything about that in the programme. And what do they do with them after the wedding because surely they haven't got room to store dresses of that size???? I know I couldn't where I live!

I wondered that, how much does one of those specially made dresses cost? They said that money is kept hush hush and they dont talk about it.