Do you like weddings?

No, I don't really enjoy events where you have to dress up, and follow lots of formal "rules".
When my friend got married, I asked what she would be wearing, and she said "Oh, I don't know. Shorts and a tee shirt, probably".
I did enjoy that one.

I'm with you. Huge waste of money. I'm still glad mine was so low key.

I'm with you on that, I'm thankful all my nieces and nephews are married now, any others I send a decent present and have a prior engagement. After you've paid for travel, quite often a hotel plus possibly a dress and a present, the cost is horrendous.
I rarely know many people, don't want to dance and can't hear myself think plus my feet always hurt.
I love the idea of the couple being happy but don't think they need my presence to achieve that.

What a miserable attitude! How can anybody make thee sweeping statements?
Not all weddings are all bells and whistles with a meringue wedding dress and the MOB like an overstuffed sofa - but if they are, so what?
You may not like the over-the-top razzmatazz of some weddings, but each to his or her own. A happy day for the couple in question and their families and friends wishing them well - what’s not to like?

MissAdventure

No, I don't really enjoy events where you have to dress up, and follow lots of formal "rules".
When my friend got married, I asked what she would be wearing, and she said "Oh, I don't know. Shorts and a tee shirt, probably".
I did enjoy that one.

?

The last weddding I went to was my oldest daughters twenty years ago.
I’m not sure if people just aren’t getting married, or they’re just not inviting us.
Either way, I don’t think im missing anything.

I love a wedding, I usually cry. So much love for the newly weds with hope and expectations of many happy years ahead.

We have just had our save the date for a very large wedding in a swish London Hotel, something to look forward to in these grim times.

We just went to the best wedding last month. Our granddaughter got married on her father’s farm and it was a perfect afternoon and evening in the open with an open sided marquee, hay bales round the edge and a food truck where you went and ordered whatever food you wanted. There was a bar outside,free drinks for all, and we danced way into the night with a great band who could play anything you wanted. A far cry from the formal garbage we had to put up with.

Nanna
That sounds like a perfect wedding

I dislike weddings and turn down invitations now. The last few invitations have been from people who have been living together for more than ten years, seems pointless to have a lavish ceremony, why not just go to the registrar and get the official document.

Love them! We are going to 3 weddings in the next few months - can't wait. Love the opportunity to get dressed up, catch up with friends and family and enjoying myself. ?

GagaJo

I'm with you. Huge waste of money. I'm still glad mine was so low key.

Same here GagaJo. I know of a couple of people who couldn’t have the big wedding because of the pandemic so they are still waiting! Why not a quick and simple Registry Office wedding without all the pomp and circumstances? They were second weddings too, so not a young bride’s dream!

I dislike conventional weddings very much. The idea of the bride wearing a white dress dates back to the days when she was a virgin until her wedding night, which has rarely been the case since the 1960s. The amount some people spend seems ridiculous.

There was just immediate family and a couple of friends at my register office wedding in 1968. Quite enough! We had a meal out at a grand hotel in the evening. My husband’s family lived in Australia so didn’t come. Their attitude was much like ours. I enjoyed it and wasn’t stressed - or broke.

harrigran

I dislike weddings and turn down invitations now. The last few invitations have been from people who have been living together for more than ten years, seems pointless to have a lavish ceremony, why not just go to the registrar and get the official document.

There's that too. It's always nice to see a couple decide to make the full commitment, but it's hard to feel misty eyed and sentimental when the couple already have three children and have been paying a joint mortgage for years.

My son’s wedding was a bit bigger. My DIL wore a nice but non- bridal dress. There was dancing, which there wasn’t at mine, but I didn’t take part in that. Can’t bear that sort of ‘dancing’, or the noise. I went to bed! Nobody was offended.

MissAdventure I m with you all the way
I m afraid I don’t like (enjoy) weddings, funerals or any big dos which always seem so OTT Haven’t been to a wedding since my youngest got married 22 years ago Missed my granddaughters in NZ in lockdown but it was big and very expensive

Grannygravy I m such a realist it’s uncomfortable if I cried it would be at the waste of money and the fact they may not be together in ten years ?

If I was young now I’d slip off to a quiet beach with half a dozen friends and family and my bare feet on the warm sand ahhhh

I dislike formal weddings, the best wedding I went to was a friends, she held it at the local village hall, we all had homemade pie and peas, there was a bar and dancing. No formal wear, I still remember it with such fondness 20 years later.

Strangely, since Covid happened I'm not sure. It's nice to be asked to a wedding. What I don't like are engagement parties and can never understand why people spend all that money on a party, when the money could go on the wedding, honeymoon or more importantly your home. We never bothered with an engagement party as quite frankly we didn't have the money. Every penny went on our wedding and our home.

The best wedding I ever attended was just the bride and groom with my husband and I as the only guests. We all wore jeans and drove to Paris in a mini afterwards.

Formal weddings with all the speeches, clothes from House of Mary, hours of photos, mobile DJs, drinking sherry at 2pm then standing around starving and making polite conversation until your 4.15pm lamb shank and cake are my idea of hell. I just don't go any more.

I wish weddings end we d in the late afternoon, the way they used to in the 50s. Marriage ceremony, wedding breakfast somewhere close by, speeches, bit of music and dancing, bride and groom changing into their going away outfits and being waved off by t h e guests.
All done and dusted by 5pm

Some I have enjoyed went to a very nice wedding in a beautiful outside area with tee pees, enjoyed that because most of the family were there.

The last wedding we went to was that of second timers five grown up children between them, long drawn out affair which went on all day, nice lunch, but guests were expected to go back to respective hotel for a couple of hours, after which was an evening do standing around in marquees for hours on end nursing a drink, by which time many people had had enough. My thoughts were such a hoo ha! for a couple who had been living together for ages and had already done this once before. .

When we married we were both divorcees so it was down to the Registry Office for us, and as we already had our three year old and another on the way at that time so we had a very low key affair, a couple of close friends as witnesses a fantastic lunch in a beautiful hotel overlooking the Thames, all in all a wonderful day, still happy having lived together for thirty six years, which is when I date our time together from, not the day we married, enjoyable as it was, essentially it was just a formality.

Being brought up a catholic, I was imbued with, marriage being a sacrament, and as such hugely important to have a religious service, as indeed it is to other practising members of different faiths. I don't for the life of me understand those who never go near a church then fall over in ingratiating themselves to the presiding cleric to have a religious service, just seems all about the photo opportunity in the aftermath.

In this day and age when most couples live together plus the struggle to get on the property ladder my feelings are money would be better spent on bricks and mortar. Having shared an office with a girl who was planning her marriage the minutiae of her arrangements were interminable and soooo boring! I sometimes think those who go down the Bridzilla route lose sight of the fact that it's not about that one day but the quality of their relationship and the life together thereafter. that really matters.

Not the ones that start at 11a.m. go on to one or two in the morning, unless you pay an exorbitant price for a room in the hotel where the wedding venue is and you can escape for a break.
The last few I have been to have followed this format and I have stated I am going to no more pantomimes.
As stated above the couple have usually lived together for quite a number of years, need nothing and ask for a contribution to the honeymoon which is usually taken abroad on Safari in India or sailing down the Orinoco. In fact, anything they can come up with that is different to what their friends have done.
You are on no photos and miss the champagne reception because you were taking a nap.
I know I sound like a grumpy old lady but unfortunately, that's what I am where today's extravagances are concerned.

I love weddings! Sharing the happy couple's joy, a chance to catch up with family and friends, enjoy good company and an excuse to get glammed up!!

Nanna8, the farm wedding sounds wonderful! I love small, informal weddings; I'm convinced that in many cases it's; "the bigger the wedding, the shorter the marriage". (Our wedding cost £40 & our marriage has lasted 39 years, so far...)