Is it so awful that I hate weddings?

weddings don’t have to be expensive at all. In fact most of the people i know that got married held the ceremony in their house with hand me downs and friends as reverands. and for those who really really feel the need to spend the money, well, at least they are supporting the economy… :)?

Nope. I love going to weddings from simple to elegant they are always a great time. I will agree that blowing big cash upwards of 6 figures or more on a wedding is pretty insane…but hey it’s their money plus the wedding industry employs a lot of people.

I’ve had some of my best action at weddings. I don’t know why, but it’s been fun.

I hate weddings, too. Especially the large ones – the large ceremonies get away from the point of celebrating a union of two people. But I generally hate formal things, so…

I’m kinda with @Cruiser on this. I love weddings, I have the “wedding guest” gene, I think they’re fun. The people who overspend on weddings, or expect their guests to, have issues with priorities that are less about actual weddings and more about their own stuff. Besides, who doesn’t love the “chicken dance”?

It’s not awful at all.

And no, @ANef_is_Enuf , it’s not awful.

Maybe the fact that every wedding that I’ve ever been to has been of the large and showy variety has weighed on my opinion overall. Happy as I may be for any given couple, receiving a wedding invitation in the mail usually results in a groan of frustration. haha.

I don’t like weddings either, for many of the same reasons that you describe. My solution, be the organist (okay, well that’s what I do). Than you don’t have to worry about what to wear (just be on the professional side), and if you don’t want to but a gift, you can make your playing be the gift (although that makes for a pretty pricey gift…)

I think it’s awful for someone to give you a hard time for not attending. We didn’t attend a cousin’s wedding several years ago because we couldn’t afford it (it was two hours away) and we had a toddler at the time. My husband’s aunt bitched to others about it for quite some time afterwards. She was really upset with us. :/

I love going to them and don’t care what kind or how much money they spend on it, but will never stand up in one again.
I have seen perfectly sane women turn into complete fools over the planning of their wedding.I don’t want to be involved in that in any way.

Free drinks and dancing…....I’m confused…....lol. I also have a badass three piece suit that I need a reason to wear. When I wore it to the last wedding I attended, I got more compliments than I expected lol.

@jonsblond truthfully, even if the bride and groom don’t come right out and say it, there are so many hoops to jump through as a guest that it is absurd. A certain price for a gift, required attendance.. or sending a gift in lieu of attendance, travel, purchasing or renting proper attire. I just think it is ridiculous.
Three of the weddings that we attended last year pretty much broke the bank for us, and that was with us trying to play it safe, we were just not in a good place financially. Then you have shower gifts on top of it. Did I get a single thank you card? Nope. There are obligations that come along with simply receiving an envelope in the mail.

They have become more and more of a production. Not everyone is quite so materialistic. But you really don’t have to buy in.

1. You don’t have to attend the ceremony if you don’t want to.

2. You can send the gift of your choice. You can even donate something in the couple’s name.

Hell no.

My first marriage was launched with a formal wedding and it really only lasted for about a year.

My current and for the rest-of-my life wife been married for over 9 years now, and we eloped.
I guess it was basically for the same reasons that you don’t like formal weddings, plus I’m too lazy to write thank you cards. ;-p

@ANef_is_Enuf I’m a fan of a bit of retaliation if the wedding seems to ask too much of it’s guests – it’s one thing for the couple to spend 40k on a wedding, but it’s wrong to ask the guests to spend a bunch. So I make them something homemade – perhaps a matching pair of scarfs I knitted – and then they can’t really bitch because you “put thought into it”. If it really gets under your skin, go but don’t give them a gift – if they bring it up, you can say how weddings aren’t about materialism and you didn’t want to taint the purity of their love.

The weddings are lovely, but I don’t like going to them.

I’ve always had a policy of never buying a gift off a registry, because I prefer it to be personal. Even something as simple as a “5-in-one Travel Game Set” has been deeply appreciated by the couple. Not buying into all the “expecteds” has made weddings much more financially feasible for me.

i only go for the cake. if the cake sucks, the wedding sucks even more IMO ;(

@ANef_is_Enuf I completely agree. I’ve been to 1 enjoyable wedding, other than my own. Mostly I avoid them.

I hate weddings. I hate it that people spend a ton of money on something that could be done in a back yard or a picnick area. I hate how something special is measured in how much money is spent. Some people want a huge wedding with catering. A live band. A disk jocky, etc, Why do they not settle for a potluck dinner. A nice ceremony. Just an all around good time. Most marriages end in divorce anyways. People think how good something is is measured on how much you spent. I am amazed on how much money is spent on things that no one would even notice, much less remember.

I’m wedding-ed out. I’ve been a bride, a bridesmaid and a matron of honour and I am really done with being a large part of the set up and planning etc. In hindsight for my own wedding: we should have eloped. The amount of pressure we got from my MIL to have everything be perfect…

I like going to weddings. I get to dress up, visit with friends and family, have a good meal, dance and then leave.

But I don’t buy into the wedding machine. I think it cheapens the whole point of marriage. So many couples would be better off spending $5000 on their wedding and using the rest for a down payment on a house (the pragmatist in me).

The only thing that bothers me about weddings is that some couples are not allowed to have one.

I enjoy weddings and all things having to do with weddings, which comes as a surprise to most people because I’m not into normalcy or girly things…but they don’t know how detached I feel, for me it’s like watching National Geographic shows, watching another species do their thing. So, no, it’s not awful for you to hate weddings.

@Pied_Pfeffer that’s very bothersome, I can’t disagree.

You hate weddings? You are so going to hell for that… lmfao. No really, it’s perfectly okay to hate weddings, especially for the reasons you mentioned. I don’t particularly like attending them, and I don’t really care for baby showers either. My problem with baby showers is different though- I desperately want to have another baby and can’t, so it makes me cry to sit there while another woman receives cute little baby things.

I really don’t mind baby showers nearly as much as the bridal shower/wedding combo. I’m okay with baby showers for the first child. After that, I dunno. I’m not sure what happened to make me so grouchy about it all, lol.

I would hate it if the marriage did not last at least 5 years…

This is another reason I love Nef! You took this thought right out of my head, girl…I hate weddings like crazy for most of the same reasons you do, as well as my disgust of crowds, and refuse to go to any of the weddings I am invited to. And those who know and love me understand most of the time.

I am really feeling the loves today.

No, it isn’t awful, it’s a personal opinion.

I used to plan weddings. I’ve done very high end to very cost-conscious weddings. When my husband and I got married, the only thing we splurged on, was the photographer. Even then, it was someone I knew, so we got a huge discount. We didn’t invite a lot of people, only those that really impact our lives. It was very casual and laid back. We also requested no gifts!

I don’t like the over-the-top weddings. I think people get lost in trying to make it some magical day, when the magical part is really between the two people getting married.

@cak You said it. It is all about the two people. My SO and I have been together for 11 years. We figured our families would be really happy if we got married, plus we would probably get huge gifts from his anaesthesiologist parents, and have all the legal benefits, but once we told both sides of our family their reaction was to basically treat us like we were 15 and trying to get married. i remember my mom said “Oh. That’s nice…Listen to what your sister did to me today!!!”

So we decided fuck it. We had our own ceremony years ago, and that was good enough for us. No one else in our families deserves one.

The thing about being an invited guest is, you don’t have to attend or observe if you dislike the festivities more than you like the idea of celebrating with the couple. Easy. Send a card.

Weddings are rather unnecessary, I think, I don’t ever intend on being married by wedding. Having a huge show to prove you love each other is foolish, it’s not like you’re going to love them more afterwards as a result…

Yes, for all the reasons you stated above. I will probably just go to the JP and maybe have a small party afterwards to keep the relatives off my back. But this is not a plan I share with many people because, as you say, it’s almost taboo to dislike weddings. People automatically equate anti-wedding attitudes with being anti-marriage. I’m not anti-marriage, just anti-all the superficial tripe that comes along with weddings. Knowing that I’ve found the right person is more important than having the “right” kind of ceremony to impress others.

If I’m not wrong, I think what you hate most about it is people feeling compelled to do things which they may not approve of. This includes extra spends + all the formalities involved. I agree with you to some extent. Though, I think people should be reasonable (both hosts and guests). It’s quite unfair to blame people who simply cannot afford to pay extra money for such unexpected events that they cannot get away from. On the other hand, I think it is not totally bad to expect guests to dress a certain attire just for this one day.

If we look at it from a neutral point of view, the people getting married do want their friends to be involved as much as possible, but those other friends may not be able to afford all the costs involved in attending such events. So I think the best way to go about this is for the people getting married to MAKE IT CLEAR that the most important thing for them is for their beloved ones to BE THERE and not to break their back(s) by expecting extra $$$.

So I guess you are not that evil! What do you think?

I am getting married soon and i hate weddings.

I want to get married but i don’t like weddings.

I cringe everytime someone asks me about my wedding.

I cringe when people ask me who my bridesmaids are.

As far as I am concerned a wedding is one day.. A marriage is a lifetime..

Bah humbug.

Considering I got married in a court house, and never expected or received a penny from anyone, I totally agree. Did not want or need gifts and money, did not want or need to be center of attention. And, I think, some people are just plain greedy. Let’s see how much money we can get. And of course, all the other occasions also, bridal and baby showers, and well you get the idea. Sigh…...

And I bet none of you who say you dislike ostentatious weddings has ever been to an Indian wedding before, haha.

I haven’t been invited to one as an adult yet, but I think I would feel pretty ambivalent about going, seeing as how my right to marry has been voted away by a bunch of sanctimonious bigots.

@bookish1 One of the items on my bucket list is to obtain an invitation to an Indian wedding once I am able to visit the fine country. I have heard enough stories about them from friends who have traveled back to their native country that I would feel like it was an honor and educational to be able to attend one.

Despite that, my service will only be for us, with his parents in attendance, as we need two witnesses, I think. We are private people who look upon this ceremony as only important to us. Everyone else just wants to know that we finally made it official.