That makes sense if it is a friend or cousin. But having a wedding that your mom can’t attend even though she really wants to is a hurtful thing to do. If your mom is a good person amd you value her, you shouldn’t do something that hurts her.
There are always going to be edge cases that can be constructed. I assumed that this discussion was about regular guests, not immediate family of the people being married. Those who have the fortune of having parents who are good people should accommodate them.
Sure–assuming that Mom is not unwelcome for other reasons.
But then I don’t see why a dress code would be likely to exclude Mom. She would seem to want to go the wedding, so she would make some level of accommodations. If she doesn’t have clothes that would fit, help her get some. Maybe even help her find something subdued that would work if she’s easily embarrassed. (With Steampunk, for example, just an older style dress could fit.)
I guess maybe I could come up with some genuinely offensive theme that Mom might have a moral objection to. But then I’d suspect that Mom and the bride/groom were already on the outs. And I don’t think you’re required to invite people you hate to your wedding, even if they would want to come.
A dress code probably wouldn’t exclude Mom. But
applies to possibilities other than dress code. "If I _______________ they are free not to attend and I am only an asshole if their non-attendance offends me " - you could fill in the blank with “have the wedding in Hawaii” or " have an open bar " or "have a completely nude wedding on the beach " and for almost everybody it would be true that the bride/groom are not assholes as long as they don’t get offended if someone doesn’t show. But if Mom can’t afford to go to Hawaii, or Dad is an alcoholic who just stopped drinking or they are just not comfortable being naked in front of a group, then yeah, I think the B/G is kind of being an asshole.
I guess I feel like requiring a coatume (instead of encouraging one) is using guests as props for pictures to match a vision, rather than inviting people to a party they’d want to attend. It’s traditional to expect a given level of formality, but ecen then, kixking out Uncle SoandSo because he didn’t wear a tie would be an asshole move. And once you start requiring specifics beyond that, its not a wedding, its a performance. Again, encouraging is fine.
What makes me laugh is “guest dress codes” along the lines of:
All guests must wear shapeless clothing is neutral colors - beige, brown or gray are all acceptable!. All dresses must be below knee length and no part of the neckline should be more than 2.5 inches below the clavicle. Push up bras are not allowed. Women must not wear make-up or style their hair. No jewelry for women or men, except for simple wristwatches with a retail price of less than $59.
No one should draw attention from the bride on their special day. There was a post in either AITA or r/weddingshaming (another favorite group) where a bride had a female server kicked out of the reception - the server had followed the ridiculous dress codes but managed to look good anyway, which really pissed the bride off.
Wow. The weddings I’ve attended over half a century, and my own, bear no relationship to those described in this thread.
These must be the women who never got voted Prom Queen but felt like they deserved it.
Or did get voted Prom Queen and expect the rest of their lives to be equally privileged and celebrated.
I’m amazed at the level of ‘me! me! me!’ that seems to infuse all sorts of life celebrations now. I mean, sure, the bride/Birthday Boy/Graduate/whatever was always featured at the festivities… but not to the, ‘This is my day, I get to dictate how everything looks/happens’ and ‘I have to be the center of attention every single second’ and ‘everyone else’s role is basically to worship my wonderfulness.’
The weddings I remember from the 70s and 80s were much more family oriented events. Yes, the bride was SPECIAL but it was also the time for your step-sister to show off her newish baby to the rest of the family and for cousins to catch up on each others lives and make fusses over great grandpa who, let’s face it, might not be there at the next big celebration and, well, hang out, eat/drink/dance/gossip as individual tastes dictated.
Maybe the change happened as more couples postponed their weddings until THEY were the ones mainly paying for it all, and thus could reasonably argue that their choices were first, last, and always the deciding point?
OTOH, I’ve had the feeling for a while that Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties are going in the other direction - less a celebration of the boy/girl of honor, more an excuse for the parents to hold a lavish get-together for their family and friends. (You don’t hear many jokes anymore about the life-sized Bar Mitzvah boy statue made of chopped liver…)
I’m not sure it had so much to do with who is paying for the wedding - but I think that the “me, me , me” behavior happened simultaneously on both sides . Way back when , you didn’t have “I have to be the center of attention every single second” brides - but you also didn’t have people announcing pregnancies or proposing at other people’s weddings. You might meet a new baby or a boyfriend/girlfriend at a wedding, but neither the announcement of the baby/engagement nor the actual proposal happened at someone else’s wedding.
…Some of these responses are so bizarre to me and I think I figured out why… It’s an entitlement thing. It really seems like “Why are the couple putting up barriers? I’m entitled to attend this wedding.”
But “you’re” not. It’s their wedding. They want to do it their way. You don’t need to be there, but they’d like it if you were.
It’s an invitation thing. Imagine it wasn’t a wedding… but… a vacation.
“Hey we’re going to the Grand Canyon Labor Day weekend. Want to come?”
I do, but that weekend doesn’t work for me.
“Oh okay, maybe next time.”
You’re not going to change the weekend?
What an asshole!
Which responses is it that you think are bizarre? Sure, if some random guest wanted the date changed because they couldn’t make that weekend , the guest would be the asshole. There are a lot of situations where guests, even close family might be the asshole. But the bride and group still might be assholes. It’s not like they can’t be assholes by definition - just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean you should. And if the person who is asking someone to move their wedding from September 23 is a sibling who scheduled their wedding a year ago for Sept 23. I think the person who scheduled their wedding the same day as the sibling’s and won’t move it is the asshole.
It really comes down to whether you think a wedding is a family or community event or whether you think it’s one about the bride and groom. Like obviously the bride and groom are going to get a lot of attention, but family can be a big part of that, and you wouldn’t want to put up barriers for your loved ones.
I think it was Slate that had a bridesmaid axed because of a physical disability that “ruined” the pictures.
There are some researchers who claim that yes, in fact we are more narcissistic than we used to be, and social media exacerbates that. I think the evidence is mixed but there’s enough there to warrant consideration.
These are different times in part because people have different expectations of one another. We were already a deeply individualistic society from a global perspective but that’s even more the case now, when one’s own personal and emotional fulfillment is viewed as the most important thing at all times. There were always people like this throughout history but it’s more socially acceptable to be this way than it used to be.
How about if they asked you to go on vacation and demanded you wear nothing but pink the whole time? Or they asked you to go to a party and wanted everyone to wear pink 'cause the party pictures need to be just so?
I don’t think anyone is saying they are entitled to go to any particular wedding, but demanding your guests adhere to some dress code or peculiar demand is ridiculous. They are wedding pictures not something going into the Louvre. In 10 years they’ll hardly look at them. I would think you’d invite your guests because you would like to share your commitment to your marriage and your love for your spouse, and have a fun with a party with them after the ceremony, not to be props in a show. I don’t think I’d go to a wedding with too many expectations on my appearance. I go to support, and celebrate the marriage of my friends/family. I wouldn’t feel “entitled” to go or not.
Ah, but the thing is, they’re not for ten years from now. They’re to be parceled out over social media for the next year.
I realize that some of the AITA postings are heavily fictionalized accounts crafted to create the maximum recreational outrage. My wife works in a wedding-adjacent space and works with a number of regional to nationally in demand wedding planners and associated tradesfolk. The real-life stories can be something else.
My third, or maybe fourth-hand impressions. It’s mostly not the celebrities and old-money families that are the offenders here, although their weddings can be extravagant and I know of at least one case of a passengerless private jet being sent across country to pick up flowers. Those people already have the level of publicity they want/need.
The people you’ve never heard of that are spending enormous amounts of money, those are the people that are, or at least imagine themselves to be influencers, that badly want to project a carefully curated image. And they’ll go to desperate lengths to get the visual impact they want. I don’t know if it’s as common as you’d believe from reading Reddit, but it doesn’t seem rare to me.
Just based on the weddings of the 20-something and 30-something coworkers, people who do not have huge amounts of money are spending stupid amounts of money on weddings. People earning under $100k spending over $100k for a wedding doesn’t seem unusual. Their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles seem to be chipping in quite a bit, so maybe the net cost is not that high.
But I had a coworker who pretty much burned through his non-401K savings on three weddings for daughters who collectively have over half a million dollars in college debt (two went to six year programs). Apparently the tradition of the bride’s parents paying the bulk of the cost isn’t quite as dead as I imagined.
My parents paid for my wedding. Really, in a way I wish they hadn’t. My mom spent sooo much more money than I would have if given my way. I wanted ham sandwiches and salads and stuff family could bring. Nope. We had a caterer and scalloped potatoes and ham. Yuk! Didn’t like it then don’t like it now.* Huge national guard hall not a fancy venue but seriously we could have had a cheaper smaller place or outside. All I really wanted was the dress, and the above mentioned sandwiches, a nice cake (that ftr was NOT smashed in anyone’s face.) We did have live music from a bunch of friends in different bands than ours. Most of our own band was in the wedding party. I mean, I saved where I could I also had a friend do flowers, but she was determined to make it an “event,” which was pretty funny considering it was not what one would consider a fancy wedding. She felt that it was. Oh well, I guess she was happy and I got the dress and a nice party.
*Ha, the scalloped potatoes and ham were awful, and not just 'cause I didn’t like 'em. I guess ('cause I didn’t eat them) they were dry and we had tons left over because they were so bad. I think there were some other things to eat, but I don’t remember anymore being it was 40 years ago.
Coincidentally, my newspaper’s weekend supplement yesterday had a piece on low-cost weddings: