Would a guy ever pass up the opportunity to not have a wedding?
If a guy gets engaged and his future wife said “let’s skip the whole wedding thing, get married at the courthouse and go on our honeymoon” do you know of any men that would say “No, I would really like to have a traditional church/reception wedding with a dress, rented tuxes, dj and cake.”
Would I be wrong in my assertion that it’s the female that want the whole wedding package and the guy just goes along with it willingly or unwillingly?
No fuss, no muss, and we can skip the BS and go straight to the honeymoon sex. I’m with the other guys on this one. Our wedding was a minimal affair, with just our parents and a few army buddies coming out to pay their respects, and we both wanted it that way. The most expensive thing was the photographer. Then again, Mrs. Fresh and I have never been that outgoing, and we figured the money could be put to better use. Simple tastes make for happier lives.
In other words, this guy certainly agrees with what you said in your OP, and I imagine most other guys would, and for the same reasons.
Guys absolutely want weddings. They just don’t care about all the details that women feel are required to make it “just right.”
Church ceremony, reception, decent meal, dress nicely, dancing music - wonderful. China patterns, color schemes for table linen, color schemes/designs of bridesmaid dresses, seating arrangements - leave us alone.
Not this guy, or anyone I know. Not even as you limit the scope. Especially the church part (for me, anyway). Well, also, the dancing part. I hate dancing.
Obviously I do not presume to speak for “all guys.” However, I think that for a (expectedly) once-in-a-lifetime happy occasion, most guys do in fact want to celebrate with family and friends. And with the religious ceremony appropriate to his beliefs (I myself am not a “church” person, I was merely referring to a usual wedding formality), if any.
I asked my then-fiancé to “go to Vegas” with me after he proposed. He wanted the wedding, and I struggled to keep plans in a reasonable budget. It was a good party, but if he gets hit by a bus, I will never never never never never do that again.
I can think of at least three of my female friends who have similar stories. Some men really do want “weddings” and are willing to admit it.
A bride-to-be of my acquaintance told me some time back that there was cultural friction between her family and her fiancé’s over the size and character of the reception. I say “cultural” in the sense of regional - the bride’s family are Minnesotans and didn’t hold with putting on a lot of dog, whereas the groom’s family are Long Islanders and felt a large party was almost obligatory to show your love to family and friends. (I have no information on their respective religions/ethnicities.)
So at least among the families, things can shake out with the groom wanting a big do.
If I ever march down that road, I’d want something. Spending $40,000 on a wedding. Screw that. But I’d want my family at a nice little ceremony.
My husband wanted the wedding; I wanted to elope. His thinking was, “The wedding isn’t for us, overly - it’s for our families.” We agreed afterward that if we had it all to do over again, we’d definitely elope.
There are more alternatives than courthouse and massive blowout. I suspect guys are happy to have a right size wedding since they don’t have fantasies of million dollar parties. Not all women do either - my wife and my daughter both were very reasonable.
It might run in the family - we had 25 people at ours, which was the biggest wedding in 3 generations.
This. I don’t think he really understood the cost or amount of work until it was far too late.
We’ve been talking about weddings and looking at rings and stuff for a couple of months now (though the actual proposal hasn’t happened yet we both know it is coming) and when I mentioned that we could go to Vegas and get married to save a ton of money he vetoed that idea. He wants to be able to get married with his family in attendance and his grandmother is wheelchair bound so we won’t be traveling far for our wedding. We will limit the guest list and be careful of our budget but we will absolutely get married in a more traditional wedding setting at his insistence.
Huh, I was sure I hadn’t posted in this thread, and yet here is my response.
My husband even reminded me yesterday of how prior to the wedding, his dad went to find him at his workplace and lectured to him for over 10 minutes straight about how I didn’t seem sufficiently happy about the wedding and how clearly that meant I didn’t want to get married. No, that meant I was going through the motions for the sake of familial harmony; I loved my then-fiance with all my heart and still love him fiercely. Given the chance to do it again, we would have eloped or at least done something totally different. (We’re also over a month into “haven’t spoken to or seen his dad” and are loving it!)
I got news for you, pbbth. If you’re looking at rings, you’re engaged. It kind of sneaks up on you sometimes.
In my case you would be wrong. I’m female, and the whole church/being the center of attention/having to entertain a whole bunch of people/spend money on stupid crap thing gave me a huge case of the willies. I begged my fiancé to just pop down to the courthouse with me, but he’s a traditional guy and wanted to “do things right”.
He finally convinced me by saying that I might never have another opportunity to have a wedding, and I should try it just so I wouldn’t ever have any regrets down the road.
Everything went off just as planned, no problems…and I hated it. When I look back on it now, I shudder and think, “Thank God I never have to do that again.”
Heh, there’s a photo of me leaning up against the wall at the reception with a hugely relieved look on my face; that’s pretty much what I was thinking at that moment. (I’ve also posted here before that our recessional march was Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”, for that reason.) That photo and a closeup of my husband and I, slow-dancing together and smiling, eyes closed, are the two that are the best “summary” of our wedding that I can think of. “Thank God it’s over” and “The two of us are what matter”.
I didn’t want to elope, just be married quietly on a weekday in the small chapel at the church where my grandparents were married. My first husband though wanted every element one might scoff at in bridal magazines. We met in college (but were both older students I was 27 when he proposed) and he graduated ahead of me. I was studying and would get clippings of The FOur Seasons Hotel, and fabuloous venues in Santa Barbara or Palos Verdes (I’m from New York. I have 7 living blood relatives who all live in…New York - or did then).
Really this should have tipped me off that he has no sense of finances. I’m not from a wealthy family and neither is he. He also dismissed out of hand my wish to register at Sears, in the Craftsman department specifically. He insisted…INSISTED…that we register at Tiffany & Co. Imagine my surprise when nobody gave us a $400 place setting…
We quit dancing to “our song” about halfway through because it apparently was going to go on forever and I could not handle one more second of being looked at. Everyone was kind of bewildered. :o
I’m a dude and got married a week and a half ago, it was a lot of work getting everything set up but I looked forward to it. My wife and I had a formal but low key ceremony and the party afterwards was fantastic.
We kept the post couple introduction song a secret so everyone (including the pastor) was surprised when we walked out on The Star Wars Imperial March (her idea). She’s a professional dance instructor at a local University so she had the skills to teach me the tango for our song and her unquardinated farther for their dance. It was really touching.
I wasn’t nervous for any of it and I think everyone had one hell of a good time.
Yes, you would be wrong.
I wanted to go to Vegas from day one. My husband was dead set against that idea and really wanted the fancy wedding and reception. We were able to kind of have both, which worked out nicely.