A woman I worked with until yesterday quit so she could devote more time to planning and arranging her wedding, scheduled in mid-November. She’s in her mid-40s and it’s her first. It’s his second. The engagement was in April and the wedding was originally scheduled for next May and some of us guys joked among ourselves that it gave the guy plenty of time to get cold feet.
My wife is a fan of the show Bridezillas because she takes great pleasure in watching unpleasant people in the midst of planning The Biggest Day of Their Lives, edited to make them look even worse. I wonder if the marriages last much past the broadcast date. Our own wedding was more complex and expensive than we wanted; our parents wanted it that way and though we’d’ve preferred the money to use for a down payment on a down payment on a house they insisted. We said, “Whatever,” and both adopted what I think is most guys’ attitude of “Tell me where to go and at what time and I’ll be there.”
How does it take seven months (April to November), including four months full time, to plan a wedding? She and her bridesmaids aren’t making their own dresses, the church, priest, reception hall, DJ, etc were booked (and re-booked) months ago. It sounds like most of the ducks are already in a row and all she has to do is put on the dress she has on order and show up at the church at the appointed date and time. And what is the point of a big wedding? Most people, ESPECIALLY the bride and groom, don’t have much fun. Nobody, ESPECIALLY the bride and groom, remembers much of it. Enormous amounts of effort and money are expended making this unique life experience exactly like every other wedding the attendees have been to, with the moments that stand out usually embarrassing ones. And some of the “embarrassing” moments, like the bride pushing cake in the groom’s face, are manufactured and trite.
Yeah, it’s their time and money and I shouldn’t begrudge them that. Big weddings are modern American potlatches where you show off your wealth in a conventional manner by burning it off in a big party. And maybe they’ll watch the DVD of their wedding every year until it starts delaminating (which is what, five years?). They might even try that frozen wedding cake on their first anniversary and not find that it is nasty and freezer-burnt. Weirder things have happened.
It all seems like a waste, but I’m a curmudgeon who got really sick of her and the other ladies, some of whom have been down the aisle multiple times, gabbing about it all day as if it were something other than the same damned thing everybody else does. But what do you think? I mean OTHER THAN that I’m a Mr Grumpy Pants Misogynist; I hear that a lot here.
I’ve been to at least two dozen weddings of various shapes and sizes in my 35 years, and I can’t say that any of them were boring or un-memorable. I didn’t find them to be cookie-cutter. They were beautiful ceremonies followed by nice parties with good food and dancing, each one different than the other.
So if your premise is that “no one ever has fun” and “the bride and groom never remember it” your premise is flawed.
As for what goes on leading up to a wedding…lots of stuff. Some people deal with it more efficiently than others.
I’ve enjoyed every single wedding I’ve ever been to but it does seem like there’s an unjustly disproportionate amount of effort and money for what you get.
I can’t imagine HOW it can take from now until November to organise a wedding, but, looking on the bright side, is she’s no longer at work, then that save you from having to be bored hearing tedious details of it every day.
Well, if you’re not buying an off-the-rack dress, those sometimes need to be ordered 3 - 4 months in advance, plus you need to leave time for alterations. That’s as long as my entire engagement was! But there can be a lot of moving parts. Many venues get booked up a year or more in advance. You may have guests coming from out of town who need to arrange travel, make sure they have enough vacation time to make the trip, etc. Some people want to make their own favors/decorations/invitations. Some religions require premarital counseling.
Some people obsess about every detail. We didn’t - we simply didn’t have the time (or the cash) for that. But it can easily take several months just to line up your basic ducks IF you aren’t even in major disagreement about anything and there are no major family politics. But several months full-time, unless you’re planning a royal wedding for 500 people or making all the food and decorations and growing the flowers yourself? THAT I can’t contemplate.
P.S. I had fun at my own wedding, dammit! Our friends did, too - they still comment, unprompted, how it was one of the most fun weddings they’d ever been to. No bouquet toss, garter toss, or manufactured rituals. Favors were glow-in-the-dark necklaces, which everyone wore during the dancing. Cheap, fun, and a surprising number of adults as well as kids wore them - including my boss with his suit and signature bowtie
My sister’s wedding wasn’t big, it was probably pretty average, but she still spent a ridiculous amount of time and effort on it. I was the maid of honor and spent a tiny percentage of time on it compared to her, and omg I was so sick of wedding shit by the time it was over. That shit has never appealed to me in the least. Anyone remember the board game “Girl Talk”? They had questions about your dream wedding and that kind of thing. I was always like I don’t fucking know/care. My sister said until I was like 12 she thought I was a lesbian.
I don’t get them, either. Sure, I’ve had fun at every one I’ve been to, but they just seem unnecessary and throwing good cash out the window. Have a party, sure, but the “traditional” stuff gets out of hand.
What else is she doing with her time? It’s not just a matter of arranging the banquet hall. It’s picking out the chair covers, deciding on place settings, and the centerpieces. Then the floral arrangements, for the church, the bridal party, the place settings, the main table. Cake tasting, dinner entree tasting and choosing. Place settings. Putting the place settings and individual settings together, along with any favors that may be put at all the places for people to take home.
It depends on how much of all that she’s doing herself. I’ve had friends who spend days just choosing the florist and baker, much less choosing the minutia once the provider is picked. I had one friend who wanted very specific chair covers and had to go from fabric store to fabric store and make arrangements with the upholsterer sewing them and the venue to get the covers delivered and put on the stupid chairs. Another cousin who solved that by just using what the venue had and adding yards of her own cheap organza in her wedding colors. I even took some of that home and used it for a while as a hairpiece.
What else. Oh, the programs! Quite a few friends did their own programs and had to order the paper/printing and put all that together. Also, possibly menus.
So yeah, depending on how involved she is and how intricate/expensive/huge a wedding, there’s a lot to do.
Our big fat lesbian wedding came in under $2000 and was very pleasant. We actually remember a great deal about it, including actually being at it. Other than musician friends (who donated their time as a wedding present), a friend who officiated, and a friend who took photos, we put together the rest (except the cakes, which we didn’t make but did pick up and plate). This was low-key but color-coordinated. Snacks, no meal, very good cake.
Some people have big extended families, and want to invite as many of them as possible. In my wife’s case, her Quinceañera had 500 guests, mostly family. She wanted a similarly big wedding. We compromised on 250 (70 my family, 180 of hers). We had a hybrid Mexican/Gringo wedding.
We spent about $20,000 which sounds like a lot but compared to many other weddings with that many people (and renting a reception hall from 2pm to 11pm) we actually got a pretty good deal. My brother complemented me on having the “wedding of the decade” and really enjoyed the food and the band. The fun part was having live music, both in the form of Mariachi and a band that sang songs in both Spanish and Engish. It was an absolute blast, and totally worth the 13 months of planning to get it all together.
One thing in particular I’m proud of is my wife negotiating with the caterer to serve 5 different entrees at about $9 a plate, and asking a baker to make us a 7-tier cake from a picture (that originally cost $2,500) for only $400.
To me there seems to be an inverse relationship between how much harassed work has gone into preparing a wedding and how enjoyable it is. I’ve been in big weddings, small wedding, multicultural weddings, primary school sweethearts weddings, in weddings where you could tell which person was from which side and in others where everybody had known each other for ages, and the one thing in common in those where people were tense was that the organizers were either horribly high-strung or trying to control the stupidest little things (seriously, what do you care who’s talking to whom and what about, so long as the conversation is civilized and both enjoy it?)
Those where the organizers weren’t hellbent on OMGthisisthemostimportantdayever were, whether big or small, a lot more fun.
I eloped, and I thought that was a perfect way to go. We’re coming up on 31 years, so apparently it took just fine.
The whole idea of “My Day” did not appeal to me. And spending thousands of dollars on a dress to be worn once then packed away till it rotted?? No thanks. I guess if you buy into the Wedding-Industrial Complex, you need lots of time for planning and lots of money for execution. We, on the other hand, bought a house 4 months after we married.
We wanted to elope, but the minute my future MIL got wind of it, I never heard the end of “how unfair it is nobody else will share in your day” and other things I won’t write here. Let’s just say that part of it was religion, the other part was “we’re a big family and people are going to be hurt if you don’t invite them.” BECAUSE WE DON’T HAVE THE MONEY, THAT’S WHY. And no, we didn’t invite them.
I never bought into it either and, as a kid, I never understood it. Then again I never really played with dolls or princess stories, so I guess I wasn’t the stereotypical girl. I never particularly wanted to be a princess because to me they were boring and safe. If you think about it, the whole wedding industry shebang is designed to make a woman feel like a real-life princess, so there you go :shrug:
I was going to ask if you’re my husband until I got to the second paragraph, then I was wondering if I had posted this.
We “only” had about 100 people, but that’s easy to get to when you have 5 siblings on his side (with kids) and many, many cousins on my side (no, not all of them attended, but some did). Add in your friends and the list swells quickly.
We had to book a year in advance because that’s how far out the church and the reception place (a nice building in a park) were booked. Our bridesmaids made their own dresses - all of them had sewing machines or willing moms who did - so that took some time.
I tell everyone I can to learn from our experience and just elope, but I know that many (including us) have family members who will treat you like you spit in their face if you do that, so hey.
I’m getting married this October and we’ve invited somewhere between 150-200 people (depending on children). Despite the bride’s mothers’ best efforts, we’re trying to keep it as casual as possible. We’ve rented a big cabin camp in a National Park and we want it to be as much like a weekend camping trip, with a wedding, as we can make it.
Even so, it’s still a lot of time and effort to get everything arranged. There’s getting invitations printed and mailed, getting an alcohol license, figuring out if you need extra tables and chairs, figuring out who’s coming for just the ceremony and reception and who wants to stay overnight, deciding what to do for food, etc.
In fact the less “cookie cutter” you are, and the more you try to keep your costs down, the more time it takes to plan a wedding.
Anyone can hire the most expensive cake maker on the block and they’ll probably get a nice result. But if you’re on a budget you have to check out a lot of different vendors, maybe going to multiple tastings at different spots, maybe visiting a lot of different bakers for quotes, to see the best thing you can get for your budget. It takes time to spend less or be different.
