Suppose during your wedding, you found out a guest was putting together a divorce pool with some of the other guests. How much would it bother you? Would it matter if the person doing it was a sibling, relative, friend, soon-to-be in-law, co-worker, or a guest you barely knew?
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Divorce is a pretty high percentage of marriages. Let’s focus on the positive and make the wedding day as positive as possible.
Voted ‘yes’. If the people I was inviting because I considered them friends and family were gorging themselves on food and booze provided by myself, I would have expected them to be close enough to have brought their concerns to me ahead of time, rather than betting on the failure.
At best, it’s in poor taste, and if the bets are placed on information that they have chosen not to share, then it’s a betrayal of trust.
FWIW - my wife and I lived together for 5 years before getting married (after dating for 2 years prior to that) and have been married 19 years this month.
It’s quite tacky to do such a thing.
This can’t be a serious question.
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I haven’t been to a wedding in years. I tell them to invite me to their 10 year anniversary because that’s really something to celebrate.
When my cousin got married there was an unofficial divorce pool going on and to my ever lasting shame I did two inexplicable things. First, against my better judgment, I did participate but I have my youth to blame for that.
They were 48, (combined age) and married five times total, with six kids and crazy ex’es. Their “engagement” was on the second date and they spent more time broken up than together.
At the bachelor party I told him he didn’t need to go through it but they wanted to get married for the tax break.
Second, for reasons I cannot fathom, I gave them six months when the smart money was counting weeks and not months.
But surely it takes months, not weeks, to get a divorce. Even if, like a girl I went to high school with, the groom runs of interstate with one of the bridesmaids - during the reception.
It’s been years so I don’t remember but I’m sure it would have been when they decided to divorce and he moved out rather than the day it was legally finalized. People weren’t actually making it into a formal pool, anyway. It was just a really tacky thing to be doing on someone’s wedding day.
He was call her his “last love” and some cynical smartass (who will remain anonymous to protect my identity) remarked how sad it was that he’d have so many years left in life without any more love. It went downhill from there.
Svenson - Have you never felt a love that comes to a man once in a lifetime?
Hogan (deadpan) - Dozens of times.
I think it would depend for me. And the spirit in which it was taken.
My bonehead friends did a divorce pol on me. But they told me to my face they had a divorce pool on me. I thought it was funny bc I “knew” they were all going to lose.
Now if my soon to be Father-in-law were to start a pool, I might take offense.
And doing it while the wedding is going on is tacky and disrespectful. THAT would offend me no matter who it was.
It would depend on which friends it was, and how serious they were being. There’s a few guys I might invite to a wedding that I’d, well, not expect it from, but not be surprised by it. It depends on the nature of the friendship.
But in that case, not only I, but my bride-to-be would probably start putting in bets, just to screw with their odds.
But if it were done by someone else, in an actually malicious manner, definitely offensive. Those same friends above would probably kick the other people’s asses for me, though.
My husband and I eloped and told everyone afterwards, so no wedding. But I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that various family members didn’t expect it to last. In fact, I bet my parents would have been among them. After all, we dated four whole weeks!! I’d probably bet against someone in a similar situation.
Ha ha on everyone - it’s been nearly 38 years so far.
The odds?
Seems like you & your bride could force the result – place a big bet on a specific date, and then separate on that date, and split the winnings. (And reconcile later, if you want to.)
I cannot articulate how angry I would be. I would have them escorted out if the reception and never talk to them again.
I would be offended, yes. Imagine if there were a baby shower and someone started a “Will baby Amy survive to age 5?” pool. Same concept.
Totally not offended and I would have placed a couple of bets. I wouldn’t have told my wife though she would have gotten grumpy.
My wife and I never lived closer than 600 miles from each other when we got married, and the last a lot of my friends saw her, in college, we had broken up.
We’re still married 43 years later. If my friends had set up such a pool and we took the stay married side, we could have cleaned up.
They filled our car with multi-colored condoms at our wedding. Not only would such a bet not bother us, we would have covered the bets.