[JJayoo]

Weddings generate huge amounts of money for the economy, 30k for a day of bolllox.

[high_king]

Originally Posted by JJayoo

Weddings generate huge amounts of money for the economy, 30k for a day of bolllox.

Most money is spent on bollox if you examine it.
But for now, people in Ireland are free to spend money legally any way they like.

[twowheelsonly]

Each to their own as far as I'm concerned. If someone wants to spend €40k, and they can afford to do so then fair play, off with them. If someone else wants to spend €400 then fair play to them as well.
The only time I'd seriously question a 'fancy' wedding is when people go into debt for it or spend seriously ridiculous money that they can ill afford. My wife's niece is a case in point. Spent €38k earlier this year yet they live in a rented house and complain about not being able to get a mortgage. That's seriously nuts.

As a guest, I'll go if I like the couple , and know them well, or if I think I'll enjoy it. Otherwise I won't bother. My own Mrs has been to at least three weddings in the last couple of years without me and that's fine by me. (Her Niece's one above being one of those..)

Second day, IMO, should be family and very close friends only and should be by casual arrangement so that guests don't feel under pressure to attend. The second day seems to be a by-product of that tiger fella that was hanging around a couple of years ago, never happened before that as far as I can remember other than sometimes all meeting up in 'the mam's house' or down the local. The day after my wedding...waaaaaayyyyy back in 1987.... we went to Turners Cross as Cork City were playing Dundalk. She headed to the pub at half-time and I joined her later and it turned into an unmerciful session. Best part of the weekend IMO !!

Generally you'll hear older people saying that "They're nuts to be spending that kind of money...." or "They'll regret spending that much later..."
Generally the older people are right !!

[cj maxx]

Weddings are pure shyte in my mind. A load of pretending the guest are your bestest friends and vice versa. All the time looking at what money came in. And guests talking among themselves later how much it cost them .and the hotel owner counting his/her money later. Pure shyt

[JJayoo]

Do any grooms enjoy the planning and day of the wedding? Or is it just something they have to endure for the bride

[2pacshakur]

Utterly pointless having a massive wedding in my opinion. I have cousins I haven't talked to in ten years and some I don't particularly like and just because there related I'll invite them to my wedding. No thanks!!
It's one day of your life and spending huge amount of money on one day is utterly pointless.

It will be registry office in the afternoon, 3 or four close friends, current siblings, meal afterwards and then on the piss for the night.

[cj maxx]

If I was getting married again ,that's what I would do.

[Neyite]

Originally Posted by JJayoo

Do any grooms enjoy the planning and day of the wedding? Or is it just something they have to endure for the bride

Out of about 7 or so family weddings I knew the details of, three of the grooms were the ones who wanted the big wedding, their brides would have been happy with a smaller event. A fourth bride had her dad insist it was a big 300+ guest list when she just wanted a family only day. So often it's the groom or father of the bride wanting a big party with loads of people but when you invite loads it spirals into a bigger day - bigger venue to accomodate all those guests means bigger floral arrangements, maybe a different type of musical set up for the service, bigger venue means more chair covers/ canape's /welcome drinks and so on.

[Neyite]

Originally Posted by 2pacshakur

Utterly pointless having a massive wedding in my opinion. I have cousins I haven't talked to in ten years and some I don't particularly like and just because there related I'll invite them to my wedding. No thanks!!
It's one day of your life and spending huge amount of money on one day is utterly pointless.

It will be registry office in the afternoon, 3 or four close friends, current siblings, meal afterwards and then on the piss for the night.

Yes, but it's not up to just you - there's two of you getting married so your partner might want a say in what they would like for their wedding day as well...

[PhilOssophy]

Originally Posted by MissShihTzu

Meh. it's a wedding. One of life's events.

If you want to spend loads? Fine. If you don't? Also fine. The couple have the wedding they want. If I am available and want to go? I'll go and give a nice present. If I can't? Send regrets and a card.

These threads are all the same as LirW says. An opportunity for hypocrisy and wedding-bashing. People need to mind their own business and get on with life.

Here here. My attitude entirely. If you want to go, go. If you don't, don't.
Most brides and grooms would rather people didn't go than sat there giving out about it all day!

Nobody is forced to do anything, plenty of people left our wedding straight after the meal (and we didn't make a mental note of who, we didn't care and I doubt any bride/groom even notices).

In Ireland with some people :
- Wedding invite = oh ffs, I've to go to that now, I need to book in for 2 nights, blah blah. Basically finding stuff to give out about.
- No wedding invite = the b****x/b***h, they didn't invite me.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't!

[xieann]

More and more like the Americans Irish people love to watch pageants as well as participate in them. A wedding is going to be the highlight pageant in the life of the bride and groom:. I'm thinking here about the under 6 page boy and flower girls here.

[joe40]

It's been nearly 20 years since I got married and it was a fairly typical wedding. In terms of cost the presents I received covered a good chunk of the expense, would that not still be the case.

Even 200 people giving an average of 100 euro each (Cash or gift equivalent) would take in 20,000 euro. Would that not go a long way to meet wedding costs.

[chrissb8]

Originally Posted by MissShihTzu

Meh. it's a wedding. One of life's events.

If you want to spend loads? Fine. If you don't? Also fine. The couple have the wedding they want. If I am available and want to go? I'll go and give a nice present. If I can't? Send regrets and a card.

These threads are all the same as LirW says. An opportunity for hypocrisy and wedding-bashing. People need to mind their own business and get on with life.

You do realise you're on a forum for discussing such things? I mean that's the whole point of this thread. A discussion. On what people think of weddings.


Complaining about people who are merely voicing their opinion (no matter how much you don't like it) is pointless. Wedding bashing as it were is just how people feel about it. Serving the purpose of which the OP intended. To garner opinions on the subject.

[Sleepy]

Originally Posted by JJayoo

Do any grooms enjoy the planning and day of the wedding? Or is it just something they have to endure for the bride

I'd say I did about 90% of the planning for our wedding and enjoyed most of it as I've always enjoyed event planning and Mrs Sleepy wouldn't be into it.

We did a fairly typical humanist "ceremony and reception in the hotel" wedding with about 130 guests and didn't waste money on a lot of the extras. My brother is a musician brought his band as his gift to us, his now wife did the photography, made the cake ourselves, didn't have favours or photo booths or any of that craic, bought the flowers in the Smithfield market, dress was bought in a closing down sale, suits were hired on mates rates from an associate of my godmother etc. The only things I can think of that say we spent money on "needlessly" were getting really good wine for the meal (haggled the hotel into not charging us for the corkage - one of the benefits of getting married during a recession) and I surprised Mrs Sleepy with a string trio who played rock music for our ceremony and reception - found them through boards.ie actually and I'll give them a plug since they were great: Here Comes the Trio.

We'd have preferred to have done something even smaller and more low key but it would have upset my mother if we'd not invited all her sisters and some family on the other side would have been offended not to have been invited if we'd done things entirely our own way etc.

One thing I can say having gone throuh the experience is that I think most of the aspiring "instagram brides" are in for a big shock when they start their planning. Going outside the norm of having a meal and reception in a hotel gets expensive extremely quickly in Ireland unless you have the right contacts, are happy with cutting your guest list to the bone (and the ensuing fall-out from upset/offended relatives) or a business is getting a free advert on RTE for a discount.

[Obvious Desperate Breakfasts]

Originally Posted by Sleepy

I'd say I did about 90% of the planning for our wedding and enjoyed most of it as I've always enjoyed event planning and Mrs Sleepy wouldn't be into it.

We did a fairly typical humanist "ceremony and reception in the hotel" wedding with about 130 guests and didn't waste money on a lot of the extras. My brother is a musician brought his band as his gift to us, his now wife did the photography, made the cake ourselves, didn't have favours or photo booths or any of that craic, bought the flowers in the Smithfield market, dress was bought in a closing down sale, suits were hired on mates rates from an associate of my godmother etc. The only things I can think of that say we spent money on "needlessly" were getting really good wine for the meal (haggled the hotel into not charging us for the corkage - one of the benefits of getting married during a recession) and I surprised Mrs Sleepy with a string trio who played rock music for our ceremony and reception - found them through boards.ie actually and I'll give them a plug since they were great: Here Comes the Trio.

We'd have preferred to have done something even smaller and more low key but it would have upset my mother if we'd not invited all her sisters and some family on the other side would have been offended not to have been invited if we'd done things entirely our own way etc.

One thing I can say having gone throuh the experience is that I think most of the aspiring "instagram brides" are in for a big shock when they start their planning. Going outside the norm of having a meal and reception in a hotel gets expensive extremely quickly in Ireland unless you have the right contacts, are happy with cutting your guest list to the bone (and the ensuing fall-out from upset/offended relatives) or a business is getting a free advert on RTE for a discount.

What’s the link between social media and non-traditional weddings? Doing something different for photo ops?