Isn't that just the reception party that you love rather than the wedding? You're generally not supposed to get pissed in the church lol.


I think that's great. It's a sadly hypercritical state of affairs that I even thought that worth commenting on. It really irks me that so people marry in a church when they have no faith and only ever attend for weddings, christenings and funerals. Not that many christenings these days either.

I've been to 2 complete weddings and 2 just to the reception party. 3 of them were registry office ceremonies followed by a quiet civilized buffet at a family member's house. The other was a big CoE church affair with Hindu bits bolted on - as required to keep both families relatively happy and nothing to do with the wishes of the bride and groom who are devout atheists.

I know. There's also a three hour consultation where he shows what he thinks should go in the photo album but you can decide to swap in/out photos, then it gets sent to Europe somewhere to be printed on the best quality paper available.

Indeed. You can have great party with lots of booze without the 18 months of planning and the clutch of nervous breakdowns.


+1 to this. One of the things I especially don't like is people having church weddings who haven't seen the inside of a church since their own christening. Even more palaver, even more effort, even more expense, all for the validation of an organisation you otherwise don't give a chuff about. What?


Oh God, hindu weddings. No, just no. They are mental. A relative-by-marriage is Hindu so I've been invited to one or two. The last one I was invited to went on for four whole days and I was expected to attend all four days and wear a different colour suit for each day - and I don't just mean shade of grey or blue, I mean one day it was supposed to be purple, the next it was supposed to be red. Four suits, all in bright colours I would absolutely categorically never wear again. Needless to say I found that sadly I had another commitment I couldn't postpone..

Jon

The church wedding when people are not churchgoers gets even weirder when they start christening their children. Always makes me scratch my head.

To be fair, when I saw the cost of our wedding venue (the single biggest expense of our wedding) for over a month's rent for twenty minutes of use, I considered a church, my attitude was that if he didn't exist, it wouldn't matter.

This is something that really annoys me. If you're not religious (or even atheist), why do you suddenly then do something religious? IMO it's an insult to both the religion and to the non-religious.

Ditto for people celebrating religious festivals when at other times they don't give a hoot about it. I'm not just talking about Xmas/Easter either. I have/had friends belonging to other denominations and the lack of adherence to their faith until it's the equivalent of their Xmas at which point they are suddenly the most devout adherent of their faith ever seen.

It really winds me up.

I have a mate who married an India girl (in India when we were both working out there) and l loved it. Had "posh" Indian clothes made up in cotton with some really fine stiching in gold on them and really enjoyed the whole thing

It's slightly different when it's your wedding. Even in traditional christian weddings, there's the notion of the groom having a traditional 'wedding suit', which is almost considered a souvenir, same as with the traditional wedding dress. And I've been to a couple of hindu weddings that were fine, or at least no worse than a christian or atheist ceremony. Different rituals, then a party, no problem. But traditionally they are longer, more involved affairs than some of the alternatives. I've been to a couple that were way, way over the top. And a bride expecting every male guest to spend the best part of £500 (which is what the four suits would have cost) to attend her wedding can **** right off, regardless of what religion may or may not be involved.

Jon

When my sister got engaged (didn't work out), I told her outright I wouldn't be attending - no bloody way was I going through that nonsense, I feel embarrassed having the 'so how's the job going?' conversation with people at Xmas...

One of my friends had a full Indian Wedding, he only invited me and one other person that we worked with who weren't "family" and they made up special leaflets just for us to explain each part of the ceremony and the significance of the dress changes and dances etc. It went on for a VERY long time (upwards of 4 hours I think including a break for lunch) and seemed to be a general social occasion for everyone else, but we were in the front row and it was really very interesting and involving, especially when me and the other friend got involved with long bits of ribbon and dancing!!

Red and I are getting married in a hole in the ground, in bad taste dress and then everyone's off to the pub for pie and beer. We want to have a good time as well and I refuse to spend years planning and organising and stressing. I know Red doesn't care about the pomp and I certainly don't. As long as we wind up wed then it will have been a brilliant day!

I noticed that Matthew Mcconaughey got married at the weekend. I thought the pictures looked a bit odd then I read the caption that he had tents for guests to stay in after the wedding. Pretty cool and totally un-Hollywood!

How is hiring a field of premium private tents for your guests "un-Hollywood?" exactly? :p

Yeah, tents with air conditioning. Really slumming it .

They might be posh tents but still tents. I thought it was a good idea. No drunk driving and people could stay as long as they wanted.

I was trying to figure out what they were! I was thinking very small hovering porta-loo but I suspect you're right

It may not be slumming it, but it's not exactly "Hollywood" either! Looks like a park was rented and tents erected. It's no Scottish Castle or 500 seater marquee beside a stately home!