Would you pay to go to a wedding?

Idiophreak

MiddyMum wrote: »

No I bloody would not, I am a guest! I also dont go to weddings where I am only invited to the reception either. This tells me that they only want a gift and I am not important enough to be at the church.

*Sigh*

I don't really think this has anything to do with "wanting gifts" at all. It has to do with the high cost of catering wedding breakfasts vs the comparatively low costs of evening buffets.

I'm glad you've never been in the position where you couldn't afford to have everything you wanted.

mysk_girl

MiddyMum wrote: »

No I bloody would not, I am a guest! I also dont go to weddings where I am only invited to the reception either. This tells me that they only want a gift and I am not important enough to be at the church.

I hate the ones where we have been invited to the church and the evening do but not the meal in between. Usually leaves us hanging around for 5 hours in the middle of nowhere between sections. We don't go to those anymore...

JimmyTheWig

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

You can still get married in a church - it's not that expensive and then just do a self catering buffet at a local church / community hall after.

I presume that the registry office suggestion was aimed at people planning on using one of these "all-in hotel" package places.

MiddyMum

mysk_girl wrote: »

I hate the ones where we have been invited to the church and the evening do but not the meal in between. Usually leaves us hanging around for 5 hours in the middle of nowhere between sections. We don't go to those anymore...

:-/ They just wanted your gift as well, in your case they were cheeky and didnt even want to offer you a meal. You are wise to not go to them anymore.

Hermia

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

Once upon a time - before every bride had to outdo the last - if you had a limited budget then you hired the local community centre, set out some tables and had a buffet with cardboard plates and plastic tablecloths. Friends and family could offer to help with bringing stuff but that was as much contribution as was needed.

A friend of mine tried to do this with her wedding. She asked guests to bring a dish for the buffet or offer another service (e.g. pick up the elderly guests and drive them to/from the wedding) instead of giving her a gift. Some of the guests were not impressed at the idea of having to provide labour on the day! A few of our mutual friends said they could imagine that relatives/friends of theirs who saw weddings as a chance to party would also not be impressed with a request like that.

NewKittenHelp

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

Once upon a time - before every bride had to outdo the last - if you had a limited budget then you hired the local community centre, set out some tables and had a buffet with cardboard plates and plastic tablecloths. Friends and family could offer to help with bringing stuff but that was as much contribution as was needed.

When did everything get to be about image?

Surely the most important thing on the day is that the bride and groom get married - in the presence of people who care about them and wish them well.

No massive gift lists held at John Lewis, no gimmicks for 'favours', no asking for money etc Just an invite saying 'we're getting married, come and join us, no need to feel guilty about the pressie or whatever, we just want you there because we want you to share our day'?

Don't you mean "once upon a time, when everyone lived in the same place"?;)

Hermia

azzabazza wrote: »

I wouldn't be happy to pay for the meal. I also dislike the card in the invitation which invites us to contribute towards the honeymoon!

Oh, I love that! No having to worry about finding and wrapping presents and it's nice to know you have contributed to the couple having a lovely time. One of my relatives did this for his wedding. He gave everyone a list of things he and his girlfriend wanted to do on their honeymoon (eat in a certain restaurant, go on a walking tour etc). They were all different prices and you picked one. After the honeymoon he sent everyone a photo of the activity they had paid for. It was quite sweet.

pearl123

It always seemed to me that the the expenditure of weddings was always OTT for just one day!
If I get married it's going to be basic. And I'm a women.

Miss_Havisham

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

Once upon a time - before every bride had to outdo the last - if you had a limited budget then you hired the local community centre, set out some tables and had a buffet with cardboard plates and plastic tablecloths. Friends and family could offer to help with bringing stuff but that was as much contribution as was needed.

When did everything get to be about image?

Surely the most important thing on the day is that the bride and groom get married - in the presence of people who care about them and wish them well.

No massive gift lists held at John Lewis, no gimmicks for 'favours', no asking for money etc Just an invite saying 'we're getting married, come and join us, no need to feel guilty about the pressie or whatever, we just want you there because we want you to share our day'?

sorry, just read this back and realised I've digressed, but it's too late to delete now, ho-hum !

this is exactly what we did when my sister got married over 30 years ago ! Council hall with their trestle tables and wobbly chairs. We had to give it a good clean hours before the wedding as the caretaker didn't show up !

Mum, Granny and I made loads of sandwiches, home-made sausage rolls and scotch eggs, bought tubs of potato salad and rollmop herrings from local jewish deli wholesalers (yum) and I made and iced the 3 tier wedding cake.

Paper plates, plastic forks and "glasses" plus dozens of bags of salt n' vinegar from the cash and carry.

Table decorations were plastic plant pots planted with bedding plants and wrapped in tin foil to hide the brown plastic. Boxes of wine, couple of kegs of beer and big bottles of lemonade. The jellied eel man called mid-evening and guests bought if they fancied (yuk).

A friend of the groom brought along his dj stuff and we contributed records to please all ages.

At the end of the evening most of the table decorations "walked out" with the guests, but it saved us getting rid !

It was a lovely day without costing a fortune.

MiddyMum

Idiophreak wrote: »

*Sigh*

I don't really think this has anything to do with "wanting gifts" at all. It has to do with the high cost of catering wedding breakfasts vs the comparatively low costs of evening buffets.

I'm glad you've never been in the position where you couldn't afford to have everything you wanted.

*Sigh*

Not really...I am talking about blatant segregation amongst guests. Certain guests that can go to church vs certain guests that can only go to reception/evening meal. Certain guests that can only go to church vs certain guests that can go to church and to the meal, I could go on. I believe all wedding guests should be treated equal, and thus, IF I felt that I needed to employ those sort of tactics to be money savvy then I would scale down my expectations for the wedding itself, to ensure that everyone could enjoy the entire experience, not just parts of it.

Just my opinion of course.