Big Wedding?

  • Thread starter Thread starter kaygee
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
K

kaygee

Guest
I don’t know where I heard this recently, but it must have been on EWTN radio or tv (cause that’s the only media I tune in to that would address this). The speaker made a statement to the effect that the size of the reception is most often inversely related to the number of years the marriage will last. Monster resort wedding reception with all the trimmings at huge cost often winds up in divorce within the first five years. Even if the ceremony is in the church.

Modest wedding in church with small reception (family, close friends incl. kids) at home or in parish hall is an accurate predictor of a life-long marriage.

However, if one goes all the way to the other end of the spectrum – a quickie elopement – that is about as good a predictor of lack of success of the marriage as is the huge wedding.

Comments?
 
I’d like to see the statistics that back up such a claim before making any comment. 😉
 
I think you can bend any statistics to fit the result desired. I’m sure you can find many instances where this method of predicting marital bliss appears to be accurate. But, you can also say that for many of the old wive’s tales used to predict the sex of an expected child.

Malia
 
40.png
kaygee:
I don’t know where I heard this recently, but it must have been on EWTN radio or tv (cause that’s the only media I tune in to that would address this). The speaker made a statement to the effect that the size of the reception is most often inversely related to the number of years the marriage will last. Monster resort wedding reception with all the trimmings at huge cost often winds up in divorce within the first five years. Even if the ceremony is in the church.

Modest wedding in church with small reception (family, close friends incl. kids) at home or in parish hall is an accurate predictor of a life-long marriage.

However, if one goes all the way to the other end of the spectrum – a quickie elopement – that is about as good a predictor of lack of success of the marriage as is the huge wedding.

Comments?
Click to expand...
I disagree that marital longevity has any correlation to the size or type of wedding reception one has.
 
when DD got married both sides agreed we would just invite family, up to aunts, uncles cousins. That came to 300 people which is what you get with authentic Catholic families who embrace the culture of life. 14 yrs and still going strong, some of their friends are already divorced, some just now getting married. they are very happy, 4 kids so far, and I think it will last, and pray for it.
 
40.png
puzzleannie:
when DD got married both sides agreed we would just invite family, up to aunts, uncles cousins. That came to 300 people which is what you get with authentic Catholic families who embrace the culture of life. 14 yrs and still going strong, some of their friends are already divorced, some just now getting married. they are very happy, 4 kids so far, and I think it will last, and pray for it.
Click to expand...
That isn’t what the speaker I heard meant – it’s the wedding palaces, the resorts, the kind that make a wedding cost twice the amount of a good family car.
 
My grandmother used to say something similar about the size of wedding relating to the length of the marriage. She was speaking about people who turn the wedding and/or reception into a “show” with themselves as the stars. I see this more and more as lots of regular folks start off their marriages in huge amounts of debt by copying celebrity weddings with $10,000 dresses and gigantic ice sculptures. Even if they can afford the extravaganza without going into debt, it seems like such a waste to me when the money could have been used for a house or a college fund for future children.

Marriage is a sacrament which many couples don’t seem to recognize or focus on as they talk about buying this or booking that for their “big day.” My friends and relatives who have had the longest and happiest marriages were less focused on the details of the “big day” and more focused on family and each other for the long haul. It didn’t matter what the size of the ceremony was because some had larger or smaller families, etc. The ones who had to have a certain band or orchestra (no I don’t mean a string quartet) and the designer cake have not lasted very long at all.
 
Let’s see how this works for my family.

My parents eloped. They have been married for, lets see, 42 years. And yes, I mean a real elopement. Bags out the window. Sneaking away. They had a convalidation one year later.

My sister had a large wedding. Her, now, mother-in-law sent invitatons to people that her son had never even met, because it was the right thing to do. They had the band, cake and all that everyone dreams of. They have been married 21 years.

I had a small wedding, maybe 25 people,at a court house. We also had a convalidation later. We have been married 14 years.

Staying married depends on the couple. It does not depend on how much is spent on the wedding.
 
I eloped…still married, though its only been a year. My sister both hand weddings that cost nearly 100,000. One is divorced and the other is a widow.

Now, the reason why we eloped. Our families have this “fued” going on. Its a small-town, politic-y, last name fued. Having a reception for both families was not an option, nor was having a reception with both at the same time. We didn’t and don’t have a lot of money so, to watch my friends get married, frustrated that all the plates and decorations and invitations cost way too much, plus watching my sister spend a lot of money and divorce 3 years later, we decided that eloping was the best for us. Not to mention, I didn’t want people staring at me for an entire day:eek: …its enough to make me want to vomit in nervousness just thinking about it!!

Now, hopefully, our decision doesn’t “follow some statistic” and we get divorced…
 
40.png
sarcophagus:
I eloped…still married, though its only been a year. My sister both hand weddings that cost nearly 100,000. One is divorced and the other is a widow.

Now, the reason why we eloped. Our families have this “fued” going on. Its a small-town, politic-y, last name fued. Having a reception for both families was not an option, nor was having a reception with both at the same time. We didn’t and don’t have a lot of money so, to watch my friends get married, frustrated that all the plates and decorations and invitations cost way too much, plus watching my sister spend a lot of money and divorce 3 years later, we decided that eloping was the best for us. Not to mention, I didn’t want people staring at me for an entire day:eek: …its enough to make me want to vomit in nervousness just thinking about it!!

Now, hopefully, our decision doesn’t “follow some statistic” and we get divorced…
Click to expand...
What the…! A $100,000 wedding?!? Was that a typo? Did you add an extra zero? That better have been the best shrimp cocktail this side of Paradise…

Regardless of whether this idea that big weddings equal short marriages, I’m going to go ahead and use it in fending off marital sentiments in the future. I recently burned out whatever gland or mechanism men have to consider such commitments. Despite multiple other problems with a future with my ex-girlfriend, she still had these starry-eyed ideas about the wedding. Forget that her parents wouldn’t chip in because they hate me and she’d be marrying them without their approval; forget that our families couldn’t possibly get along. Forget our differences of religion – she wanted a wedding at a mansion with an expensive cruise up the Potomac. No matter how many times I told her, she didn’t seem to grasp that anything over about $300 is a fantastic amount of money for WRITERS!

But that’s ancient history now.

This whole idea of a big wedding is one more reason why I think there’s something wrong with me. How can two people just starting out in the world possibly think of blowing tens of thousands of dollars on a party? Everyone seems to think it’s a smashing idea. I think it’s lunacy. Ergo, I’m single, and for the forseeable future, happily so.
 
What the…! A $100,000 wedding?!? Was that a typo? Did you add an extra zero? That better have been the best shrimp cocktail this side of Paradise…
Click to expand...
This whole idea of a big wedding is one more reason why I think there’s something wrong with me. How can two people just starting out in the world possibly think of blowing tens of thousands of dollars on a party? Everyone seems to think it’s a smashing idea. I think it’s lunacy. Ergo, I’m single, and for the forseeable future, happily so.
Click to expand...
Yes, I meant 100,000. It was very very large. Also…there are plenty of women who would love to have a small intimate wedding. Not all women have been indoctrinated to think that a large wedding is the only way to go…
 
A large wedding does not necessarily = a huge price tag. I had a fairly big wedding with all of the traditional stuff that goes with it on a very limited budget. But I have a HUGE family and most of the wedding guests were from my family. It was important to me to have them there. But I wasn’t concerned about showing off or fancy stuff. I found an inexpensive, but nice, hall for the wedding and hired a caterer that does catering on the side for a very reasonable price. I didn’t have to spend thousands of dollars to have everybody there. And we had one heck of a meal too! It was delicious!

I’d say we probably spent $9K on my wedding and we could have spent much less than that but we really splurged on my dress and the photographer. But the reception cost not even $2K. Not bad for having a nice, big wedding. And there were still many things we could have done differently to save money, like having an early afternoon reception and just serving brunch or something. Even having a Friday evening wedding and serving finger foods is a cheap, but elegant way to go. It doesn’t have to cost your life savings to have a nice wedding with a lot of people.

Now my sister, on the other hand, had to have the fancy reception hall. She spent well over $10K on her reception alone. :eek:

It’s just a matter of priorities.
 
I don’t necessarily disagree with the statement regarding the size of the wedding vs. the length of the marriage.

Many couples, get so caught up in the big show that they lose sight or never had sight of the real meaning of the wedding. On the other hand, couple marry in haste by eloping.
 
We are having a nice wedding and it is going to be “big” because we both have huge families and lots of close catholic friends with 8 kids!! I am doing my best to keep the cost down but the food for 400 people is going to be spendy!! We are going with the hor d’heurves thing, but still, it’s gonna cost me!
 
I should think the question is not about the number of guests but the quality of the guests.

It has already been mentioned that there are many large families that even going to the first cousin level would make a small gathering impossible.

If the invitations are out of social status and/or obligation only - then I would expect the marriage not to last long because it has little real support from that person’s community of friends and family.

However, a wedding of any size might be more successfull if the invitations were for mostly genuine and supportive friends and family.

Just some thoughts.

todd
 
I don’t think the size of the wedding or reception has anything to do with how long your marriage lasts. I think it has more to do with the people involved. I think it would be best to look at whether or not both people want the same thing. Both want big, both want small or one wants big and the other wants small. I would think that the way it is planned would be more of an indicator for success than the overall size. Is the guy being left out of the decisions? Is one family taking over everything?

My husband and I both opted for a small wedding and reception. His boss donated the use of the hall at her Episcopal Church. Friends and family all pitched in. The food came from Sam’s. A friend had a radio and a PA so he did the DJ stuff for us. I wore the dress my mom wore when she married my dad. We made the cake ourselves. I made the bouquets and such. These were all decisions that we made together. We are both extremely frugal so this just made sense to us. To do anything else, would have been out of character for us and our relationship. Likewise, there are people that could never be happy with what we did because that is not the way they are made. Some people want and need the extravagance. That is just the way they are made. I think the important thing is whether or not you make these decisions together.
 
I have always thought this about big weddings. I think the danger can bethat the focus is all on one day. There is also the danger of starting married life in debt, and that can’t be a good thing. I had a very cheap wedding (family and good friends only), and we split the cost (about £800), three ways-us and two sets of parents. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it *even cheaper * (every guest could bring a dish to share, and a bottle or two!)
 
40.png
kaygee:
That isn’t what the speaker I heard meant – it’s the wedding palaces, the resorts, the kind that make a wedding cost twice the amount of a good family car.
Click to expand...
What you are talking about is the trend in the past twenty or so years to put the wedding over the marriage, to the point where you have a young couple waiting two, three or even four years to get married, simply so they can play celebrities for the day, at a cost that beggers their families and them for years to come. In the meantime before the fantasy event, they are often living together, and have long since consumated the relationship.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top