The Relationship/Wedding Thread

The dreading thread maybe

I agree, expensive weddings are a waste of money. All that money can be used so much better for your familyā€™s future.

fortunately my girlfriend sees it that way as well

Let your girlfriend/to be wife plan for the wedding and you move along as she says. Trust me, wedding is a big deal for most girls(even if they donā€™t express it openly) and if the wedding doesnā€™t go according to her wishes, youā€™ll hear about it for the rest of your life(if you donā€™t end up divorcing, i.e). I learned from the mistakes of my friends and did as my wife wanted for her big day and hence am happily married lol. But a couple my friends are whoā€™ve been married for a few years are still reaping what they sowed on that fateful day lol. Hence, for the wedding day, thereā€™s only one rule: do as your wife says.

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Haha very true! My wedding was a huge thing, but that is expected in Sikh culture. I had wanted to do something small, but I knew my family and hers would never accept that. It wasnā€™t a decision for me and her, it was a decision by our parents and grandparents.

That money could have gone towards a house deposit and we would have had the best possible start to married life. But the social and particularly cultural pressure made that an impossibility.

I have extremely fond memories of the big day but as others have said, itā€™s just one day. Could have been just as special with less guests, less pageantry, less expense but alas, that was unavoidable.

Iā€™ll not be continuing that tradition with my own kids. A much smaller and more intimate affair. Iā€™d rather give them money to help get them started in life than squander thousands just so we can invite six random families who happened to live in the same village as my grandfather 70 years ago. No connection with those people personally, and even my family barely see / speak to them. But when it comes to wedding invites, the shame / ā€œbestiā€ of not inviting them would be too much for the elders in my family to bear.

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I feel like this is perhaps also a sign of the times too, the state the economy and housing market has been in for our generation as we have reached adulthood. For the previous few generations, getting on the housing market in early adulthood wasnā€™t a massive problem, it was fairly affordable and achievable for most. So perhaps if worrying about housing isnā€™t such a big deal, itā€™d feel like less of a problem to splash out on your wedding.

These days when it is much harder to get on the property ladder (particularly if youā€™re from London and the South East of England), is it any wonder that attitudes to weddings have changed, and people think that dropping huge amounts on a wedding is a bad idea when thatā€™s a sizeable chunk of the house deposit that probably you havenā€™t yet managed to save up?

Spending 5 to 15k on a wedding just seems like an absolute madness. Iā€™m just glad that my girlfriend actually agrees, cos otherwise Iā€™d just go along with what she wanted lol.

Iā€™ve grown to be more keen on marriage, because I know it means a lot to my girlfriend. Now itā€™s something that I want to do, but for years I was pretty ambivalent about the whole institution. I still am in a way. If Iā€™d ended up settling down with someone who was anti marriage and never wanted to get married, I honestly would have been fine with that. As nice as it is to make that commitment to someone in a formal, public way, I donā€™t see it as being essential or something that defines my relationship. You can not get married and still have kids and stay together forever and all of that.

I just donā€™t think marriage is important enough to me for me to have a strong view either way, Iā€™ve always thought Iā€™d be happy to go along with the view of the person I decide to settle down with, cos I can take it or leave it really.

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Iā€™m from a Hindu community myself, so I can literally feel every word you wrote. Yeah, have plans myself to stop the tradition of big marriages when it comes to my kids, but weā€™ll see how that goes I guess.

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Been married 34 years and paid for my own wedding. My youngest is getting married next year and both her and her partner are paying for their own although we will put in half the money nearer the time.

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When we christened our oldest we made a surprise wedding of it too. Only our closest friends (who became best man and brides maid there and then) knew about it. We didnā€™t want a big wedding and felt it was more important that our family and friends weā€™re there because of our son. We managed to chock our families quite a bit, since both me and my wife doesnā€™t think marriage is that important (other then the legal side of it). And this way we didnā€™t have to receive any unwanted gifts, that you have to bring down from the attic every time an old aunt visits :joy:

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If I remember correctly from my previous time on OA, you were right posh with posh person job. So I can only assume your mates are around that level. Itā€™s still very common for parents or richer family members to contribute a big portion to the wedding in working to lower middle class scenarios.

Dont take that as a dig btw.

Iā€™ve never cared about marriage and neither has my partner, we have been together for 12 years and now have a baby( we double barrelled the last name, so hes definitely going to become a footballer now) if we do get married it will be abroad and somewhere special with afew special people around us. Iā€™d love somewhere like Norway or the mountains of Switzerland.

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You remember correctly, I suppose haha

I thought itā€™d be the other way around in that middle-class families would better be able to afford to pay for their childrenā€™s weddings. I would have expected working class families to have a harder time paying for the wedding but maybe not.

Iā€™d say my friends are all firmly middle-class but nothing outrageous and not that many of them are married so I have a small sample size.

Anyone in their mid to late 30s and still single(or just in relationship)?

I was 31 before I met me wife. Never had anything near a serious relationship before then.

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Ah well I am 32 and want to remain single for few more years.
I wonder how coming years will pan out.

Such a weird & conflicting place to be in.

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Stay single, so u can do what u want and go around touching black doods hair. When u get married that will be over.

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What if he marries a black dood?

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Donā€™t worry about it man. Just tell yourself itā€™s because there arenā€™t any girls who are good enough. After all, you are a regular poster on the famed Online Arsenal forum and most girls are just girls.

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Thatā€™s discriminatory. I even touched dreadlocks of a white dude. This time with permission :upside_down_face:

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Might be wise getting their partner to sign a loan contract paying half of this on the advent of their divorce, otherwise it isnā€™t applicable.

Bob made it sound like a gift, a nice gesture to their child and in law to be. It might sour the gesture and their relationship if they basically say ā€œthis is a gift, but we want you to sign a contract that says that if you get a divorce this will be considered a loan youā€™re liable to pay for half ofā€

If my in laws to be dropped that on me Iā€™d politely say that Iā€™d prefer they kept their money. Though thatā€™s just me, Iā€™m not a fan of adding conditions to gifts.

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It didnā€™t think itā€™d be a popular comment. Itā€™s just best imo to protect assets/finances on the advent of the end of the relationship. Itā€™s one of my biggest regrets that I didnā€™t and assumed I could trust the woman I was in a relationship with. If you put more equity into a home, make sure thatā€™s protected by a tennancy agreement.

Some peopleā€™s relationships will last a life time but most do not.