Im from the UK and I watch a lot of TV and I’ve always wondered if how weddings are shown are actually accurate, I have a few specific questions/examples here so bear with me.
They’re always shown to by absolutely massive and extravagant events where people spend like a years salary on the wedding.
Do you guys actually have bridal showers and rehearsal dinners?
With the plus ones, does everyone just get one? And do guests actually bring someone they’ve only just met, just so they have a date to bring?
Also like when they invite some super distant acquaintance, like their accountant, or old colleague they don’t speak to anymore or some random doctor from when they were younger.
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Yes and no. Those are all pretty traditional components of a wedding, but the matter of scale differs. Bigger weddings tend to be over the top in terms of location, ostentation, food, etc. Usually everything else will be bigger and more expensive, too. However, a lot of times smaller weddings will have a bridal shower which is just a potluck on an afternoon, and a rehearsal dinner that is just the wedding party at a nice local restaurant, or even a more formal
dinner in someone’s home.
Similar to how things are in your country, not everyone is the same. Most people don’t have extravagant weddings, some do.
Come on dude. You gotta apply at least a little critical thinking. Is every wedding in the UK the same?
Furthermore, there’s plenty of examples even in TV and movies of private, intimate, weddings.
The massive weddings often get the most attention on TV and in movies. Many people in the US have simple weddings with only few guests. The bride’s and bridesmaids dresses will look nice but not be “Disney princess” extravagant. The groom and groomsmen will be just as subdued.
On average, weddings take place either in a mid-sized church, a meadow, garden or other outdoor area, with a restaurant or reception hall for the……uh, reception.
-it does happen where people way over spend on a wedding but those are the largest weddings. I’ve been too maybe 2 weddings that have been beyond extravagant but most are within normal means to a little on the high side.
-yes, most people do have bridal showers and they also have rehearsal dinners before hand. This isn’t necessarily everyone, but I’d say it’s really common.
-most weddings, people will get a plus one. Again, not everyone will do this as it depends on the budget, but it’s common. I personally don’t know anyone who has brought a person they just met, most just come alone as they’ll know some other people at the wedding. Still, I’m sure it happens just pretty rare instances.
-again, budget depending, people may invite distant people, but this is also pretty rare.
Entirely depends on the family and the bride and groom.
We have 330 million people. Some will spend a lot of money and some will get married at the courthouse for next to nothing.
My wife and I had about 200 guests and spent quite a bit with help from my parents, her parents, and ourselves. We had a rehearsal dinner. We had a church service and then a reception. It cost quite a bit.
I have friends that spent like $50 in fees at the courthouse and had a dinner with family afterwards.
Not at all. Most movies go way over the top.
>Also like when they invite some super distant acquaintance, like their accountant, or old colleague they don’t speak to anymore or some random doctor from when they were younger.
I don’t understand what this means. people usually don’t invite completely random people to their wedding. it’s usually family and friends.
Sure, some people spend a lot of money and break the bank. I’ve only been to 2 or 3 weddings where more than 30,000 dollars was spent, but those people could afford it without hurting their immediate future. We spent about 1500 dollars in 1977 for everything, but that’s because her parents not only wanted a church wedding but also a church basement reception(about 7000 dollars in today’s money). We both got jobs and saved every dime, we didn’t even eat fast food. In 4 years we had a 10,000 down payment saved towards a 70,000 dollar house .
I live in a tradionally Hispanic (Mexican American) part of the country. I have been to weddings similar to what you describe as well as small affairs at small venue without the rehearsals and dinners and maybe finger foods and some drinks. The reason I mentioned Hispanic is that they have a traditions where family and friends sponsor (pay for) portions of the affairs. I have been asked to sponsor and it is considered a compliment and expected if you are close to the families. You wouldn’t necessarily sponsor an entire portion on your own but may chip in with others so no one is paying too much on their own. Sponsors will also receive a small gift as a souvenir. It is really a great tradition for all.
My wedding on the beach cost around 3k and that was including everything including dinner after for everyone. Spent the most on the setup of the beach and the photographer. I think there was about a dozen people
Bridal shower and rehearsal dinners are things. The scale is usually less than in movies.
>I watch a lot of TV and I’ve always wondered if how weddings are shown are actually accurate….They’re always shown to by absolutely massive and extravagant events
Well, depends on what you mean. If you’re talking about Don Corleone’s wedding for his son, it’s because they’re rich. But even then, that wedding wasn’t anything over the top.
If you’re part of some close knit community (like an immigrant community or a church), you get volunteers to cook/clean/set up and people pooling together to host a large wedding.
Otherwise, weddings in the UK are similar, are they not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFMyseXPyeI
This video is pretty much the same thing as an American wedding. Probably costs 20k+ pounds just like an American wedding might.
>Also like when they invite some super distant acquaintance, like their accountant, or old colleague they don’t speak to anymore or some random doctor from when they were younger.
That can happen but I don’t think most people do that. If it does, that person was someone close to the family.
American TV will also often have some reason why the original plan for the wedding can’t go forward at the last minute (“the venue was destroyed in a flood!” “the bride has stage fright!”) which then turns into the main cast having a tiny wedding with just the main cast at the town gazebo or something. That’s done for budget reasons (it’s expensive to have 100 extras).
We also apparently call off our weddings at the last minute to chase our One True Love.
I sometimes wonder if foreigners think we’re bonkers.
Not everyone does it, but it’s common to have a bridal shower and rehearsal dinner. How extreme it is depends on what you can afford. I’ve been to a rehearsal dinner that was a barbecue and one that was a five-star meal, and basically everything in between. A lot of weddings are irresponsibly overspent, in my frugal opinion. The five-star dinner wedding would have been in the six-figures somewhere, but both families in that case are extremely wealthy. As far as a plus one, I don’t know anyone that brings someone they just met. It’s kind of awkward. Some people like to go to weddings but people will assume you’re in a relationship. Typically you can only bring one, but you can often bring kids. I’ve gone to weddings without a date, and I find that preferable to going with someone I don’t know well. It was fine because I had plenty of people to talk to anyway. You usually don’t invite someone you haven’t talked to in a long time, unless it’s a friend of the parents or something.
I’ve been to big weddings with a couple hundred people. I’ve been to small weddings where it was immediate family only.
Every wedding I’ve gone to has had a rehearsal dinner. But it’s usually just wedding party members there and immediate family. Like 30 people max.
Some people invite every possible person they can think of. Others don’t. My wife and I never wanted a big wedding, it was a thing from where she was from and she hated it.
I do notice that many people will pass on attending the ceremony and instead stop in at the reception. They will drop off a gift, have a piece of cake, and bow out.
Some people elope, some people have a backyard wedding, some people rent a hall, some people have very extravagant weddings with a rehearsal dinner. Greatly differs by couple
It depends on the wedding, and how much people are trying to impress.
My husband and I had a super cheap wedding with a few friends who brought food, in the reception hall of a church. My dress was given to me by a friend who I helped move when they had bedbugs (nobody else would help them). It cost maybe $1,500 or so. A friend took pictures. No wedding party. My dad grilled the rehearsal dinner. We went hiking for our honeymoon.
My brother’s was even cheaper: she made her gorgeous dress, they got married in a courthouse, I was the photographer.
By the same token, we spent 20 years in a town where people showed off their wealth. I ran into someone I went to high school with at a restaurant. She said her wedding cost $30,000. That’s pretty typical there. A big wedding party, a rehearsal dinner, a ridiculously overpriced dress, a venue that costs the moon, etc.
So do some people go crazy? Yes, and the wedding planning industry goes out of their way to encourage it. Have I met people who got divorced before they were done paying their “wedding debt?” Yes.
Do all of us go there? No.
If you watch UK based wedding TV shows, they’re pretty similar to the US shows. Lots of over the top couples, family drama, and way more extravagance than the couple can afford is common. Plus the occasional sane couple who slips through the screening process. American “reality” TV tends to have a bigger focus on drama than British shows, but British wedding shows it seems to embrace excessive drama more than other reality shows.
Meanwhile, in real life it’s more like 90% sane couples who sometimes have big weddings, sometimes have small weddings, and sometimes spend more than they can easily afford (but rarely to the degree of the crazy TV couples), and 10% crazy big drama extravaganzas.
Weddings vary tremendously here. Some are like ones you see on TV with big budgets and hundreds of guests who the bride and groom may only slightly be acquainted with. But many are smaller, less formal, more religious, etc. there is so much variety and traditions vary by religion and geographical location. For instance, in some circles it’s considered bad form to wear black or red to wedding while where I live (New England) it’s very common to see those colors at weddings.
Plus ones usually mean a guest is free to bring someone regardless of who it is. I see this pretty rarely for weddings unless guests are expected to travel long distances or it’s a huge event. Usually serious partners are invited though.
Most people have bridal showers. Usually they’re really casual and just a chance for folks to get together and chat about the upcoming wedding. Rehearsal dinners are also a thing and are also usually pretty casual. You spend a couple minutes rehearsing who is going to stand where and how to walk down the aisle then you go out for dinner.
Depends on the couple. My husband and I invited nobody, I got a dress from Amazon, he got a shirt from Walmart, and we got married on a beach. Very cheap. No muss no fuss.
There isn’t really an “American wedding.” All the weddings I’ve been to, including my own, have been pretty different. Some people do have huge weddings with all those rituals like on TV shows, but that’s mostly just tropes. You can do whatever you want.
Bridal showers and rehearsal dinners are common but they’re not always like the ones on TV. My “rehearsal dinner” was basically just a fun occasion to see family the night before the wedding, since they all had to travel a long way and we were all staying at the same hotel anyway. It was a pretty small wedding for family and close friends, with the ceremony and reception in the same place. Nowhere remotely near a year’s salary. We didn’t do plus ones, it was strictly invite only – same with most of the weddings I’ve attended.
The formula is similar but there’s plenty of more modest productions.
Bachelor party/bachelorette party
Wedding shower for the bride
Rehearsal dinner with both parents, immediate family, bridal party.
Ceremony in church of other venues.
Reception party, meal, speeches, cake, drinking, dancing.
Etiquette for gifts would be something in the dollar amount of the meal and drinks provided.
I’ve been to small (less than 25 people) and slightly larger weddings. I haven’t been to too many actually. Nothing extravagant.
One was in a museum.
One of my friends brought a woman he had hooked up with the night before to my wedding lol, seems very strange! Usually people bring serious relationships to weddings if they get a plus one.
Bridal showers and rehearsal dinners are very common but not everyone has one.
I used to teach US culture in the UK, one of the hardest parts was trying to get Brits to realize just how much these things vary. Norms and traditions in the US are far less rigid and followed in the US than the UK, so the answer to pretty much all of these questions will vary immensely between individuals.
> They’re always shown to by absolutely massive and extravagant events where people spend like a years salary on the wedding.
Some folks will do this, others will have small, simple ceremonies without even a party or guests. Most people do something in between.
> Do you guys actually have bridal showers and rehearsal dinners?
Some do, some don’t
> With the plus ones, does everyone just get one? And do guests actually bring someone they’ve only just met, just so they have a date to bring?
This varies immensely. Bringing somebody you just met would be a bit odd.
> Also like when they invite some super distant acquaintance, like their accountant, or old colleague they don’t speak to anymore or some random doctor from when they were younger.
This would be weird.
Yeah, many are like that…
My wedding was almost 200 people, cost about $60k 14 years ago. We had a rehearsal dinner the night before for all of the out of town guest, which was like 125 people.
Our list was all fairly close relatives, close family friends, some of our friends. And a good number of people did t attend because my wife grew up overseas and people couldn’t afford the travel, some due to religious reasons (wife has some orthodox Jewish relatives, but we are not orthodox)
From 1994 to 2000 I was part of twelve weddings, with 1998 being the pinnacle – four in one summer. I attended probably at least that many as a guest. They ranged from simple ‘got married in a chapel with lunch afterwards’ to the gonzo week long bridezilla Event of the Century with bridal showers, rehearsal dinner at a downtown restaurant, ceremony at a basilica, country club dance, and a bride that flipped her nickel when she found out I (gasp!!) Wore my OWN SHOES with the tuxedo instead of the rent-a-fungus brogues that came with the monkey suit. That was probably the least fun wedding I’ve ever been involved with.
Weddings vary tremendously. There are certainly some large, extravagant weddings. But there are a range of styles, sizes & traditions. Here’s a sample from my personal experience.
* my husband & I had a small wedding. 20 guests and my dad’s secretary made my dress as a wedding present. We spent about $1000 25 years ago.
* one of my friends eloped.
* another had an outdoor wedding with about 100 guests and a pig-picking as a reception.
* another had a destination wedding (immediate family only) and a reception a month later.
* another had 2 ceremonies. One traditional Irish-Catholic wedding and then a traditional Indian (South Asian) wedding.
Pretty much you can do your wedding, your way.
A rehearsal dinner often includes out of town guests who have to drive in the night before. I imagine that’s less common in the UK
As others have said it’s a huge country. That being said, for an “average,” “middle class” wedding, here’s what most are like:
NOT in a big city. Too expensive. Even if the couple lives in the city it’ll be out in the country. Plus the farmhouse look is super popular. Can’t do that in Manhattan.
100-150 people. Typically no plus ones but if you have an established relationship your SO will be invited. So you’d get a +1 invite, but single people are usually not getting plus ones.
Bridal showers and rehearsal dinners, absolutely.
You typically wouldn’t invite acquaintances. My wife just got invited to a wedding of someone she hasn’t spoken to in 5 years and it’s quite odd.
Weddings are generally a two day affair. One day for the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, then the next day is the ceremony and reception. A few weeks before that some people have a wedding shower.
I got married in my in-laws’ backyard and had 42 guests, but still had a bridal shower (two actually – my coworkers threw one for me) and a rehearsal dinner. Every rehearsal dinner I’ve been to has been very low key: One at Pizza Hut, one at a Mexican restaurant, and the rest at a family member’s house.
Yes, we have bridal showers and rehearsal dinners. Even for small weddings.
For plus ones I’ve seen it where everybody gets and also where only people in an active relationship get one. In my experience it’s definitely not common to bring a date to the wedding that you aren’t in a relationship with.
As for guests, most couples won’t invite people they haven’t talked to in 10+ years. No random people you went to high school with or distant relatives you met once when you were 5. The trope of there being guests that neither the bride or groom know is not a thing in real life, unless the wedding is absolutely massive.
>They’re always shown to by absolutely massive and extravagant events where people spend like a years salary on the wedding.
A wedding can involve going down to the courthouse, buying a marriage license, and getting married right then and there for about $100.
A wedding can also involve flying all your friends and family out to Fiji and getting married on the beach for $100,000 dollars.
>Do you guys actually have bridal showers and rehearsal dinners?
Yes.
>With the plus ones, does everyone just get one?
Depends on how the wedding is being organized. There’s dozens of ways to organize your guest list and estimate/control the number of people attending.
>And do guests actually bring someone they’ve only just met, just so they have a date to bring?
That’s entirely up to the guest. That would be weird though. That’s more of a movie trope to introduce a new character and create drama than it is a thing that actually happens. Like the rest of the world, most Americans do not find insecurity or desperation attractive. Plus weddings are a great place to meet people.
Highly variable. We skipped the bridal shower. Rehearsal dinner was for people involved in the ceremony, close family, and people who’d traveled a particularly long way. We only did +1s for people in serious relationships, so no randos just for the sake of having a date.
My guess would be the UK probably has similar sized weddings. You’ve got families living on an island many of whom can trace their heritage back several hundred years or longer. It is probably pretty easy to gather up immediately family, relatives, and friends given enough notice. In contrast yeah some of our weddings, where the bridge, groom, their family and friends are either well off enough to travel and/or live close enough to make it, can be large. But many are also very small, especially if someone lives far apart from their family and long time friends.
Moscow and Lisbon are nearly the same distance apart as LA and NYC. Geographic distance is a real thing here and not everyone is going to be able to travel for a wedding. Its very common to send a (more expensive) gift if you can’t attend.
I’ve been to weddings that were thrown in a cow pasture, and I’ve been to weddings that cost $100K+. They anywhere and everywhere in between.
Depends on race and culture
My brother just got married and it was pretty big. Ceremony filled up a 200 seat chapel. Oldest church with the coolest (and my goodness, loudest) organ in Kenosha.
We had a rehearsal dinner and a bridal shower.
I learned that, traditionally, the groom’s family covers costs associated with the rehearsal whilst the bride’s covers the bulk of the costs of the rest of the wedding.
I’m sure the wedding was expensive, but I suspect it was nowhere near a year’s salary for her parents because they’re pretty well off.
It was too big of a ceremony for my taste, but I will say that a big wedding means LOTS of wedding presents, so I guess in a cynical sense it pays off.
To my understanding, attendance at the ceremony is looser than the reception. It’s not as important to know how many people are coming to the ceremony except inasmuch as you want to know how big a venue you’d need. But for the reception, you’re feeding everyone, so you also need to know how much food to get. So, the more the merrier for the ceremony, I guess? But it’s not like you’re required to bring a guest. Maybe if you RSVPed for the reception with a guest, so therefore they got a spot next to you at your table, then you’d want to bring someone to not look lame or something. Not likely but maybe it happens occasionally.
If I had to invite 100 people for my part of a wedding that big, I might be scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as people I knew to invite, so maybe I would start thinking like dentists or accountants or whatever.