What is with the lavish bachelor(ette) trips?
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Anonymous
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I think social media has given this generation of kids Main Character Syndrome. Our DD has gone to several of these and for them it seems to be the norm. I think it is absolutely ridiculous how many pre and post wedding festivities there are and the financial expectation from friends is unreasonable.
When she has asked what we did for x or y my answer is always no one did that and none of us could have afforded it. Maybe that’s why so many of you guys have no savings. |
Anonymous
Yes this and the fact that it’s more common to live far from friends and family. I also think social media plays a role. I got married in my late 20s and these were common, but some people did decline due to finances. Now in our 30s friends are still having them and finances aren’t as much of an issue but many of us have kids and can’t swing it. |
Anonymous
| Back in the day, there were no Bachelorette parties. The soon to be bride got a bridal shower hosted for her with tons of practical household presents. There was food and games. It was put on by the bridesmaids for family and friends—all female. Then it morphed over the decades to a fancy dinner out with the ladies with maybe some bar hopping. Then it morphed to an extravagant weekend of a fancy dinner, pampering spa, etc. Now it’s amping up to destination weekends for the girls. As with most things, it keeps getting heightened to be bigger and better over the decades. |
Anonymous
| PP has it right. Further complicating matters is that Aunties won’t let the bridal showers go by the wayside. The bridesmaids aren’t planning a shower and the friends and relatives of moms think there needs to be a shower, so they organize it and the poor bridesmaids are “invited” to come again and buy a shower gift as well as the $ of the bachelorette and the actual wedding. Crazy. . . But the younger generation will do things their way. |
Anonymous
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If everyone has plenty of money and is doing it out of genuine desire and not obligation, then I have no issue. It's the bridezillas and their sister or BFF who call the shots and feel entitled that I have issue with and it's a summons not an invite. Of the "friends" I had like this, now many years later they are either divorced, in couple's counseling or miserable in their marriage. I don't think it's a coincidence. That same entitlement and lack of concern for other people's time and financial situation caused major rifts in their marriages too.
I also think if you are obsessed with the whole bridesmaid dress thing and having it be a certain color and style; you should pay for everyone. You are asking them to purchase a dress that most likely looks bad on them and won't ever be used again. |
Anonymous
| I just posted, but wow is this bringing back memories. Sometimes you don't truly know someone until they are getting married and you stupidly agree to be in a bridal party. I had a "friend" do a weekly email with updates, demands/assignments and she genuinely thought she was being considerate because while she demanded an ugly designer bridesmaid dress, she would not be requiring certain make and model of shoes, though she did expect a certain color and style and lucky us, she was not going to dictate undergarments! There were multiple showers and a bachelorette, and someone had to gently tell her she needed things on her registry that were under $200 for people getting shower gifts. I ran into her at a reunion, and she did a drunken rant about all her marital problems and low and behold it was about money and her entitlement. |
Anonymous
And I bet you all had a blast! Mine was simple too and good fun🙂 |
Anonymous
We just took a golf cart tour in Nashville and they said they have overtaken Vegas for bachelor(ette) parties in the past few years. And that place was not inexpensive for sure. |
Anonymous
Isn’t there a recent trend of young adults marrying *younger* post-covid? As in early 20s younger. That’s what I’ve seen anecdotally, and there have been several posts on here discussing this. |
Anonymous
The younger brides do seem to buy more into the approach of turning every step of the process into a Very Special Event, as Seen in these Photographs: the highly staged proposal event, the elaborate (and expensive) bachelorette trip, the nonstop wedding weekend. I made a joke about buying single-use bathrobes for the bridesmaids, and my sister said, "Oh, actually, we've got those." My usually delightful niece just kind of lost her mind over wedding stuff. |
Anonymous
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Only go on a trip like this if you will not be sad or put out financially if the trip winds up being a bust. Because many of them are. It's not always a great bonding experience. In fact, I'd say it's rarely a great bonding experience. At best it will be a fun excuse to party in another city with people you like.
I declined a lot of these invites in my 30s with zero regrets. You have to evaluate how important this friend is to you, how much you like this particularly group, your schedule, and your finances. I set the rule that if it felt like an obligation I'd resent, I just said I couldn't make it. Also, learn to stay off SM or manage any FOMO you might feel. That's just life, you won't always be part of what others are doing. SM makes this *so* much worse especially if you are feeling kind of insecure at the moment (everyone goes through phases like this). You need strategies for managing that, whether it's just not looking at Instagram when stuff like this is going on, to planning fun things back home to keep your mind off it if you think you'll feel left out. It feels like such big deal at the time but I'm mid-40s, married, and a mom now and none of this matters at all. I have some fond memories of weddings and bachelorettes but honestly a lot of them are boring or only okay and it's fine. This is not what makes or breaks a friendship. There are women who attended my wedding/bachelorette who I haven't seen or interacted with in 10 years, and I have two friends who couldn't even attend my wedding or bachelorette because one was living abroad and the other had a baby the week before, and they are two of my closest friends. It's just a party, it matters less than you think. |
Anonymous
| SOCIAL MEDIA |
Anonymous
| Rich people trend that has taken off on social media. |
Anonymous
I consider the entire wedding industrial complex a "rich person trend" that took off among the middle classes. And it pre-dates social media but goes back to Martha Stewart. Before Martha Stewart Weddings (the magazine) and TV shows detailing the lives and activities of rich and famous people, most middle class Americans, including UMC, didn't really know that weddings could be like that. Maybe middle class people in big cities had these aspirations because if you are from NY you are more likely to be aware of what weddings are like at the Plaza or something. But the rest of the country? No. People got married at their local church or someone's backyard, receptions would be in reception halls. People did "colors" and bridesmaids and stuff but everything would be affordable. People rented tuxedos, it was just a given that the food would be kind of mediocre, people weren't bankrupting themselves for weddings because it honestly wasn't even possible in most places -- there was only so much you could do and it was mostly priced in a way that the average family could afford it. So it started with people learning about the weddings of celebs and society-types, including details like the cakes and flowers and favors, and wanting to aspire to that. And then it grew and grew to encompass the bridal shower, the bachelorette, all of it. Then social media really exploded it by creating a more intense pressure. Also women realize early on with social media that there are just a couple events that tend to garner a ton of social media likes and attention (weddings and babies) and that increases the pressure to make the most of it. It's super weird. I got kind of pressured into having a wedding and even though we eschewed a lot of this stuff (definitely no destination bachelorette), I had friends who really pushed it. Some of my friends were so adamant that my spouse and I needed social media hashtag that they tried to create one without me until I kindly asked them to stop. My mom and sister were also very insistent and judgmental about stuff, maybe less because of SM and more because they really buy into this idea that you have to do it in this big, coordinated, photo-ready way. I wound up happy with my wedding but really frustrated by all the pressure and negative feedback I got from some of the women in my life, and that taints some of my otherwise good wedding memories. If I had it to do again, I'd go with our original plan to do a courthouse elopement and then just host a dinner with local family and friends at a favorite restaurant. We did a more elaborate, planned version of that anyway and all my favorite memories of my wedding were organic moments with my spouse and friends and family and had ZERO to do with the little details. I love our wedding photos but only posted any online because I wanted to boost our great photographer, and later took them down for privacy. I think it's all out of control and doesn't have much to do with marriage or even creating memories, it's all about likes and branding and it seems soulless to me. |
Anonymous
| Weddings are indeed out of control. I have an etiquette/hostessing book from the 50s geared towards rich housewives (for example, it is assumed that the reader has servants) and the wedding chapter features weddings that are shockingly cheap and simple by today's standards. You have everyone to your home after the church ceremony and serve chicken salad over lettuce leaves, fruit salad, Melba toast with curry spread, champagne, wedding cake and then coffee. Hire live musicians. The idea! |