Is there an age where the whole wedding thing needs to chill?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would be a little embarrassed to be having a shower and a balls to the wall bachelorette party at 36.

It was tacky and embarrassing at 30. Could not imagine doing it all so close to 40.

You’d be embarrassed to have a shower? Should women in their mid-30s not even bother with a wedding because now it’s embarassing at that age?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is this even a question? Yes, she can celebrate as she pleases. You are selfish for even considering that she should tone down her celebration and excitement in the name of ageism or to make you more comfortable based on YOUR current stage of life.

This.

Aside from that, it’s the MOH and bridesmaids that plan the parties. So find a club that is fun and classy, not one filled with college kids and the Like. There is a lot of wiggle room here that is “age appropriate”. You’re just more concerned with your current life of raising small children. You’re probably not that far off penis headbands yourself, but now you’re trying to push your new lifestyle on others.

I’m 43 and have been to some wonderfully raunchy and fun showers and gatherings in the past few years. I’m so glad I still have the opportunity to carry on like that!

Words to live by my friend, words to live by...

I'm reading this and feeling left out, as i never had such a headband.

That would be a hilarious line in a movie about a wedding - a bride screaming at her bridesmaid: "You're not that far off penis headbands you b****!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As someone whose friends mostly married young, I kind of resent this. I shelled out for their weddings, why shouldn’t they return the favor if I asked? It’s kind of unfair to put an arbitrary limit on her wedding fun to justify your lack of interest.

+1. I am in my early 30s and not yet married, but a lot of my friends got married young and had huge festivities. I showed up to EVERY one with a smile even if I couldn’t really afford it or had other things going on. Based on the attitudes I frequently see here, I’d be screwed if I did want them all to celebrate me in a similar manner. I get that life isn’t “fair” but to not show up for your good friends or to complain in the petty manner OP has here is really crappy IMO.

I think it's not that you're screwed if you want your friends to celebrate with you. I think it's that - I think? - expectations and preferences tend to change as you get older. I was never a get dressed up and party all night type of person, in my 20s or now. But I literally cannot stay awake until 3am the way I could when I was younger anymore. I also am not willing to drink myself into a headache anymore. I didn't ask anyone to do these things with me before my own wedding - in my late 30s - and my friends tended not to be the types who would do this anyway. But I absolutely would be the no fun person if I were asked or expected to show up for that kind of party now.

Maybe the thing is that you just have to be sensitive to the actual people you're actually asking to be part of your celebration. If they are the types who are eager to get away to Vegas for a weekend, go for it. If they've mellowed into being the types who'd rather go to Portland, Maine, for wine and lobster for a weekend, maybe do that instead. I think it's just a little silly to demand that everything be even steven with no regard to how people's lives - and bodies! - have changed.

This is 100% correct.

But until you do something, you don't know. I'm 41 with 2 kids, so I get it. But that said, I know a number of people that are my age or close to it and single, or got married recently, and you better believe we sucked it up and did what they wanted just as they did for us 15 years ago. And the single ones seem to live it up in a way I can't imagine these days. Kids REALLY age you and affect your lifestyle, and until you have them, you don't know how it feels day in and day out, which is why this bride can't fathom the effect this may have had. It's her day and her choice. If you don't want to do it, don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be a little embarrassed to be having a shower and a balls to the wall bachelorette party at 36.

It was tacky and embarrassing at 30. Could not imagine doing it all so close to 40.

You’d be embarrassed to have a shower? Should women in their mid-30s not even bother with a wedding because now it’s embarassing at that age?

I said I'd be embarrassed to have a shower not a wedding.

A 36 year old is not just starting out. Seems tacky to expect to be treated like a 25 year old who is just out of school and truly has very little.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be a little embarrassed to be having a shower and a balls to the wall bachelorette party at 36.

It was tacky and embarrassing at 30. Could not imagine doing it all so close to 40.

You’d be embarrassed to have a shower? Should women in their mid-30s not even bother with a wedding because now it’s embarassing at that age?

I said I'd be embarrassed to have a shower not a wedding.

A 36 year old is not just starting out. Seems tacky to expect to be treated like a 25 year old who is just out of school and truly has very little.

This is why I didn’t have a wedding shower. We both had already lived in our own. We had everything we needed. It felt like a foolish waste of time to register for towels. We had towels. x2! We also had gainful employment that could afford us new towels if needed. It wasn’t worth wasting two Saturdays to register and have the damn shower.

[Anonymous]

At a minimum, no one should be having her bachelorette (hate that word) party at a gay bar:

https://www.flare.com/identity/bachelorette-party-gay-bar/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please help me sort out if I need to get over myself or if perhaps I have a leg to stand on.

My cousin is getting married and I am in the wedding. She's 35, will be 36 at the wedding. First marriage for both.

I am in the wedding so just got the run down of what's expected and the festivities leading up to the wedding.

I'm one of eight bridesmaids and there will be three day destination bachelorette party, along with a shower.

This has been pretty standard in my circle for weddings, so for this will I will do what I did for the millions of other weddings--choose what I can go to, skip what I can not, and show up thrilled to be there.

But by our mid 30s, the last time I did all of this was a few years ago. If I am being brutally honest it just feels like she missed the boat on destination parties where we go to gay clubs and wear penis sashes. We are in our mid 30s, everyone is in the middle of dealing with small kids, it just feels so performative and tiresome.

Do you think it's fair to feel that you can "age out" of this whole thing, or is it fair to say that if you are getting married, and you want the whole shebang, then it makes sense. I would assume her stance is that she did it for everyone she knows, now it's our time to do it for her. Which I think definitely speaks to fairness. But then omg there we all are together as a bunch of 35-40 year old women at the club and it feels so cringy.

You're a jerk. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At a minimum, no one should be having her bachelorette (hate that word) party at a gay bar:

https://www.flare.com/identity/bachelorette-party-gay-bar/

this is OP and this is NOT lost on me and I really want to address this but right now I am not sure how.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be a little embarrassed to be having a shower and a balls to the wall bachelorette party at 36.

It was tacky and embarrassing at 30. Could not imagine doing it all so close to 40.

You’d be embarrassed to have a shower? Should women in their mid-30s not even bother with a wedding because now it’s embarassing at that age?

I said I'd be embarrassed to have a shower not a wedding.

A 36 year old is not just starting out. Seems tacky to expect to be treated like a 25 year old who is just out of school and truly has very little.

This is why I didn’t have a wedding shower. We both had already lived in our own. We had everything we needed. It felt like a foolish waste of time to register for towels. We had towels. x2! We also had gainful employment that could afford us new towels if needed. It wasn’t worth wasting two Saturdays to register and have the damn shower.

+1

This is how I felt, but I didn't want to seem ungrateful. We honestly needed nothing. We could have used (borrowed) a video camera (before cell phones - at a time when people actually owned separate video cameras and film cameras - yes I am old) when we honeymooned at my mom's home country and saw her family for the last time, but no one came forward to say we could borrow it, and asking for anything was pulling teeth, so we just let people do what they wanted, to keep the peace. Honestly, they could have bought ten video cameras for that money, and just saved them the aggravation. The best and worst of people com out around weddings, sadly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At a minimum, no one should be having her bachelorette (hate that word) party at a gay bar:

https://www.flare.com/identity/bachelorette-party-gay-bar/

this is OP and this is NOT lost on me and I really want to address this but right now I am not sure how.

Can you talk to her about how you really want to celebrate with her, but you don't want her celebration to come at someone else's expense? Would she be open to the article or the ideas in it?

[Anonymous]

I’m so glad to have gotten married young and poor with young and poor friends. Showers were hosted by the older generation, usually an aunt or something. Bachelor/bachelorettes were a night at a local bar. I haven’t even been in a wedding in my 30’s. One friend did get married a few years ago but her bachelorette was a spa treatment followed by a nice dinner.

Who wants to drop $$$$ on a 3 day bachelorette weekend everytime a friend gets married? I hope this does before my own kids get married. This is why millennial get a bad rap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be a little embarrassed to be having a shower and a balls to the wall bachelorette party at 36.

It was tacky and embarrassing at 30. Could not imagine doing it all so close to 40.

You’d be embarrassed to have a shower? Should women in their mid-30s not even bother with a wedding because now it’s embarassing at that age?

The point is, this isn't the 50s when you got married at 20 and had nothing. When you're 35 you should already have a decent knife and a pot. Don't hit your friends and family up for it. Also, don't coerce grown ass women to wear matching outfits and spend their hard earned money and vacation time on some stupid, cliche trip, making them make a spectacle of themselves. This crap is so lame. But whatever, if you like it, go for it. OP, if you don't like it, opt out of what you can.

[Anonymous]

I got married at 37. And I generally have shitty self esteem. I didn’t think I deserved to have a wedding, or a shower, or a bachelorette party, to wear a wedding dress, or even a ring. I didn’t think I even deserved to get married.

I’m glad I had friends who convinced me I needed a ring, a now-husband who convinces to have a wedding and wear a wedding dress, and a friend who threw my shower. (No bachelorette party)

Those events two years later are are some of my happiest memories. It makes me sad to think to whole thing was tacky because I wasn’t in my twenties. Obviously, I wanted to be married earlier. It just didn’t work out for me that way.

[Anonymous]

Yes, there is a certain age: The age you are when your friends have taken all of your support, attention, love, fun and celebratory cheer, and have decided that they will no longer give those sentiments to you in return.

After a decade or so of holding bouquets, holding poufy skirts while brides pee, gamely going along for a night on the town when you'd rather be resting after a long week at work, spending money on restaurants you'd rather not go to, wearing ugly peach pridesmaids dresses, consoling bridal nerves on the phone late into the night, and making their day special for them, the day will come when they will refuse to reciprocate and make it about you for once.

That's the day you've aged out; when your friends show themselves as true takers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be a little embarrassed to be having a shower and a balls to the wall bachelorette party at 36.

It was tacky and embarrassing at 30. Could not imagine doing it all so close to 40.

You’d be embarrassed to have a shower? Should women in their mid-30s not even bother with a wedding because now it’s embarassing at that age?

The point is, this isn't the 50s when you got married at 20 and had nothing. When you're 35 you should already have a decent knife and a pot. Don't hit your friends and family up for it. Also, don't coerce grown ass women to wear matching outfits and spend their hard earned money and vacation time on some stupid, cliche trip, making them make a spectacle of themselves. This crap is so lame. But whatever, if you like it, go for it. OP, if you don't like it, opt out of what you can.

FFS, people have baby showers for second kids these days. Always thought that was tacky, but I decided to just be excited I was invited to the party.