Michael Bates Brandon Keilen wedding

[HermioneSparrow]

People crack me up :lol: just because you have a huge wedding or a small one doesn't mean you are awful or a grifter (the Duggars ARE grifters), the kind of wedding people have depends on the culture and the preference of the bride and groom.

I grew up in a very catholic family so weddings were usually huge ceremony at church, reception somewhere else with a sit down meal, alcohol, dancing, expensive kind of weddings... If i ever get married even though i grew up going to weddings like that i'm not traditional or religious at all so i'd be happy with a simple tea length dress, ceremony at town hall or the beach at the afternoon and just have a dinner and champagne to celebrate with max 20 of my closest friends. Planning, decorating,showing off and all that jazz are not my thing.

[nokidsmom]

Same here. Nebraska (my home state) is mainly Catholic and mainstream Protestant and what you outlines is exactly the expectation where I am from. Alcohol is an absolute must - the bar is typically an open bar for a set amount of time and then later in the evening becomes a cash bar, or once the keg runs dry.

Receptions are typically at fraternal organization halls, most often in the country. The wedding is usually at a church.

Most folks from my area are descendants of Czech/German immigrants so receptions without booze were kind of side-eyed.

Mr. No comes from Czech-German stock, so when my Maxwellian parents didn't want to spring for alcohol, my in-laws were absolutely dismayed. I prevailed and we got the booze. Mainly because I threatened that if they were not going to allow alcohol, then Mr. No and I would might as well go to the courthouse and get married because in my view, it was total waste of money to host a wedding and not have booze. People would be like WTF and I was not going to have guests at my wedding feel that way.

ETA: It was doing it half assed and I didn't want a half assed wedding. From where I am from, alcohol is a big part of weddings.

[chris]

*waves at Hiddenomaha* I love me nothing more than homemade mints! Did you do the Flying Dutchman and the Dollar Dance at your weddings?

Not the Flying Dutchman, but definitely the Dollar Dance. And the Chicken Dance!

[Mama Mia]

Same here. Nebraska (my home state) is mainly Catholic and mainstream Protestant and what you outlines is exactly the expectation where I am from. Alcohol is an absolute must - the bar is typically an open bar for a set amount of time and then later in the evening becomes a cash bar, or once the keg runs dry.

Receptions are typically at fraternal organization halls, most often in the country. The wedding is usually at a church.

Most folks from my area are descendants of Czech/German immigrants so receptions without booze were kind of side-eyed.

What is really interesting to me in this thread is that there are people from the same general regions who are equally adamant that the weddings in their experience are either of the reception=church-cake-punch-bye or reception= non-church site,food, dancing, music.

The part that is interesting - is if both type of weddings go on , why aren't people invited to both types ? I mean I know your immediate family, closest friends are likely all going to have very similar expectations and types of weddings. But what about co-workers, extended family in-laws, school friends ? Wouldn't you have some cross over in social circles ?

I'm sure there isn't an easy answer to this, I'm just finding it fascinating. Like I said, I haven't been to the church-cake-punch type (that I remember) . But there has been a pretty big range of wedding types that I've been to with varying traditions- just through the normal course of life - from casual at a park with everyone bringing their own picnic and most people in jeans, to very, very formal church wedding with the reception at a pricey hotel with sit down dinner and all the dancing, booze, etc. . And I'm not a particularly social person.

I'm just surprised at the lack of cross-over between groups.

[Growelly]

Well, to be fair, the Midwest is a very large region. Peas is from Nebraska, and I'm in Northern Wisconsin. I think I've only been to Catholic, Lutheran, and nondenominational weddings, but they were always as I described.

Just edited to add the my region has a high proportion of German and Polish ancestry. That might have something to do with it. And it's Wisconsin. Feeding people and drinking beer is the basis of society here. :lol:

[nausicaa]

The wedding industry and Pinterest has convinced people now that simply have to have the 'best of everything' and now all you see is couples going into debt or blowing all their savings (as in, $25k+ worth) to have the most 'impressive' weddings and I just find it stupid. Instead of being excited to start their lives together and planning for the future, all they are worried about is making sure their wedding is WAY BETTER than cousin Susie's wedding or that annoying Sally girl from the office who totally STOLE one of her wedding ideas from THEIR Pinterest board, stupid cow!

And honestly? Most of the big show-off Pinterest weddings I've been too have all blurred together into one big 'try hard' blur and half the couples don't even make it to their 5th wedding anniversaries because they cared more about the wedding than the marriage. Half of these weddings have been boring because I felt like I was there to be 'impressed', not there to celebrate.

How the hell isn't this just as judgmental, if not more, than the people who criticize the fundies for not feeding their guests? I'm also really surprised, and disappointed, that Mama Mia liked this post. If you're going to argue that cake and punch receptions in gyms are a regional thing and criticizing it is a form of bigotry, fine. But your whole point is completely lost if you then turn around and criticize people for having big weddings and paint all of those groups as materialistic, pretentious, and soon to be divorced.

I thought MamaMia made good points in her post, but comments like Lewy's frankly just come off as bitterness and envy with a whiff of class warfare (I hate this term but can't think of a more precise one at the moment). Make no mistake, you are not some social crusader, you're just judgmental of people being different from you.

Edited to explain rhetoric.

[nausicaa]

Some thoughts:

The married couple look so YOUNG! Are you sure they're over 20?

Anna Keller's wedding dress, while plain, was well made and it fit her well. It suited her personality, too. No snark from me on that one. Not MY choice, but it suited her.

Yes, indeedy. Jinger looks very, very thin. Her makeup doesn't help.

Jill Rodrigues is a fundy social climber wanna-be. Of course her kids are going to be dressed to the nines. I notice she went with a black and white theme. WHERE in the RV do they keep all these clothes, or do they only have one "good" outfit each?

Wedding receptions are a REGIONAL thing. In the Mid-Atlantic region, it is PERFECTLY FINE to have a wedding reception in a church hall, school gym, auditorium, fire hall, or Elks/Moose/Grange etc. It's where it's done. Furthermore, it can be a dance with band or DJ, a sit down meal, or your basic cake/punch/nuts/ mints reception. People also bring gifts to the reception, and sometimes the bride and groom are expected to open them right then and there!

Not saying there's something wrong with those types of weddings, but I have to say I'm from the Mid-Atlantic, been to nearly thirty weddings and I've actually never been to a reception in a school gym, an auditorium, a fire hall, or a club hall Nor have I ever been to a reception without a full meal. It's interesting that our experiences are so different. Maybe it's more of a religion/ethnicity thing? My dad's family is all old time Marylanders, and my aunts would be shocked if the bride and groom started opening the gifts at the reception!

[nelliebelle1197]

You know, it may not be the cake and punch reception for 7859 guests thing that has my feathers ruffled, but just they way they are doing it and who the people doing are. Palimpsest's wedding descriptions sound lovely. Phoebe's sounds perfect for the parents of a baby who have more important things to worry about.

But when you are trained to be a homemaker, when that is your vocation, and every woman around you is trained to be a homemaker and this is what you think is a tasteful or appropriate affair, then I can't even. You have a hundred professional homemakers as friends. You can't start a wedding brigade to make sure each girl has an appropriate affair and enough chairs?

People came in from all over the place. I am pretty sure Miss Manners and Emily Post would agree that you don't invite half the country, have them come over a long distance and treat them to a piece of cake and a deli tray. I am pretty darn sure Miss Manners and Emily Post would tell them to cut the guest list to something manageable so that they could at least offer hospitality to their guests.

[church_of_dog]

I feel like we are back to the wedding shaming that occurs every time there is a fundy wedding. Spend thousands on a huge wedding/reception and the marriage doesn’t last, its gaudy or a waste of money. Have a dollar dance and it’s tacky. The less you spent on your wedding, the more authentic it was or the greater chance of a long term happy wedding. It seems as though if someone did something different than you would do then there has to be something wrong with it. I even admit to being guilty of it in the past. At the end of the day, neither your wedding nor Michael’s is the right wedding for someone else. Everyone else likes different things and it doesn’t make it wrong. The type of wedding/reception is not a guarantee of long term marital bliss.

I will admit that, should I ever get married, I will proudly have the church wedding with the large sit down reception and the dollar dance because that’s how my family does it and we love it. If you want the small wedding with cake and punch that is what you should have because it’s your wedding. If you want over the top huge then go for it. I hope Michael had the wedding she wanted. I don’t like her dress but maybe it makes her feel like the most beautiful bride in the world and that’s all that matters. She wanted a brown accented wedding and it only has to be her cup of tea, not ours. She has nothing to be ashamed of. She knows what she likes, she knows what her peer group likes and I am sure she did her best accommodate everyone. If you expect a fancy wedding with all the bells and whistles, you don’t go to a fundy wedding where you know that is unlikely to occur.

I agree.

I used to say that if I ever get married it would be while on cross-country skiis, with maybe 2-3 other people there in total besides myself and the groom and whoever marries us. Of course I didn't end up living in deep-snow country like I intended to, so maybe it's time to alter that plan...

I also had the idea that, since I don't normally wear jewelry, including rings (how do people use shovels and mowers and other tools, dig in the garden, etc, wearing rings? Never could get the hang of that), that my intended and I might instead share a matched (and possibly custom-made) pair of earrings. Although lately I don't wear earrings anymore either, so...

At this stage in my life it looks unlikely that I will ever marry, so I don't spend much time focused on these kinds of details, but then again, I live where people attend weddings and funerals in their "good" blue jeans instead of the ones they fed the cows in that morning. The only place in my life where "formal" has a positive connotation is in language, and even then only occasionally. So I feel confident that if I ever do plan my own wedding, it will be something small in scope and in numbers of guests, relaxed, short in duration, and extremely casual.

I have not been to many weddings, but the few I have are not of any one category. There has been "out in the hayfield" with the reception in the community hall down the street, out in the backyard in the Sierra foothills, in San Francisco (I think in a church but I don't remember, that's how unimportant the setting was to me), in New York City (on an evening cruise around Manhattan), and probably a few others.

Oh right, there was the one in Seattle where I, and a handful of other out-of-town guests, slept on the floor of the bride/groom's apartment, and I woke up the morning of the wedding to discover prank/fake dogpoop on the foot of my sleeping bag, and could not believe that the bride had the time or mental room to play a practical joke on one of her guests (me!) the day of her wedding! (we had been roommates several years before, and during that time her kitten made a habit of pooping in my shoes...) I remember that they didn't need typical household type gifts, so a bunch of us chipped in for the one large thing they did want -- a kayak. Anyway, I guess my point is that I generally only remember interactions, not material things like what anyone wore or whether the meal was snacks or sit-down. Everyone else's MMV, of course -- I'm just a casual type of person.

[nelliebelle1197]

I live two hours from the Bateses and come from a Southern Baptist (my uncle was the minister at our SB mega church and worked for the BSB and state conventions for years. He is now running a state mission board)/Presbyterian background with a little IFB thrown in. My best friend for the last 30 years grew up about 1/2 an hour from the Bateseseses and this is not the "culture". I told her about this mess and she snorted and had a good laugh over what her small town east TN mama would think.

My point that no one seems to want to hear in the Batesesesess lovefest is that inviting a 1000 people from all over the country and not providing a decent reception may be ATI culture but it sure as hell is not southern culture.

No one is actually paying attention to what I am posting and the examples being thrown out are of small, intimate or unique weddings in the rush to once again defend the Bateseseses.

No one is "wedding shaming". Christ on a cracker. Does everything have to turn into shaming? It's about the nuttiness of these fundies. It was tacky as hell of Erin and Chad to ask for guests to pay for their honeymoon. It is tacky to ask guests to travel hundreds of miles and not have time to even greet them or offer them more than a cup of Sprite because your wedding is so huge and your budget is so small.

It is also ridiculous to expect guests to stay for 20 hours, endure 32 events, ask your parents to break into their retirement for a $50k wedding and your bridesmaids to spend $600 on a dress (been there) just because you want a wedding more than you want a marriage.

ETA: I do agree that what is right for one person is not what is right for another, but what I am arguing is that this not southern culture but a particular fundy culture but no one seems to getting that particular point. The people have too many kids - kids they cannot afford - but they still want it all- giant weddings, fancy honeymoons - and they want someone else to pick up the tab.

ETA2.0- Also, the homemaker thing! I remember my aunts and mom and grandma and their friends cooking for people's weddings and showers to make sure that everything was nice! Why are these people doing this for each other? They are professional homemakers and so much better than the rest of us. Surely, some church ladies could candy a ham or their husbands could fire up the Big Green Egg for some pulled pork or brisket!

Traditions for receptions definitely ARE different from place to place. Maybe you have friends and family who want to go the country club reception route. Maybe your set is Episcopal or Catholic and therefore, alcohol is more likely to be served.

But, as much as I like you, it is NOT true that it's a " gift grab" to have a very large wedding ( over 500 people attending) and only serve light refreshments that are professionally catered.

Again, I'll say it: IF the tradition at the particular church is for cake, punch, light finger foods, etc, then that's what the brides are going to have.

IF the tradition at the bride's church is for a 5 hour marathon of dancing followed by a 6 course gourmet meal, then that's what the brides are going to have.

You are failing to look at the norm for the particular place. By place, I mean the particular church or the offsite location of the reception. I definitely think that most Southern Baptists keep all receptions, no matter how lavish and large the wedding, low key. You can call it cheap, but I don't see it that way. A 5 hour wedding reception with a huge bunch of people drinking and toasting and then having a formal dinner is entirely out of my experience, and to be honest, I'm SO glad I don't have to put up with it.

When I want a formal dinner, we go to the restaurant we choose and order the courses we want to eat and pay for it ourselves.And leave when we want to leave. In this day and age, life is stressful enough without having to hang out at some girl's wedding for 5 hours or so. No food or friendship is that important to me, personally. Maybe the alcohol makes the difference. I don't like to drink, so again, it would be a drudge for me, personally, even if it was my own wedding reception.

I love a short wedding, a little cake, a little punch, and home to live MY life, not the bride's and groom's.

[busdrivingmom]

I have only been to one wedding that a full meal (of some type) was not served. It was a friend of my DH. He married a woman who was an assistant pastor at a Christian church. They were having appetizers, punch/lemonaid and cake, but they had invited 350 people (family, friends and people she worked with at the church, many who were also parishioners.) They also were funding everything out of their own pockets with no help from family. Friends had stepped up to make invites, work on flowers, take pictures, that kind of thing to help them with expenses.

It ended up being 600 people showed up. The whole congregation pretty much showed up, even those not officially invited. They thought if Pastor Amy was getting married, it was meant for everyone. The church ended up being standing room only, they ran out of food quickly at the reception and we did not get any cake cause the kids got to it first. Also, it was impossible to have any conversation with friend and his wife. I think we said Congrats and we'll catch up soon.

[anniebgood]

We're coming up on 30 years married so I've been to a lot of weddings and receptions (and I used to manage all the weddings for our church). We had a 6pm wedding and then a buffet reception in the very large church hall. We had about 250 people at the wedding and we managed to go and speak to each and every one...I didn't get much dinner that night. We bought all the food at a restaurant supply (Smart and Final was that then) and my aunt and uncle who were in Shrine, made all the rolls that afternoon. The church had a huge kitchen. Our choir director did the catering with our purchases.Everyone was fed and they were happy. My dress was handmade, and very mid 80's. The groom insisted on white for himself and black tuxes for all the guys. It turned out to be a wonderful wedding (even if I didn't know the guys were running back and forth to the truck and doing lines). We didn't have dancing because groom can't dance. But we had a good sound system and played lots of nice music.

I didn't have a registry, but when the husband went to see his relatives all jammed into a truck with a camper on it, I said nope, can't do the ride, and wrote thank you notes for every single gift. They were mailed out the day we left on our honeymoon for Lake Tahoe. I was OCD over that.

Back to Topic:

I liked her dress. Her hair perhaps looked better before the ceremony, if it was hot and humid any good do will fall. She looked happy and that is the way she should look.

[nokidsmom]

No one is "wedding shaming". Christ on a cracker. Does everything have to turn into shaming? It's about the nuttiness of these fundies. It was tacky as hell of Erin and Chad to ask for guests to pay for their honeymoon. It is tacky to ask guests to travel hundreds of miles and not have time to even greet them or offer them more than a cup of Sprite because your wedding is so huge and your budget is so small.

It is also ridiculous to expect guests to stay for 20 hours, endure 32 events, ask your parents to break into their retirement for a $50k wedding and your bridesmaids to spend $600 on a dress (been there) just because you want a wedding more than you want a marriage.

ETA: I do agree that what is right for one person is not what is right for another, but what I am arguing is that this not southern culture but a particular fundy culture but no one seems to getting that particular point. The people have too many kids - kids they cannot afford - but they still want it all- giant weddings, fancy honeymoons - and they want someone else to pick up the tab.

Snipped for brevity.

Thanks for clarifying that this is fundie culture and not southern. I don't reside in the south nor have I been to a southern wedding. Somehow I did not think that the Bateseses weddings were indicative of what goes in southern culture but more along their particular brand of fundie meaning, fundies who grift their way through life and have the public exposure to frankly, sucker a lot of people in paying for their things. Including fancy honeymoons, big weddings, and :fsm: knows what else. The Bateseses kids start off married life with shitloads more money and things than a lot of the people giving things.

And yeah, I thought it totally tacky for Cherin to ask for donations for their honeymoon. If I were at a wedding and the couple asked for this, you could be darn sure that I would not give a penny. It was also tacky for Lawson to hawk his CDs at same wedding. Tacky, tacky, tacky. I wonder if he did the same thing at Michael's wedding?

[Kak]

i agree that everyone should have the wedding they want. Formal, informal, large, small, whatever. To each their own.

These weddings are a weird mix of formal and informal. Formal dress, formal service, huge guest list and then a very casual reception. Too incongruous. The wedding and the reception don't go together.

So yeah, to each their own, but that doesn't mean people are going to agree with the choice.

[Georgiana]

Exactly, Nellie.

It's not about the money you spend, it's about how you treat your guests. Expecting people to travel multiple states to attend your big day and then neither greet them nor feed them is just rude, IMO. Thanking a guest for coming costs $0. Absolutely everyone can do it no matter their financial situation. Michael and Brandon COULD have greeted every guest. It would be the receiving line from hell, but hey, maybe that's why you don't invite so many people. If they made an effort to attend your special day, they deserve a personal thank you.

ATI weddings promote RUDENESS to guests. They treat guests like banks and then don't even bother to try to make their guests feel like they matter. There's nothing shaming in snarking on that.

[VeryNikeSeamstress]

My thoughts on Michael's wedding look:

It looks like it was originally a dress with a lower neckline that has been built up. I imagine that the bust ruching probably looked quite nice in the dress's original state, but the alterations make it look like she's wearing extra bust padding over her clothes.

Her hair looks pretty, but NOT with that covered up dress. I get that fundies wear their hair loose on weddings because of a biblical verse about hair being the woman's crowning glory, but with high necked dresses updos look so much better.

The whiteness of the dress looks very stark with her natural coloring. She'd have looked much better in a warmer white or an eggshell.

[SassyPants]

I think what most people find offensive in regard to what the Duggars and Bates do, is that they spend so much money on the dress and their wedding registries are so extravagant and then their wedding itself is really cheap. It just seems in really poor taste to have a wedding registry be worth more than your entire wedding.

I'm totally fine with "come see us say 'I do' have cake and punch and then go. For large, busy families it's pretty ideal. I also hate standing around with people, so... Much easier. But if that's the style you're going to do, then it seems like your wedding registry should also show a fair bit of simplicity. Like, nothing over $100 and have the average price be about $25.

If I have such a huge wedding that I won't even get to shake hands with everyone, you bet I'm gonna feel guilty asking them to buy me much of anything. It just seems impolite. They're attending to celebrate with me and yet I invited so many people that I can't even celebrate with them? Ick.

The other side is the incredibly intimate ceremony of 40 or 50 people and a full dinner. To me that makes much more sense for a bit of extravagance because the bride and groom will actually get a chance to speak with every single guest -the wedding dress cost can be a bit more, the registry can be a bit nicer, because you're getting that one-on-one interaction with the couple on their special day.

I get that it would be almost impossible for a fundie to have a 40 to 50 person wedding, then... scale down your registry. Considering if you can't get it below 200 people, think of how many weddings they're gonna have to attend in any given year.

IDK, just my two cents.

Phoebe -I think your wedding sounds fine. As Monica pointed out -you'll be able to speak with all of your guests; that's huge. As long as you're not super gift grabby, especially considering you're already living together and opted to have a child (a whimsical, huge, and very extravagant cost) it's fine.

Personally, I think going the cheap route in every aspect of a wedding from decorations, venue, food, music, clothing, EXCEPT the bridal gown is very odd for a family who verbally has touted the following: 1) Buying used and saving the difference and 2) JOY- Jesus, others, self. IMO, the wedding gown should fit in with the rest of the wedding and stated (ad nauseam) family principles should stand even during something as special as a wedding.

Yes, even if the wedding gown is comp'd.

At least the Bates and Kellers walk the walk, in this regard.

[nelliebelle1197]

Exactly, Nellie.

It's not about the money you spend, it's about how you treat your guests. Expecting people to travel multiple states to attend your big day and then neither greet them nor feed them is just rude, IMO. Thanking a guest for coming costs $0. Absolutely everyone can do it no matter their financial situation. Michael and Brandon COULD have greeted every guest. It would be the receiving line from hell, but hey, maybe that's why you don't invite so many people. If they made an effort to attend your special day, they deserve a personal thank you.

ATI weddings promote RUDENESS to guests. They treat guests like banks and then don't even bother to try to make their guests feel like they matter. There's nothing shaming in snarking on that.

I was just thinking that they likely did NOT greet all their guests because J-Rod would have had a Jillerizing pic up of HERSELF with the happy couple in an instant. I know she was awfully busy chasing DQ down but there is some prestige in getting a snap with M&B!

[Georgiana]

I was just thinking that they likely did NOT greet all their guests because J-Rod would have had a Jillerizing pic up of HERSELF with the happy couple in an instant. I know she was awfully busy chasing DQ down but there is some prestige in getting a snap with M&B!

Oh, if JRod saw the bride, we would know.

I don't think Erin and Chad greeted everyone either, so we can suppose it isn't a priority in that family. We forget that Gil is such a grifter. I'm sure anything he involves himself in, including his daughters' weddings, will have a grift.

[catlady]

The problem I had with Jill and Jessa's weddings was the lack of hospitality, not the casualness (pardon me if some of my facts are mixed up between these two events, they've blended together by now).

There is nothing wrong with a cake and punch reception, but I didn't like the fact that with a gift registry that someone calculated at $35k or higher, they expected their guests to make their own floats and then drink them standing up in a parking lot. By not having tables and chairs, they appeared to have no regard for guests with back/leg/foot pain, pregnant women, anyone with a child small enough to be held, or older/ tired guests who simply would have liked to sit down for a little while. ( Were there any chairs at M&B's reception? I would think Jessa would have been quite tired if she had to stand for 2 hours.)

And meanwhile, the J brides asked their guests for a MacBook, a kayak, firearms, furniture, cereal, and twelve cutting boards. If Sierra didn't push hard for them to rent tables and chairs and hire a caterer who could serve up the root beer floats to the guests (somebody near Springdale should have had access to a portable soda fountain and ice cream chest with staff to run them), then she's a pretty poor wedding coordinator. I know she can't make her clients do eveything she says, but her job is to guide them in the proper direction.

I agree wholeheartedly that the cost of the gift should have zero correlation to the cost of the reception, and that wedding-shaming is unnecessary and mean-spirited. However, when some of these people ask for tens of thousands of dollars in gifts, enough to nearly furnish a house, and then don't offer a decent measure of hospitality in return, then that *is* shameful.

[Kylolo]

Weighing on the wedding styles issue:

I come from an Appalachian family that knows poverty, like grandparents had no running water until the late 80s poverty. This kind of wedding--cake and punch at church post-ceremony--is all I ever knew until I went to college. My father's family isn't quite as poor but from the same county and did weddings this way too. In their area, churches are the only places anything happens, there's no such thing as a hotel ballroom or general venue available for rent or even enough available flat land for a large tent.

For my own wedding in the mid-90s I had to fight my parents to have a reception outside of the church. It just wasn't done that way; receptions were in the basement and the highlight was watching the bride and groom open the gifts. (I refused to consider doing that, too. I was the rebel.)

My point is that the style of wedding is regional, familial and poverty-driven or some combination thereof. I don't begrudge them for doing it as it's always been done in their families.

[Mandysue]

Well let me throw my two cents in.

I have lived in the Deep South for 46 years. The majority of the weddings I have gone to have been cake and ouch receptions. It may be because we weren't the country club set. Somewhere in the last 10-15 years people have added finger foods to the menu.

I married at a state park on a mountain. We rented a pavilion afterward and cooked out. (Between the ceremony and the reception a squirrel ate part of the cake.) I had several people from out of town, all family. They gathered before and after the ceremony at my aunt's house, it's where we always go.

I went to my nephews very formal wedding a couple of months ago. 9 hours away from me. Sit down dinner. It was great. I bought a gift. To be honest if they had just had cake and punch I would have been fine because I shouldn't expect them to consider MY wants and needs for THEIR wedding.

Every one is different. My wedding is what I wanted, I wouldn't change a thing, not even the cake getting eaten. Your wedding is your wedding and you get what you want.

My advice to engaged people is always to not to stress out over the wedding because it is just one day in their lives. Marriage isn't the wedding marriage is everything that comes after that.

[SassyPants]

I live two hours from the Bateses and come from a Southern Baptist (my uncle was the minister at our SB mega church and worked for the BSB and state conventions for years. He is now running a state mission board)/Presbyterian background with a little IFB thrown in. My best friend for the last 30 years grew up about 1/2 an hour from the Bateseseses and this is not the "culture". I told her about this mess and she snorted and had a good laugh over what her small town east TN mama would think.

My point that no one seems to want to hear in the Batesesesess lovefest is that inviting a 1000 people from all over the country and not providing a decent reception may be ATI culture but it sure as hell is not southern culture.

No one is actually paying attention to what I am posting and the examples being thrown out are of small, intimate or unique weddings in the rush to once again defend the Bateseseses.

No one is "wedding shaming". Christ on a cracker. Does everything have to turn into shaming? It's about the nuttiness of these fundies. It was tacky as hell of Erin and Chad to ask for guests to pay for their honeymoon. It is tacky to ask guests to travel hundreds of miles and not have time to even greet them or offer them more than a cup of Sprite because your wedding is so huge and your budget is so small.

It is also ridiculous to expect guests to stay for 20 hours, endure 32 events, ask your parents to break into their retirement for a $50k wedding and your bridesmaids to spend $600 on a dress (been there) just because you want a wedding more than you want a marriage.

ETA: I do agree that what is right for one person is not what is right for another, but what I am arguing is that this not southern culture but a particular fundy culture but no one seems to getting that particular point. The people have too many kids - kids they cannot afford - but they still want it all- giant weddings, fancy honeymoons - and they want someone else to pick up the tab.

ETA2.0- Also, the homemaker thing! I remember my aunts and mom and grandma and their friends cooking for people's weddings and showers to make sure that everything was nice! Why are these people doing this for each other? They are professional homemakers and so much better than the rest of us. Surely, some church ladies could candy a ham or their husbands could fire up the Big Green Egg for some pulled pork or brisket!

Do the Bates cook? Real food that looks and tastes edible? We know the Duggars cannot and do not. IDK, maybe many of their fundie friends have the same culinary skills.

I think the whole "being a great homemaker" all depends on the mother/role model. MD is an abysmal failure in that department.

[Palimpsest]

Honestly, I find Fundie wedding threads hysterically funny. People weigh in on how things "should" be done and the regional/cultural expectations are so widely diverse.

Time was when I found Fundie weddings rather cute. I mean they were affordable and didn't cost an arm and a leg (see Kristina). But they are nasty. I'd much rather snark on the transfer of authority (fuck that), the first kiss (fuck that too), Gothard's presence (or not), and Steve Maxwell preaching about DEATH, than the fit of the bride's dress, or the food and seating, or the lack thereof.

My opinion is just roll with the flow because family expectations often control the wedding. The Jill/Jessa gift grabs were OTT. I have not looked at other Fundie wedding registries, but 30K for Jill? :pink-shock: .

I've been to no-booze Fundie-lite weddings; traditional UK weddings (watch 4 Weddings and a Funeral); a Catholic/Jewish wedding (shit, the happy couple tried their best but those particular families wanted to kill each other and the open bar did not help); Quaker (Friends) weddings; JoP weddings for small numbers; and an Indian (Hindu) wedding. That last was the best party but the bride was so stressed that she could not enjoy it.

Yeah, I've been to far too many weddings. Actually, these days I'd almost rather face a firing squad than attend another. I pick a nice pressie off the registry (thank Dog for registries because they were verboten in my day) and send my regrets. Much though I love you, I am just so weddinged out. :lol:

[Snarkle]

American weddings are a function of location and culture. In my Midwestern Lutheran/Catholic family we typically have a church ceremony and then a reception at another location. I had a 100-person sit down dinner and dance at a hotel with a partial open bar, one of my cousins had her reception at a hall with 300+ people and a buffet, and my niece had her ceremony outside in a city park and the reception at a shooting club (bow & arrow). My husband's East coast Jewish family mostly has hotel weddings with the ceremony and reception in the same hotel, just different rooms. We did go to one Orthodox Jewish wedding where the men and women were separated at the dance which was interesting. It's also common to have "destination" weddings as well now. One of my cousins got married in the US Virgin Islands, just him and his bride, and they had a reception for friends and family when they returned home. The one thing in common for all of the weddings in our families is there is a ceremony, some sort of meal (usually with liquor - none of this cake and punch stuff), and usually a dance. The one notable exception is our friend who is sixth generation Mormon and got married/sealed in an LDS temple (we couldn't see the ceremony because we're not LDS) and then had their reception in the bride's family's backyard and the strongest thing served was lemonade. So it really depends on how many people are invited, where the event is held, what the budget is, and if religion is involved.

I had written this a number of pages back in response to the original "what is with American weddings" comments, and wanted to add that I, too, am from the upper Midwest where liquor was a must and it definitely was expected. When I lived in Chicago an open bar was a given, but in Wisconsin a cash bar was OK if there was other liquor available. My parents got married at a Lutheran church and had the church basement reception with a cake and mints and nuts and that whole thing. Our wedding was small enough that my husband and I were able to visit every table and thank every guest personally for coming to our wedding. A few months later my inlaws hosted a second reception in Washington DC at a lovely hotel (where we were blessed by a reform rabbi like a vow renewal) and that was fun as well with only abut 50 people. My husband's complaint about my cousins' weddings is that the end of the ceremony and the start of the reception was often hours apart while the bridal party drove around in a party bus taking pictures in local parks. Since we were out of town guests, there was not much for us to do for several hours. When we got married our reception started right after our ceremony because we had so many out of town guests (who we did feed at the reception, as well as the next morning at a brunch where we opened our gifts).