Have you got wedding season fatigue?

Rebecca Pearson loves a wedding, but are they becoming too pricey for the guests, she asks?
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Rebecca Pearson23 August 2016

It’s August, and if you’re over the age of, say, 26, then I say to you: well done. You’re over half way there. We're talking wedding season.

Weddings these days are a big industry. It’s no longer about popping down to the nearby village hall in your smartest suit and browsing John Lewis fondue sets anymore. When my parents got married, it was in the local church. Mum’s sister-in-law made her wedding dress (she looks like a glorious hippie babe, with barely there makeup and flowers in her unstyled, long hair). My Dad’s dad made his (incredible Noddy Holder-esque) suit and the reception was in the pub down the road. The hen-do? Cheese, wine and a feast of gossip in Gran’s front room with Mum’s closest friends the night before.

Weddings these days take months, even years, of planning. Crucially, they also take a hefty amount of saving/borrowing/forking out for Ryanair flights/babysitters/Phase Eight dresses/pin the willy on the hunk games. The average cost of a wedding is a whopping 18k and lots of couples are starting out their new life in debt, while countless guests worry about how they'll afford their rent after hen dos and hotels.

Let’s get one thing straight: I love weddings. I have a good cry during the vows, I relish the time to catch up with friends who are now dispersed throughout the world and I’ll Dad-dance until the music stops. But now that I've reached the age where 'The Question' is being popped left right and centre, I can also feel overwhelmed at the amount of time and money that they consume. And I'm not the only one. A recenty study found that Brits on average spend a staggering £644 celebrating the best day of someone else's life.

Talking to my friends, all of them say that they’re honoured to be a part of their friends’ special days, but all have at least one horror story. Anna* has dealt with nightmare Bridezillas “who expected me to spend in excess of 1k for just their wedding and hen do – and complained that they didn’t get exactly what they wanted. But when I got married, it stretched my finances to have what we wanted without p*ssing family off. Both occasions are a political nightmare with friends and family.”

No one wants their friends or soon-to-be better half viewing the nuptials with obligation and dread. And it seems a shame to reduce such a magical, fun, exciting event to crude financial terms. But the fact is that many people of my generation aren’t enjoying steady jobs and healthy incomes, so when we got those ‘Save The Dates’ a little bit of anxiety can creep in about whether we have the time and the bank balance to meet the demands of the Big Day.

Wedding dresses under £200 - in pictures

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It all boils down to pressure, really: pressure to have a wedding that matches up to Hello! covers; pressure to provide the wild stag and pressure to edit videos of all our friends saying “I just want to say that I really, really love you,” until way past midnight after work. It’s that pressure that can lead to a sense of reluctance - even resentment – in the run up, though we all know that once we’re there we’ll have a blast and create memories to treasure for a lifetime. So how to deal with this pressure?

Firstly, we should all feel comfortable enough to say no. If you’ve been best friends since you were three-years-old then you’ll probably find a way to attend, but if you’ve been invited to a hen/stag out of courtesy then I doubt you’ll cause any offence with a polite white lie of an excuse. Lots of hens are now in three parts so people can pick and choose what they can manage. There's also no need to buy a new outfit each time: dresses can be reborn just with a net skirt underneath or a different blazer. Airbnbs can be found in place of overpriced Premier Inns, or big cottages booked to share with other friends.

As for the couple. It's easy to imagine how hard it is to feed, water and entertain guests that range from stropping toddlers to conservative grannies to wildcard friends, especially if you’re trying to do it on a limited budget. But here's a theory: it’s not the fancy-ness of the wedding but the awesome-ness of the crowd that makes a wedding. At one wedding you might quaff champagne and oysters, at another you might be asked to bring a dish for a buffet and find yourself ladling Pimm's from a giant bucket. Both will be equally fun as they'll (hopefully) have something crucial in common: a room full of people full of nothing but love and joy towards the couple. And that's priceless.

Rebecca Pearson is a freelance writer. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram

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