Weddings
Fuck me I despise weddings. The stress, the expectations, the etiquette and above all the rampant hypocrisy they bring out in people.

Where to start? Well how about the fact that they're now so over-hyped now they take around 4 years to plan. Genuine conversation I had at work the other day, "Don't forget to save May 25th", "Isn't that a Wednesday?" "Not in 2013!"

But at least this one’s going to be at the weekend. Don’t even get me started on the fuckwits who decide to have their's on a Tuesday in the middle of nowhere, “because that’s the only time the venue was available”. Fine, so I basically have to give up at least 2 days of my holiday for some bloke my girlfriend worked with 3 years ago and some bird I’ve never even met before.

But you can always decline the invite right? Wrong! You’d better have a damn good excuse and don’t even think of trying it if it’s family. For some reason it’s even more important you witness the union of people whose only relevance to you is that some distant relation of your Dad’s once shagged their second cousin in the 70s.

This is before you even get started on the speeches (if I wanted to be slagged off by my drunk best mate in front of a room full of people I only know half of we’d go down the pub for 8 hours), the dressing up, the seating plans which require military precision and above all the expense.

But my biggest gripe is the hypocrisy of it all. I’ve lost track of the number of hardcore atheists and agnostics among my friends who have been absolutely committed in their beliefs until realising that all they’ve ever wanted to do is get married in a nice little country church in the Cotswolds.

I get the point of marriage and I’m generally pro. Displaying a lifelong commitment to the person you love is a wonderful thing (the tax benefits aren’t too shabby either). But, why not just go down to the Registry Office with your parents and particularly close friend/relatives for the ceremony, get it done in 15 minutes, and then toddle off to a nice pub for a massive party. Rather than spending 5 grand on table decorations and mounted invitations you could stick that all behind the bar and spend the rest on having an epic honeymoon.
(Milo Minderbinder, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 8:45, 14 replies)

Aetheists getting married in church
is offensive to believers and non-believers alike.

If you're attending such an event, you have my blessing to run down the isle and kick them in the balls/cunt.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 8:53, closed)

purposefully
Adopting a 'Jake the Peg' outfit to do both at once.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 8:57, closed)

"But it's such a nice venue and ..."
FUCK OFF
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 9:33, closed)

That said, I had an awesome conversation with the woolly tanktop vicar at a recent atheist church wedding
where he tried to be all cool and relaxed and down wid da kidz which prompted one of the slightly inebriated assembly to tell a splendidly inappropriate story about giving her husband oral sex on a bus.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 9:37, closed)

This
is glorious.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 10:11, closed)

I'm an atheist, and I don't find that offensive.
It's a building. People might think Jesus lives there, or whatever, but he doesn't. Most old churches were built with money tithed out of the masses, and most new ones are probably at least partly tax-payer funded. If it's a nice building, why shouldn't anyone who wants to use it for whatever legal purpose they like?
( jme, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 14:06, closed)

I agree
Especially the agnostic having a church wedding.
When me and Mrs Sandettie got hitched, it cost about £180 and included her outfit (I just found something in my wardrobe), both rings, the register office and taking all 13 of us to the local carvery.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 8:56, closed)

When Mrs Ugi & I got hitched..
... we purposefully avoided the church thing, primarily because it was disrespectful to those who do believe in that stuff to have us pretending we do for the sake of a pretty wedding venue.

In fact, we hired a perfectly lovely old stately home (which actually sounds much granter than it was - it's home to "the welding institute") and had everything at the same venue without making people drive around the place. We seemed to be able to organise this less than 6-months in advance and at about 20% of the price some apparently rational people budget. We made the invites, my mum made the cake, my MiL made the dresses. They were all lovely.

We worked on the basis that if you had: Somewhere to sit down, something to eat, a bar and some music, then you pretty much had everything covered. So far as I could tell, everyone had a great time and because we were not stressing about every minute detail, so did we. Oddly enough, it seems that many brides are so stressed about having the perfect day that they have an awful one instead.

Weddings are great as long as they aren't taken too seriously.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 9:36, closed)

Many of these gripes apply to my wedding
My now wife devoted a whisker over two years to it and it cost roughly as much as the Gemini program. On the plus side, it happened on a saturday, had a very small number of guests and being an atheist, it occured in a secular building. I've never encountered atheists having a church wedding but I can feel my bile rising at the thought of it.
(Leonard Hatred briefly did some work on, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 10:57, closed)

Churches are simply nice old buildings which history and character
I am an atheist but I still visited St Pauls cathedral and the Vatican and I still got married in my local church, mainly because of the history of my family getting married there. There was no religion in our ceremony at our request and the vicar was happy to adjust the service to our needs and wants.
( Peej, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 14:31, closed)

I'm an Atheist and I got married in a church
It was the same one most of my family had got married in, it was a beautiful old fashioned building and as the only people there were our guests I fail to see why anyone was offended. If I even thought for a second that this was somehow wrong it wouldn't make me much of an Atheist would it.

Also the argument about spending all the money etc. Well its personal choice isn't it. Why spend a fortune on a weeks holiday when you can go to a campsite half a mile down the road for cheaper. Its an easy answer, the memories. We did everything on our wedding day from horse and carriage to posh hotel and church, the memories of our wedding day are amazing and I have never thought it was a waste of money, I had an awesome time. For us there would have been no point doing a quick in and out in a registry office, we wanted a celebration, we'd already made a lifelong commitment to each other long before I stuck a ring on her finger. I say each to there own and I see some points in what you are saying but I don't think there was any hypocrisy in what we did.

The points I agree on though.

Week Days. My Sister did this and when people didn't show up and she got upset. I told her to suck it up she shouldn't have had her wedding on a Wednesday to save money. Saturday or fuck off.

Overlong planning or engagements that last forever. We got engaged and then got married 9 months later. I have a friend who has been engaged for 8 years. what's the fucking point?

Invites, we invited close friends and family up to our grandparents and down to our nieces and nephews no second cousin twice removed or great aunts you only see once every ten years.
( Peej, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 14:29, closed)

I would not expect to be married in a church..
.. any more than I would expect my friends to hold a church service in my sitting room - or indeed insist on saying grace when eating in my house.

You may, quite rightly in my opinion, consider it just to be another nice old building but the church-goers consider it to be special. I can respect that without agreeing with it.

I'm amazed you managed to get a vicar to not begin with "we are gathered here in the sight of God...etc". I don't think many will sanction that.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Fri 1 Apr 2011, 16:55, closed)

What tax benefits?
Anyway, i agree.
It's my business I got married. We did it in Prague 9 years ago. Anyone who wanted to come was welcome but no formal invitations.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Fri 1 Apr 2011, 22:22, closed)