I get that. I associate it with "church potluck" as well, and NOT wedding. One of my dear friends in college wanted a drive through reception. He said he would build a two-seater drive up window and decorate it, he and bride would dress up and greet people as they came by, hand a slice of cake out the window, and wave while music blared in the parking lot! 😂😂😂 His mother convinced him that if he was that against social expectations, he should elope which is exactly what they did. At least he didn't propose a drive through ceremony! 😁 I could totally see some crazy tv evangelist offering that service though. Drive up to his office window, the church secretary runs outside to the car with a basket of rice, hand the marriage license through the window after signing, read the vows off the pre-printed card, get pronounced, hand him $100 for services rendered, tip the secretary who is now throwing rice at the car, and drive off. The deluxe package requires an online order placed 24 hours in advance with Door Dash and includes two decorated cupcakes, two Hawaiian juice boxes, a bow and just married sign for the car, a cell phone photo texted to your number, and a faux mother to dab her eyes. $250.00.

😂😂😂😂😂

😂😂😂.You go woman!

😠😠😠 So sick of people excusing abusers, and pummeling victims. Don't send d$ck pics and don't pursue teenage girls are NOT difficult things for grown males to understand. Apologists for such behavior need to shut up.

Well, I should probably tell you that our eldest boy, 25, has found his life partner. This fall there will be a secular ceremony but no formal reception. We adore her! Their plan is a ceremony in a picturesque spot on her college campus for just them - probably at the nature center - siblings, parents, grandparents, and a handful of friends. We offered to take the whole group out for dinner after and have reservations at a restaurant that is very beautiful inside. They don't want formal photos, so it's me with the DSLR and friends with cell phone cameras. No frills. She has a black evening gown from a previous function she wants to wear, and ds has his kilt in the family tartan from my side, a vest to match, and a white standard wing shirt to wear with it. We are excited for them. I am providing some candle jars for the tables at the restaurants. I have ordered ribbon in her family's tartan plaid as well as mine. I will use that around the base of the jars, and they will be filled with water and have floating candles. Other than that, no decorations except a small card box that I am making, and a small cake being ordered from the bakery that the restaurant uses. They chose a very pretty cake. Her family is gifting them a couple of days on Mackinac Island before the tourist season is over.

It will never be over! It snowed again today. 😭😭😭

No matter how many times I come back to this thread and look, it does not improve. What is that definition of insanity again! 😂

It is VERY expensive for the taxpayer, and probably doesn't make us safer since they are using dollars for incarceration that could be used elsewhere such as other rehab programs, not paroling potentially still violent offenders due to prison overcrowding, etc. Even sending them back to local county lock up or a nursing home with an arm cuffed to the bed would be cheaper than prison and prison infirmary. However, it makes the public feel better to see them stay in prison. We need and overhaul of the entire system and how we think about the issue.

I am so sorry, Kelly. The system sucks. But I think it was designed that way just to further devalue women for whom nearly all the care giving and domestic work in this country falls upon. It is a huge problem!

Tragic is a very good word!

I am not a fan of all the money spent on them by many folks. I have niece who had a $35,000 wedding. Sigh. I am a fan of destination weddings or tiny weddings for practical reasons. One: Many couples do not live near their parents at all, often long distances away. Since they are often older than previous generations when they marry, they are no longer rooted in the community in which they were raised. So no matter what, long distance travel is involved for a lot of people, and they do not have the old standby of "free church and fellowship hall" to use. Renting facilities is expensive, and usually means only using the vendors approved by the facility. I used to do some event planning professionally, and I can say that this costs a TON of money. My new thing is to tell folks, "Keep it simple, go to the magistrate or pastor's office with a few friends and your folks and siblings, then go out for a nice dinner at a beautiful restaurant wear you need no decorations. Do this with 25 people or less, and it will cost practically nothing over renting a facility and hiring a caterer, and paying for table service play your family does not have to clean up aftwerward." Two: We have a high divorce rate in this nation and a culture surrounding divorce in which exes and their families tend to be unable to act mature at the wedding and during the planning process thus making the young couple miserable. My nephew was in this boat. My brother and his wife, the step mom, would not play nice for any reason. (ex sister in law was cool beans, and totally classy about it). If he had a wedding and if his parents and step mother came, it was going to be an ugly, miserable day. And this is getting to be so common in our "me first" culture. Getting worse actually, or it appears to be. The idea of basic politeness, decorum, public manners, and "not everything is always about you" has left the building! So nephew and wife picked a destination that they knew his parents could not afford, had a minor family celebration privately with her family when they got back, but paid for each of their best friends and significant others of those friends to go on the Destination Wedding. It was perfect for them because even though my brother and his wife, my parents, and his brothers threw a fit about it, it didn't matter because these same people would have ended up fighting on the day of the wedding if they had attended. My brother and his wife would have been spectacular jerks, this would have made my dad really mad so he would have gone off to "box his son's ears" so to speak, youngest nephew, would have tried to break it up, middle nephew would have tried to be the peace maker and gotten emotionally trampled in the process, and step mom who likes nothing more than to ruin things for her step sons would have been laughing maniacally in the corner which would have caused my niece in law, a woman who takes no guff, to go dress down her step mother in law. Who needs that? Who wants that? And I wish, oh I wish, this situation is a rarity, but it is not. How many threads have we had on this board about dealing with toxic relatives? A startling number of discussions. Multiple that by millions of families. That is a ton of couples for whom holding even a simple, in expensive, traditional wedding would be a nightmare. Three: We have a culture dominated largely by the philosophy that for the sake of "looks and putting on airs" expects the abused to invite the abusers and pretend everything is fine. So drunk uncle touchy feely is expected to be allowed to attend. Evil grandma who gets her kicks out of b!tching at everyone must be invited, etc. And then the family war over, "We want to have a small wedding so it doesn't cost much so that means dad's business partners can't attend" followed by dad having a fit about that. The process of whittling down guest lists to a reasonable number is fraught with emotions. Four: Many parents want the traditional big wedding, but are also no longer willing to able to afford it thus leaving the burden of their demands on the young couple. Five: Too many guests believe they should be wined and dined in style, and that is a lot of pressure. I have seen people go ballistic on brides for not providing daycare, or special children's meals, or not enough desert choices, or not a good enough view during the wedding, or....people are nuts! Many a bride and groom have been in other bridal parties, seen the drama, and have decided it isn't for them. I don't blame them. So I think wedding culture is just crazy in America and of course now has very little to do with the actual marriage. Society seems to have lost sight of that. And yes, real flowers are getting to be very expensive. If anyone here is in the planning process and has a level headed, frugally minded bride, Michaels is already clearancing out their spring florals. There are small, but very pretty pre-made silk bouquets available for $4.99 and large ones for $16.99. Wrap the stems of the small ones with a piece of fabric or ribbon, put two large ones together and slap on a nice bouquet wrap for the bride, and voila. Fhere were corsage size arrangements in four different color combos foe 99 cents. They had tussie mussies dirt cheap so if this is a wedding where family rows of seats need to be marked, a few of these popped on the end of chair/pews would look great. And for tables for the reception, glass nesting jars from the dollar store, on a dollar store silver charger plate, with dollar store gem stones in the bottom, filled 3/4 way with water, and submerged live baby's breath is truly lovely. Baby's breath is inexpensive so you could have a centerpiece for less than $8.00. Just tossing that out there if anyone needs a cheap idea to make something pretty for tables.

I think it is entirely politically driven. No one wants to be the head dog that lets her out on his/her watch because it won't be popular with a lot of voters. I guess this is one of the consequences of being a notorious murderer. Even if rehabilitated and keeping her makes no sense from a practical, social viewpoint, the politics always wins.

Here, the judges have zero patience for it and do not award any kind of alimony, and it is very hard to get Medicaid once the ex drops you from his medical insurance. I have seen many a stay at home wife with no minor children left at home end up homeless after the divorce until the family home was sold and the proceeds split, and even then if she never worked, judges and mediators do not always split that 50/50 because the legal lanfuage is "fair and equitable" which is seen as, "She didn't contribute financially so why should she get 50% of the proceeds of this major investment?". They have a LOT of leeway on this. It really does vary from state to state. According to this study, women's chances of being plunged into poverty rise from 7% as a married woman, to 45% as a divorced woman while men's chances do not increase. Even several years out from the divorce, women's chances of becoming poverty stricken unless she remarries is still 25% while his chances again remain static regardless of his marital status. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I have not seen a source walk that back. But I am not heavily following it in the media, just saw a mainstream outlet report a day ago saying he was asked to leave. So who knows? I mean at this point I think they should just name the 2022 Oscars the "Dumpster Fire Awards Show".

True. And well, an awful lot of them don't human well at all! My problem is he was asked to leave and should have. But he was a total slime and insisted on staying so he could get his award in the spotlight and yammer out his absolutely atrocious speech because ego. That should not have happened. When he didn't leave, security should have hauled his butt out of there, and they should have skipped presenting or announcing his award even if it would be awkward. He got everything he wanted, and then the "oh nowwwwwwwwI I will quit" pout. The Academy should NOT have let that happen even if it was uncomfortable to do the right thing and made an even bigger scene to remove him.

World's smallest violin playing just for WS. 🙄 Note he didn't offer to give up his Oscar. So he refuses to leave when asked after acting abominably, gets his award, gives a five minute narcissistic speech, leave we with his prize in hand, and NOW is quitting the Academy, and then on his wife's show no doubt seeking sympathy and to downplay his actions. I don't think I can watch Men in Black again, and I like a good slapstick comedy, and Tommy Lee Jones.

That sounds exactly like what my state would do!

This is so true! An honest proposal, so refreshing! 😂😂😂

We do not have free college in my state. Lottery funds supposedly go to k12 education. The lottery was sold to Michiganders in 1972 as a way to assure extra funding for schools. In 2020, 28 cents of every dollar of revenue went to the school fund. I have no idea what the operational costs of the whole thing are so no idea if that is low, average, or high.

Amen!

I came back to see if it improved with time. I feel like it poked my eye out!

Go over there and T.P it. I double dog dare you! 😁

I am with Catwoman. Produce the proof! Does the monolith have an Easter bonnet and basket of eggs yet?

We will have to do the same. Dh is four years older than I.

I am so sorry! 💓