How do gypsies afford weddings

A wedding is one opportunity, although ironicly, it is really about fitting in. This is complete speculation, but I sort of wonder if weddings didn't become particularly important community events because the community was traditionally itinerant. If you're going to get everyone together in one place, you ought to provide a party big enough to make it worthwhile. Maybe weddings have to do less work as community-building events in settled communities where everyone is going to bump into each other at church the next Sunday anyway.

So yes, it is an ethnicity - at least as far as the state is concerned. Gypsy or Irish Traveller isn't listed as one, so you'd have to tick the "Other" box. However, the more detailed categories used by the UK census did for the first time in list Gypsy or Irish Traveller as a category. And a personal story: I live in Epsom, where the Derby horse race is held every year.

It is a big gathering point for Gypsy and Traveller families. I've only lived here for 3 years but locals who have lived here for longer get very hostile towards their arrival, claiming that crime goes up around Derby Day purely because of the Travellers. I was having my hair cut a few weeks before this year's Derby and the hairdresser - a young woman around 20 years old - launched into lots of the usual stereotypes about them when we started talking about Derby Day.

I'm not sure any evidence exists either way of who commits crime around the time of the Derby. My own experience of Derby Day is that the visible crime - fights etc - is the result of drunk white middle-class lads.

But I think it's safe to say the hostility locally runs quite deep. Best answer: I've been watching the episodes on YouTube, of the British documentary version. I assume it's just repackaged for TLC. How many episodes in are you? They cover the question about wedding expenses as best as they can in episode 3 or 4, I forget which exactly. I think a number of factors are at play-- for one, it's a major life event in the communities and families save for years for the wedding day of a daughter.

Three, without the expense of a mortgage, there's a lot of money freed up over the years to save. There's obviously more to it, and I searched online a bit yesterday with the same question, but the answers are largely bigoted and accusatory.

So we'll likely never get the whole story, and that's okay. If the TLC version is different from the British version, then maybe I'm wrong, but I have found the series thus far I've just started episode 5 to be fascinating, fairly well balanced, and an incredible look at a very fierce people.

If nothing else it becomes a jumping off place for people to want to learn more, just as you are here. The feeling I've gotten from the series so far is that it's not for anyone to judge, and that while there are some "negative" aspects to the culture "grabbing", women's place in the community, etc.

I don't think the production company pays for anything. Best answer: The Television Without Pity forum has been very helpful in satisfying my shameful curiosity. It's awful. Coming from a culture where weddings are an important event, I can tell you that many people save up all their lives for their children's weddings, in particular their daughters. In Pakistan, you can even invest in a "wedding fund" in the same way as you can invest in a "college education fund.

Webb, who made the news for all the wrong reasons when he was given hours of community service after admitting five counts of fraud in , has, like Alfie, turned to 'hawking' or selling door-to-door to keep himself going. Despite making heavy weather of teaching 10 Gypsy apprentices to create her spectacular wedding gowns in her own spin-off show, Thelma's Gypsy Girls, dressmaker Thelma Madine also appears on the show to explain why gypsies are being unfairly maligned.

They don't work for anybody else. Even if they're going round getting scrap and doing things like that Hardworking: According to dressmaker, Thelma Madine, Travellers work harder than most.

Extravagant: Larry left gave his eldest daughter Margaret a wedding with eight bridesmaids and guests. I think this gets up people's noses as well because we've become lazy in our society. We sit there and wait for someone to say: "here's a job". My Big Fat Gypsy Fortune also meets CassyAnne, who spends her time blinging up household goods and selling them on, and her husband Bill, whose dream is to breed dogs to take part in the gypsy pastime of 'lamping', or catching rabbits with dogs.

Last but not least is Irish Traveller Larry, who is planning a wedding for his eldest daughter Margaret. Like the stars of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Larry is planning a lavish bash for Margaret, complete with eight bridesmaids, guests and a huge white dress. None of this will come cheap, but Larry is determined that his daughter has nothing but the best and says that Travellers have a 'secret way' of financing their larger-than-life nuptials.

So what exactly is this secret? You'll have to wait until Sunday night to find out! Lavish: According to Larry, travellers have a 'secret way' of funding extravagant weddings like Margaret's. Extravagant: Larry plans to give his daughter Margaret a wedding with eight bridesmaids and guests.

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Argos AO. As Roma Pip wrote sarcastically in his open letter to Channel 4 "I would have been married by now, if only I had known that the key to a woman's heart was to sexually assault her using a Gypsy courting ritual called 'grabbing'.

I asked my brother if he had grabbed his wife, but it turned out he had just asked her out on a date instead," he quipped. In an interview with The Guardian , Mary, a year-old Irish Traveller, revealed: "Grabbing has never happened to me or any of my friends and the first time I ever saw it was on the telly. I wouldn't put up with it, and I don't know why they made out we all do it. It's just one nasty boy they showed. I have honestly never heard of it. It's all make-believe. The families on the show appear to be very wealthy and boast plenty of disposable income to spend on lavish parties and over-the-top weddings.

However, as The New Republic reports, reality is quite different. Bindel reported that many "trailers are not connected to water pipes, and the toilets, bathrooms and cooking facilities are in a small, unheated shed across the yard.

Well, as The Economist found, "West Europeans tend to believe that Roma migrants are responsible for an epidemic of pickpocketing, shoplifting, mugging — and worse. We are not a joke, we are human beings and your work of fiction is only strengthening stereotypes and ignorance. Helen, a female Traveller in her twenties, felt the exact same way, telling The Guardian : "The way us women come across in the programme is a disgrace.

It shows us as nothing but slaves to the men, only good for cooking and cleaning, and always being available to open our legs to them. We don't want that for our daughters. The women are three times more likely to miscarry or have a stillborn child compared to the rest of the population, mainly, it is thought, as a result of reluctance to undergo routine gynaecological care, and infections linked to poor sanitation and lack of clean water.

Speaking candidly with The Guardian , Irish Traveller and mom of six Kathleen revealed: "Every week I go to the school and the parents are talking about that programme. They won't let our kids mix with theirs because they say we stink and don't talk properly.