Wedding help

However you envision your day, is how you should do it.

Don’t worry about others feelings on this one particular occasion.

Has he ever been at a wedding? How much attention did he actually pay to the groom (unless he was a best man). Most of the time the attention is in short bursts - during the ceremony, speech, the first dance. And that's it. The rest of the time guests are mingling with each other, photographs are taken, people are at the bar or catching up with family they haven't seen since the last wedding.

By all means have some compromises, but don't have everything just to appease him not wanting attention. Cos really, most of the attention is on the bride anyway, the dress, the flowers.

You get to do this with him once, so make sure it's what you want as well.

This 👍🏻

No. This is the part of your logic that doesn’t work. You can cut off at this point. 50 is still fairly small and everyone knows that choices have to be made at weddings. It really is fine to decide that 50 is what works for you and not invite others.

Why can't you invite the friends rather than distant family? Sometimes friends are the most important people in our lives

I want to say something about this. We’re at that age when we’re going to several 40th anniversary parties and it’s noticeable how few of the friends from the weddings are still in the couples’ lives, including best men and bridesmaids. But siblings and cousins and sometimes older relatives are still there.

When you’re young, you prioritise your friends, but friends come and go and your family will always be your family.

Destination wedding? We went to a reasonably priced, 4 hourly flight, family friendly resort. We booked our wedding and put an informal invite to those that wanted to join us. Our wedding for my DH and I was absolutely perfect. Wed a 7pm on the beach with the most beautiful sunset, followed by a bbq and free bar with 52 of my nearest and dearest.

It was epic and I wouldn’t change one single thing.

Do a small wedding either with just immediate family of even just two witnesses then do a big party later on with everyone. I ha da covid wedding, we were only allowed two witnesses in the registry office and it was all properly social distanced. so as not to look like we were favouring one family over the other we chose two friends to be our witnesses then we had big party in 2023 when all restrictions were lifted.

Maybe you need to separate the wedding and the party then?

Just have immediate family for the ceremony and friends later?

The middle ground is the hardest to achieve. If you keep it to parents and siblings, no one feels left out. But once you get to spreading it out to some, you have to invite others.

Which bits does your husband want? There's a lot about what he doesn't want (not a criticism, I was similar) but does he want his parents to see him get married for example?

@itrezcbmko Not sure there’s an answer here. There’s been various suggestions but nothing works. Every option is wrong.

It was separate (connected) rooms so there were people playing pool, people dancing, some sat on the lawn.

It was a very fun party but no speeches or formal parts. Ultimately if you have 50 people it will be a reasonably sized party.

Edited to say oops you replied to my other comment and i didn't read it properly. I do sympathise with not wanting the speeches etc. we didn't but we had under 20 and booked all the rooms in a small family hotel with restaurant.

@itrezcbmko So are the dc the issue? It’s really difficult with young dc who need attention. They either stay with another relative who’s not invited or they come. Most people leave dc with the “other” grandparent. Surely this can be arranged for a relatively short day? Party - you might have to accept they come. It appears my DD has friends who are delighted to come minus their dc. They want a grown up weekend and neither are dc invited. This appears to be embraced by the parents! Would other grandparents or aunts help out?

Have you looked at youth hostels? I went to a big house in peak District over a couple of days which was YHA. It was brilliant.

Beautiful old building but a really relaxed vibe. They got married with just family first night and had everyone else for a big party and breakfast. Best wedding I've been to.

Can you book the last ceremony of the day in the bigger registry room, so 4pm ISH.

Then hire a room, hall, cricket club (somewhere less formal) and have a buffet style tea (using caterers). Or hire a restaurant - be easier if it's mid week.

Thern there's no need for speeches and formal bits of you don't want them.

Decide the bits that matter to you and work from there.

We got married with just the 2 witnesses , spent the rest of the day with them doing an activity then a meal in the evening .

My mum is dead so I didn't have a parent on my side and Dh mum lives too far away and is not well so had no family at the wedding .

Aunts and uncles / cousins are a Christmas card only so didn't invite them . We had a lovely day.

The point is , it's your day so have the wedding you want , with the people you want to share it with .

Also, I think it's perfectly acceptable if you want to do the registry office not just you two, to invite the people you genuinely want there and have your 'obligation invites' (Aka the aunts, uncles and any partners you aren't bothered by) to the 'main celebration' if it's questioned you can just say that the registry office is an 'intimate affair with limited numbers' - they don't need to know if that means just your parents and siblings, or includes a wider friendship group. As long as the obligation invitees get to go to some part of the day they should be satisfied.

Registry office wedding late in the day and then rent a room somewhere nearby for party. Have music and buffet but no formal sit down meal. I think its the formal sit down meal that makes it more of a big wedding than numbers per se. And a buffet is more informal.