Wedding Blessing with our daughters

[Smiler62]

Hi, so I'm wondering what everyone thinks....

My husband and I married in 2010. It was a beautiful day, but various things went wrong - my hair was a disaster, it rained all day, and the professional photographs were awful, albeit a few okay ones. But I still loved our day.

Since we got married we have been through a lot! We sadly lost 3 babies, had an ectopic pregnancy and underwent 5 cycles of IVF. I had an extremely difficult birth too resulting in severe physical trauma, which I wont get into, but all is okay now, however I had a hellish 3 years of chronic pain and it all badly affected my mental health. We don't live near any family, and as much as I love them they weren't very supportive (in helping), despite going through it all. We have two beautiful girls.

I feel extremely sad, I guess, now reflecting back on the years since we got married and how hard they were, but proud we got through them and of course we are blessed to have two amazing daughters. I don't like the word "renew vows" as we don't want to renew them, as the vows are forever, but I would love a blessing with our daughters. I'd love to get a wedding dress I want (my mum effectively chose my original one - it's just the way she is) and just you know go away, somewhere like Gretna Green, just the 3 of us, have some beautiful photos and a very intimate blessing. We aren't even religious, but I just want to do it as a kind of happy closure of all the crap we went through. What's everyone's thoughts? Xx

Go for it!

Sounds lovely! I bet your girls will love it too.

I'm just worried about what people with think, I know lots of people don't understand why people renew their vows and automatically persume one partner has cheated. I'd love to share the pictures on social media too, but again I'm worried about people judging us. We are quite private people and not everyone knows how much grief we've been through though. The main reason I want to do it is to experience an intimate romantic day with our daughters @Rudolftheorange yes our girls would love it they're very much girly girls and both have said "I wish we had been at your wedding" in the past, bless them. Also to just have beautiful wedding photos which we never actually got. I don't want that to sound shallow either 🙈. My sister is getting married in 2 years too and will have both kids at her wedding and this sounds bad, but I'm jelous. The thing is my sister and our mum are very gossipy, quite shallow people at times. They laughed at our wedding photos and said things like "wow that's not flattering" albeit yeah, the composition wasn't great (looking down, double chin etc) but at the time I was so hurt they laughed throughout them. My mum didn't even say "you look beautiful " on the day. Let's just say she's there for me, always says she loves me, but isn't very affectionate and says things which are so hurtful. Another example - trying on wedding dresses, she said "that slims you" instead of "you look beautiful " and to the sales lady " what about this" poking at my slight back fat over hang. I wasn't fat, I was curvy - Size 14. My sister is a size 6, actually she was a Size zero on our wedding, so i always felt I looked bigger than i was because of my mums comments. My mum just made me feel bad about myself. I don't know if she even realised she was doing it. It's just the way they are, my sister has always been the golden child, put it that way. I've always felt thst way anyway. Can't go into any more or it'll be a dissertation rather than a post lol. I don't live near my parents they live 1.5 hour away and my sister lives 3 hours away xx

i really feel for you @Smiler62. your family don’t sound great and I’m really sorry you had the experience you did.

I say go for it, 100%. As you say, it’s not about renewing per se but rather celebrating what you’ve achieved and how far you’ve come. Hope you have a wonderful day 💐

I'm so sorry your family have been so awful in the past. As for others judging, I wouldn't assume an affair but if someone did that would be their issue not yours. Don't live your life in fear of what other people think. It sounds like it would be a wonderful time to celebrate all you've survived together and the gorgeous family you have. No-one else has to give their approval. You're allowed to just be happy and enjoy it.

I think it sounds like a wonderful, special day, definitely go for it. In regards to other people/social media I'd put something along the lines of "As you all know we'd have a tough few years so to celebrate the strength of our marriage and our beautiful girls we've had a blessing to celebrate us"

@Smiler62 we got married (I know not a blessing) but we did it at Auchen castle (about 30 minutes from Gretna) and it truly was incredible. Only five of us there including my daughter and to go up there and escape and do it was incredibly special. I highly recommend it and would give you a wonderful private and intimate experience together.

Sorry, OP, for everything you've been through.

In the politest possible way - who gives a fuck what anyone thinks? One day you'll be snatched off this earth, do whatever you like for the short time you're here.

If you did feel the need to explain you could say something jokey like "Because so much went wrong with our first wedding, we decided to try again with a blessing. Better pictures, better weather and our girls were able to be there"

@Newtrix I love that response. Yeah you know what, sod it. We're going to just do it, otherwise I'll regret not doing it. Beautiful pics to put around the house too 😊 absolutely life is far too short. Thank you lovely ladies xx

That sounds wonderful.

If you're wary of people thinking that you are "renewing your views" (ie dealing with unfaithfulness) how about framing it as a family blessing? After all, there are baby blessings, and partnership blessings, so why not a family blessing?

@Aparecium awesome idea 💡....that's exactly what it really is....a celebration of, well, us....the awesome foursome us, who have come through a storm (the girls don't really know that that, but they will do when they're older) and to celebrate how grateful we are to have each other. Great advice xx