Daughters wedding

[ElatedSnail]

My d and her OH have just announced their engagement. Wedding venues are being discussed. Me and my OH are traditional and ideally would prefer the ceremony to be held in a church. However she is looking at venues around hr and half away from home in big manor houses. We are a very small family and although we have met my daughters OH immediate family and friends i wouldnt say that we are friends. I feel asmif it is a forced situation and i dont feel that comfortable They are wanting us and other day guests to stay and pay for accommodation the night b4 the wedding and including the wedding night. They want the majority of day guests to stay the night and have food together. About 30 ish or so. Morning after wedding they want us all to have brekkie together. This seems strange to me. At this time of myself amd my husband wedding we were off on our honeymoon. Couldn't think of anything worse on the morning after to be having to spend all breakfast time with inlaws etc.There is also the cost of the stay around 150 to 200.00 per night plus extras for the food and drink that they are suggesting is bought in. Am I being a miserable cow. My daughter doesn't seem to want to listen to any of my suggestions

I also don't think that if guests really want to be there, they'll find a way. There are people for whom the cost or time away would be genuinely prohibitive.
I'm not saying the b&g should change their plans on account of this, but they shouldn't get to thinking that if people can't manage it, it's because they didn't really want to - that way lies broken friendships!

If this is a genuine question I think the change has happened now more people move away from their home town, and therefore marry someone from elsewhere / have friends from different places. My mum and dad got married in our local town, because that’s where all their friends and families were. I moved 3 hours away, have friends who did the same and live all over the UK/abroad. There would always be a significant amount of my guests who would need to travel if they wished to attend my wedding, having it in a place that came with accommodation made sense. Of course that means some won’t make it & most brides and grooms are fine with that! We’ve just said no to a wedding in Italy as we have small kids.

My wedding cost £25k in a manor-house / hotel type venue for 70-odd, if I had done the same as my parents and had a big 100+ wedding reception in the town I grew up in with all extended family and parents friends attending it wouldn’t have been much cheaper.

That's what I was trying to say earlier but rather clumsily.

It does appear its the done thing. 95% of their guest list live within easily half hr drive of everyone so it is confusing to me why they want to travel quite a distance and also she wants a church wedding. They have their own rules if you are not part of that particular community , it's not like you can get married at any church

Somewhat off topic, but where do people get the money to pay for lavish weddings nowadays? The COL is so high, I don't know where £30k or more comes from, tbh. My two are only 19 and 16, but perhaps it would be a good idea to encourage them to elope! 😂

It sounds like you need to bite your tongue and not say "I told you so|" when she comes across difficulties in booking everything.

The idea of staying in a house with a load of people I don't know very well would be a no from me though.

An hour and a half is not ' quite a distance away ' !

it all depends on where in the UK one is located, and accessibility to major roads / motorways and of course owning/driving a car.

you do seem determined to hate this wedding !

remember you don't have to stay 2 nights, you don't have to stay over at all.

you can just arrive in time for the ceremony and stay for the reception then leave. or you can book yourselves into a b+b nearby - you don't have to be one of the 30 ? staying at the wedding venue.

as I guess there are not only 30 guests invited altogether, despite you only being a small family...

I guess your daughter and her young man have friends and work colleagues etc.

As for the Church aspect, it doesn't have to be the Church in the parish the bride lives in, tho they may have to attend the church of their choice !!! note their choice in order to get the vicar to agree to marry them.

but money talks and several Churches will marry couples that don't attend their Church on a regular basis.

Is your daughter religious ?

or is it a ' nice ' building that she wants.

Tho I suppose you will complain that guests will have to get from the Church to the Manor house reception if the 2 buildings are not next door to each other...

They have already told you why they picked a venue a 90 min drive away, they said it was the most suitable for the pizza night before/everyone together approach they wanted. Why are you confused about that?

You say your daughter wants a church wedding, but surely they should be going for the option that gets them closest to what they both want? I'd be willing to bet your daughter would be happy with a local church wedding, happy with a manor house combo and she's recognising her fiance would only like one of those.

The more you post the more it's clear you're pushing back because it's not what you want, but this really isn't yours to plan.

And for what it's worth, my friend wanted to get married in a big church wedding even though she didn't follow that religion and certainly didn't attend that church. As OlderGlaswegianLivingInDevon says, money talks and she did in fact get the venue she wanted. I don't believe she ever stepped foot in it again

You are not tied to your local church you know. Most will are very welcoming to people outside the their own Parish. Honestly you need to accept that your daughter is doing something that is not you or your dh taste but it is her and her partners choice not yours. Renew your vows and you can have the wedding you want.

stop being miserable. It’s her wedding; it’s her choice. I got married 1.5 hours away from home in a civil ceremony and my parents couldn’t have been more excited and accommodating and I will always be so grateful for that. You’re not the centre of attention here nor should you be, so stop trying to be and let your daughter do whatever she wants for HER wedding

You sound a bit like my DH, who would also hate this kind of thing and make out that the bride and groom are being weird and demanding because he'd rather get to home early than stay with a load of people having a good time. As I'm sure you've heard by now, it isn't your wedding so not your choice. And too be honest, it sounds pretty low key compared to many I've seen recently.

That’s exactly how my daughter’s wedding was 2 years ago. It was absolutely beautiful. You have to remember it’s their day not yours and how you got married however many years ago was lovely for you but this is your daughter’s day.

Could a compromise be a big house or stately home that has a chapel? Many do…?

My daughters have this weekend been to a best friend’s wedding. The ceremony was on Friday at the local town hall with just the parents and siblings.
Saturday was the “big” day in a beautiful, but remote, venue. Everyone stayed over and after breakfast the following day there were quizzes and board games before lunch and a hike (interesting because of the storm).
Dinner (outside caterers) was about 6.30 pm then everyone drove home. … about an hour for my girls (stopping frequently to move fallen tree branches 🙄).
They’ve been to so many weddings this year and, when I asked which were the best, they much preferred the ones like this weekend where the couple had prioritised spending time with friends and family rather than following the traditional route.

I still remember how loud I laughed when my husbands sister asked what church we were getting married in.
he's an atheist, Im Pagan (most of my family are one or the other) and his family aren't noticeably of any particular religion. we ended up having a handfasting in a stone circle, and the legal bit beside a subterranean lake in a disused slate mine.

people from across the country, back where I grew up and I hadn't seen for YEARS came to mine (admittedly, we live in Cornwall, so I think a lot of people used it as a good reason to have a weekend away, and it was lovely to see them again)
we were in a position to invite a lot of people, and did so. it was lovely. I was really surprised how many people wanted to come.

we were lucky that at the time, my parents had a large garden/orchard, and we made it clear people were welcome to camp in it, but also provided info for nearby B&Bs, pubs with rooms and a little further afield, some hotels. it was up to them if they wanted to do that or not.

Exactly this!

This is much more the norm these days in contrast to what your idea of a wedding is

if they're paying, they get to set the budget.
not choose what kind of wedding it is.

we went to a local cafe for a hangover busting fry up with some of our friends who had traveled from Wales to attend, before they set off for home. it was lovely. we were all a bit worse for wear, but it was a really nice thing to do together

generally, and this was 15 years ago now, what was generally considered the done thing in the wedding forum I was on was to include a list of websites for local accommodation and taxi firms for anyone travelling from further afield or not wanting to drive after the party with the invites. so if people wanted to make a trip of it, you'd done some of the research ahead of time for them.

When my daughter's main care nurse got married a few years ago they had a similar situation where guests were invited to stay over the night of the wedding. The hotel part cost us £400 for the night (a suite for husband, me and disabled daughter and separate room for son) and many of the 30 guests also stayed over. It was brilliant and we got to know her family and the grooms Italian family, some of whom had travelled over from Italy for the wedding. Breakfast was hilarious and the staff were laughing as much as we were and were included whilst they were working (Italians love a good party and the groom's family were no exception).
Go, enjoy yourself and treat it as a 'weekend' break as we did. All good for the memory bank.

Most of these style venues have a church ceremony as an option so your daughter can have her church service, you and your husband will like that part. She is able to get married in any church, you just have to follow the rules. I used to live in a village where the church was used nearly every Saturday for the weddings in the big venue close by.

Maybe some of the other things your daughters fiancé really wants like she does the church aspect so they are trying to include things for both of them.

On a side note it is your daughter and you should be paying for the wedding so do not start commenting on price especially or anything as you are sucking the joy out of it for them and just incase there’s a large row and you aren’t included. Just enjoy the day.