to expect my family to be happy that I got married?

[beachtent]

OK, so, we planned a more traditional wedding, but my family drove us nuts with their various demands, so we cancelled it. We always wanted a small wedding, so we decided to do it all completely the way we wanted to - with two witnesses, and tell everyone afterwards. We knew our families (particularly our mothers) would be upset they weren't there to share the moment, but we thought that our own preferences for our own wedding should take precedence, so we decided to forge ahead with our plans. We got married, it took 20 minutes, we loved it, it was perfect. We had two friends as witnesses, then went on holiday. When we got back, we invited our parents round, opened some bubbly, and told them.

All seemed to be going well, until I was alone with my mum, then she started crying. I expected her to be upset and I too was sad that she hadn't been part of it all. But now her sadness about not being there, her feelings of being 'snubbed' and denied the experience of attending my wedding have dominated my entire family's response since. I expected some negative emotions in response to their lack of involvement, but the scale of the negativity is unreal. I'm getting shit from all angles. I've had my sister tell me she's 'never seen mum so upset about anything in my whole life', that she spent the entire day crying after we broke the news. My sister was crying, saying, 'how could you do this to her? How could you do this to us? We thought we were a close family' and reduced me to tears. My brother has just been on the phone and reduced me to tears again with the same kind of talk - 'what did you expect? You've denied her and she feels left out, rejected, snubbed' etc.

I'm so fed up of trying to justify myself. I got married, I didn't kill someone, I did something incredibly positive with the man I love. We've lived together for 5 years, we have a child together, getting married to us was no big deal. Both of us hate being on show, getting married felt like a very personal thing to do, and we wanted to keep it simple, short, and cheap. And we did.

My partner's family have all congratulated us and sent us gifts and cards. I've not had a single card from anyone in my family.

Have I committed a crime? I know a marriage is the union of two families, but having a child is more so (in my eyes), so we felt that getting married on our own terms in our own way wouldn't be such a big deal.

My mum now wants to take me out for lunch and buy me a present as a way of celebrating my marriage...

Thoughts, please! [bracing self]

YANBU, but give them time to get used to the idea. They were, after all, expecting to be part of a big, traditional wedding, only to find out post de facto that you got married without them. They are hurt, and they are responding emotionally right now. Once everything settles down a bit, I'm willing to bet that they will see that you are happy and will be happy for you.

You probably should go out to lunch with your mum, but is there a way that you and DH could also host something a little more "official" for your close friends and family to celebrate with you? You mentioned you had your parents round for some bubbly, but I can imagine that it wasn't much of a celebration as it must have been very tense. You might find that once they have gotten over the shock, they will appreciate being part of some sort of official celebration. IMO, it will also be much less stressful for you to have a party now than for you to have had a traditional wedding before. You are already married, and can do this on your terms.

We did something quite similar ourselves. We were never planning a big traditional wedding, but were trying to do something with our immediate families. Even with just them, it proved to be impossible for people to accept what we wanted, due to issues related to DH's parents being divorced and remarried, and my parents wanting a religious ceremony, which we did not. So we got married with our two (non-family) witnesses at a registry office, had cake and champagne with our witnesses, and took off immediately for a two-week honeymoon. It was fabulous, and exactly what we wanted.

The difference from your situation was that we told our families about our plans ahead of time. We thought that would make it easier for them, but it didn't. Their feelings were hurt, and we got snarky comments for a few months afterwards, until the wedding reception we held several months later. But they mostly seemed to have a good time at the reception, and the comments have stopped. I don't know if they'll ever fully understand or agree with what we did, but they have now accepted it and have since focused their attention on hinting about grandchildren

Sorry this has turned into such a long post. IMO, you should focus on the fact that you had exactly the wedding you wanted, which is what is most important. Your family will get over it, but give them time, and be sensitive to what they must be feeling.

YANBU. I wanted exactly the same wedding as you had. We called family and told them we were getting married the next day and got such histrionics that agreed to wait until they could come over.

I still resent it to this day.

It's OUR marriage and OUR life. It's up to US how we want to do it. I didn't want them interfering and I still feel like I shouldn't have let them.

In the end it will work our better this way, allowing others to dictate how you do things in your own life is a mistake, and once they start they tend to carry on - by sending a clear message that you will do things your way you are probably saving yourself grief in the future. Controlling people tend to get worse, not better, when you give in to them.

CONGRATULATIONS. I hope you will be blissfully happy, silly family histronics allowing. It'll blow over. Don't let them spoil your happiness.

It's your day, and if they don't have the good grace to be happy for you, then they clearly aren't that "close".

But if your mum is offering to buy you a present, then that's clearly a peace offering and I'm sure you're glad of it.

I'm another who would be devastated! I would feel, like withorwithoutyou said, that they felt our relationship wasn't close enough for them to want me there. Yes, if they said they wanted to marry abroad on a beach on their own, that would be different and although I'd want to be there, I'd completely accept that that was the wedding they wanted.

What would upset me is thinking that I'd talked to my daughter/son just before they married and they hadn't told me about it because they didn't want me there.

And I don't understand dragging a stranger off the street to be a witness, when someone who has loved you since the moment you were born would love to do that.

I can understand those with toxic parents avoiding telling them - I would hate to feel that that's what I must be if I wasn't invited to my child's wedding.

Apologise to your mum for upsetting her so much.

'It's possible to say "no, we're not doing it that way" without uninviting them completely'

Sometimes, it's really not.

It's not the end of the world. TBH it wouldn't bother me a lick if any of my children did this.

I'm here to be happy for them, as long as it doesn't involve something illegal or horrific like abuse or what have you.

If they want to elope, well, I'm happy a) they wanted to marry, so many don't b) they did it how they felt best.

In the grand scheme of things, it's far from teh worst thing in the world and I save 'I'd be devestated' for things like finding out my child had cancer or some horrid disease, is addicted to drugs, gets killed or something like that.

Don't bloody apologise at all. Just use one of the lines suggested in other posts and stick to your guns.

If you apologise, you might as well have had the wedding they wanted!

"Funny thing is, when she married my step-dad several years ago, she insisted that their parents weren't there. Hmmm. She hates his mum, so really didn't want her there."

So, when she didn't invite the prents it was because she didn't like them and really didn't want them there. And now you've not invited your parents. Consciously or subconsciously she's going to be thinking "because...?"

Have I got this right that it wasn't your mum who was upsetting you over your planned but other family members?

I guess I just don't take things like this personally. Whatever. It's done now. I'd be devestated if they became teen parents without getting married, but eloping? It's just not a big deal to me.

'And I don't understand dragging a stranger off the street to be a witness, when someone who has loved you since the moment you were born would love to do that.'

Some see it as romantic.

They'll get over it, beach.

DuellingFanjo speaks wise words.

it's not acrime, no but you have really badly hurt your mum. Didn't you know her well enough to suspect that might happen or was it just too overwhelming the whole marriage planning thing?

Fine, if you dont want your family and friends there for your wedding day, then that is what you want to do. But in the process you might also have shown your family that they are not important people in your life, and that they have no place in your life now that you are married. Your marriage is NOT a union of two families coming together, it is a "fuck off we do it as WE like it". You might just be the biggest bridezilla to have ever posted here!

In response to some of the other posts, I wanted to add that no one but the bride and groom know all of the various factors influencing decisions regarding what kind of wedding they want to have. There are so many factors at play in these decisions, such as money, religion, previous marriages, etc.

My point is that it makes it very difficult to judge other people's decisions in these matters - even if you are related to them.

I agree that you shouldn't apologise, but IMO it would be worth trying to find a way to include them in some sort of celebration, as it will help smooth things over (spoken from experience).

Most importantly - CONGRATULATIONS! Don't let them get you down. It was terribly romantic and you will remember it always.

YANBU, I feel really sorry for you as we also got married just the two of us - sort of unplanned as DH proposed at the beginning of a holiday and we decided to do it there and then - but we didn't get any of this from our families. I completely disagree with people saying that it should be for families and "after all they've done for you", blah blah blah - it should be about you and the one you love and if you choose to make it about that alone then it is up to you.

I guess it would have been better if you had not planned a traditional wedding first and then changed your minds, but you should not have been pressured into this in the first place. We had a small, special party several months after we got back, just for our close families, which was lots of fun - could you do something similar?

I'd hate for my support of my children to be dependent on their towing my line. WTF? You didn't do what I wanted so fuck you if you ever need anything.

In that case it wouldn't surprise me at all if my kids ran off to an Elvis chapel in Vegas to get married.

YANBU. We did exactly the same thing. MIL was a nightmare from the start - we told her we wanted a small wedding so she presented us with a list of 40 of her friends that we had to invite . Went downhill from there.

We got married in Oz, on our own, it was fab. My parents were brilliant about it.

I think there is an awful lot of crap talked about weddings. I have two sons and have already had people say to me "oh, but you'll never get to be the mother of the bride" . I wouldn't mind at all if my sons did this, but would be very sad if I thought they had done it because my selfish actions forced them into.

One thing I won't do is pay thousands of pounds towards their wedding cos I think expensive weddings are the biggest waste of money on the planet!

Congratulations btw !

Well - I did apologise several times on the night I told her, and I felt awful for myself for doing so. I don't think I should apologise for getting married.

And for whoever said I have 'punished' my family by not inviting them - I think that is utterly ridiculous. Are you saying that I should have got married on their terms, just to keep them happy?

And yes, I had made the connection between her reasons for not wanting her husband's mother there, and us not wanting our parents there. I will talk to her and make sure she hasn't mistaken her feelings for mine, which I'm pretty sure she has, subconsciously or not.

Thanks you to all of you who've congratulated us. It means a lot!

Providing your mother knew of all the demands you had been getting from the family, and knew that you had cancelled that traditional wedding, I don't see what she's got to complain about. Perhaps if she had been more supportive of the wishes of you and your DH the outcome could have been different. In fact, she should be happy that you and your DH had a hassle-free wedding in the end.

Are your siblings really so upset, or are they toeing the party line?

Um... I don't think there was any foot-stamping. We'd always said we wanted to get married in this way, and our previous wedding plans had got out of hand, so we cancelled it. Not long before we actually got married, I'd said something to my mum like, 'When we get married we'll do it in a very low-key way, and only have a couple of witnesses, and then tell everyone afterwards'. The night we told them about the wedding, she said herself 'Oh I kept telling [her dh] that you two should just go off and get married on your own terms and then tell everyone afterwards and have a party'. So... yeah. I personally find the level of shock a little... shocking.

And we've always planned on having a big knees up with all the world invited, and will do so next year.

My SIL done this and while its what they wanted to do, there was a feeling of being snubbed from the family. Nothing was really said to them though.

Unfortunately you should have been prepared for this reaction. I can't imagine how my family would feel if I got married, then informed them afterwards. IMHO it is a deliberate snub when people do this.

Shit, I'd be seriously gutted if either of my kids did this. DIfferent if they told me but to think you were going to be there then find out your child decided they didnt want you there after all would be seriously gutting (to me anyway).

Why is it snubbing someone? I don't see how telling someone you're getting married beforehand, and saying 'you're not invited' would be any easier to take. It would just be a whole load of other shit but beforehand, rather than afterwards. We took the delayed shit option, and yes, detective we were prepared for it, but not to this extent. We expected some disappointment for them not being there to share it with us, but for the overall response to be one of happiness at doing something so positive - we got married, FFS, we didn't murder someone or join a cult - the extent of the anger is outweighing any kind of celebratory response and I just find it all rather suffocating.

And to us the celebration is about our marriage which will last a lot longer than the 20 minutes it took to get hitched.

yanbu. by making you the bad guy, your family are refusing to take responsibility for the bad behaviour which got the wedding downsized in the first place.

go and see your mum and say osmething like 'mum i love you to bits but it got too much - can we just move on now?'

btw i think your siblings are being a bit childish indulging the angst.