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]

I don't think weddings are about the families. They are about the two people making a commitment to each other. I actually think this is very private and am not sure why people want to say these very personal things in front of a load of other people.

So many people end up having the kinds of weddings that they really didn't want. Given that your mum had the wedding of her choice, I think it is wrong of her to criticize you for having the wedding of your choice.

I do see why she is upset. These things matter very much to some people. When my DC get married, I won't carewhat kind of weddings they have, so long as it is what they want and they are marrying people who adore them. In the end, that is what is important.

I just hope I can be grown up about this if my children decide to go this way. I suppose I would have wanted to know that my daughter was getting married, albeit without me there. Just a phone call and 'sorry Mum, but it was getting me down.........

If you are a close family then it probably really hurt them. Close families want to share your joy, grief, love and all of the shit that goes with it. Like bringing up a child.

If you are not, then it doesn't matter and will blow over.

Goodness, I didn't realise so many people still considered marriage to be so important.

AFAIC, marriage is no one's business but the bride and groom's.

I don't think anyone has a right to be (seriously) upset by anyone else's marriage decisions.

If I were ever to get married to DP (which is very unlikely), it would be a registry office job with hopefully random witnesses (so no one could feel put out compared to others).

I just honestly couldn't muster up the concern to be upset about anyone else's wedding. (Apart from those who assume you want to spend thousands of pounds attending their wedding abroad.)

This thread suggests I am in the minority, though.

helloo yes we did sneak off and expect them to be happy for us. That's exactly what we did, because it's always been clear from the start that that is what we wanted to do. When we announced we were getting married, we said right from the start we wanted a tiny wedding. Then everyone was 'But I will be there, right?' and it was so hard to say no. I have a big and complicated family, and once you've invited one person, you have to invite the rest. Hence us very nearly having a wedding we didn't want. So it should not have been a surprise to anyone that we got married in the way we did, and when we told people afterwards, everyone (including my mum!) said, 'Oh, we knew you'd do that!'

We told people we were going to do it next year because when we cancelled the first wedding, that was indeed our plan. Then our plans changed, and we kept quiet about it, and actually just didn't really talk to anyone about it after that.

And of course, yes, I do totally understand why my mum us upset, and I did expect her to be sad about not being there, but preventing someone's sadness is IMO not a decent enough reason to invite them to your wedding. Our wedding wasn't just about getting a piece of paper, but felt very personal and we wanted to do it in the way that we did. Our only regret is that our wishes didn't match those of our families. But at the end of the day, whose wishes are more important? Those of the people getting married, or those of their families?

I hope to God DD doesn't do this.

If she came to me and said "look this is what X and I are planning to do we just don't want the fuss" I would be secretly sad that I would not see my daughter as a bride on her wedding day BUT be supportive 100%. She has been honest at least and I would totally respect her and her partners wishes.

But if she told me something different then snuck away and did it then told me after the event I would be really upset actually. That she lied mainly.

Beachtent, CONGRATULATIONS!

I had a similar experience when planning our wedding and I wish I had done what you did. MIL drove us insane, it was absolutely horrible... to this day our wedding is quite a sad memory of me, because of all the tears, the emotional blackmail, the whole painful process.

Your mum might need a little time, I hope things are OK with her soon.

I agree completely with every single post by expatinscotland, I also wish I'm that type of mum to DD and any other DC that might come in future.

Well you got exactly what you wanted, just like you decided to, now you have to go ahead and suck up the fall out.

And what is all this bollocks about how she shouldn't be taking you out for lunch to celebrate FFS? She's trying to make amends even though it was you who lied, deceieved and excluded her.

Grow up.

Well said helloo.

You knew this would upset your mother, you even just said that the family bollocks had nothing to do with her, so she was blameless in all this.

Well you got what you wanted, why ask for justification? I'm glad I have a better relationship with my mother and I hope that dd, whatever she chooses to do, will at least have the decency to tell me upfront and not sneak around and then expect everyone else to be delighted.

I agree completely with hellooo.

You got what you wanted, and in the process you have upset people. Your Mum wants to try and smooth things over by taking you out for lunch and you are so bloody self-absorbed and ungrateful that you won't even let her do that.

You are immensely childish.

Sounds great.
The whole wedding/hen and stag party/favours to match yer knickers stuff has got utterly out of hand.

I'm one of three girls and two of us did this. Whole family delighted for us, partic. as we married good men. That's the most important thing of all.

The best thing my DH and I ever did was run off to Spain and get married by ourselves. Our photographer and some woman in the reg office doubled as witnesses. It was wonderful not having to be the central focus of some giant wedding stuffed with relatives whom I barely know but still had to feed and water at a cost of thousands.

We told our folks 5 days before (when we were already out there) and whilst my dad was a bit gutted that he wouldn't be there to give his only daughter away, they fully supported us. My mum was very practical and said that we were better off spending our money on a house instead of a big one day event, which we did.

We had a big party when we got back, which was great.

Ladies, relax! I am going for lunch with my mum. I just felt sorry for my dh being excluded. But I see the value in spending time with my mum, celebrating having done something so positive with my life. I'm glad we can celebrate it together.

I really don't think getting married without my parents there reflects on the quality of my relationship with them whatsoever. Getting married has nothing to do with them. We can celebrate together, of course, and we will. Not being a witness to a short ceremony doesn't seem overly important to me, but celebrating a marriage between two people who love each other does. All this hang up on the sodding ceremony is what bothers me, and although it seems I'm in the minority, none of your opposing opinions have made me change my mind on that one. I guess it's a personal thing, as are weddings.

I think the issue here is a difference of opinion, not an inability to empathise. And yes, in hindsight, perhaps I should have told my mum beforehand, but when we discussed this we thought it would actually be quite a mean thing to do - it would have been weird with them knowing when we were getting married but not actually being there. And there would have been a lot of pressure on us to do it differently. We know this, because that is exactly what happened before when we tried to arrange our other wedding.

And of course, all the relationships within any one family are massively complex, and no thread on mumsnet will ever really do justice to the real complexity of any situation, including this one!

But I do hope that in respecting my mum's response, which I have done and will continue to do, I hope that she can respect my decision and not let her negative emotions overwhelm what is otherwise a very happy and positive time in my life.

I hope I'll never care whether my kids invite me to anything. But your mum did care, you knew that and yet you went ahead knowing that she would be upset.

So deal with it. It's not a case of 'whose feeling matters more, mine or hers'. Yours are okay because you did want you wanted; hers have been hurt. Just because the 'right' thing for your mum to do would be not to have minded doesn't make her wrong for feeling the way she does. She's your mum and dreamed of sharing your big day with you, and no family party is ever going to be the same as that for her. And I suspect she's as hurt that you couldn't share what you were going to do with her even if she wasn't going to be invited.

This is for you to deal with and you to make amends for, not her.

But the difference is that you told your parents before the event not after. I don't think anyone is disputing the op (or anyone else's) right to marry in whichever way they want but the sneakiness is not nice.

Tell your mother you'll invite her to the next one

I think I would have invited my Mum along, I can understand why she is upset. Mine would have been.

You have the right to get married in whatever way you choose, and not many people would disagree with you on that.

However, that?s not the point of your post I feel. You cannot control other people?s feelings and ?expect them? to be happy as you put in your title? they feel as they feel. I am sure your mum is very happy that you found a good man etc etc: what mum would not be? It even sounds like she did her best to hide her true feelings at least initially (she only started crying on the phone after you had done the bubbly thing), and then offered to take you out and give you a gift (which, by the way, your DH?s relatives have also done so what is the problem?).

I am not sure what your mum is doing wrong; perhaps her only ?fault? was the inability to hide how she really felt about the issue. Maybe YANBU in expecting her to hide her true feelings in this particular instance, but ? I am not sure. I think I would still prefer to know that my decision caused upset ? that would not necessarily make me change my mind (you obviously cannot do this in this situation!), but it would allow me to do sth about it?

No one is saying you had to spend thousands on a big do with a load of relatives you don't care about.

What they are saying is that they can understand your mother being upset about being grouped in with all those people and excluded from the day.

There is a middle ground between spending thousands on a big production and not inviting your own parents, but asking friends to witness your vows (which to me, quite clearly says you value your friends more than your parents).

Either way, I think you should concentrate on repairing the damage and look to the future instead of expecting only your feelings to be taken into consideration.

And I agree with what the other posters are saying - I think it's a bit odd to say you wanted to sneak off and do it in private and not have any fuss, and then complain that nobody in your family has sent you a congratulations card.

But withorwithoutyou, weren't the parents the problem? They weren't prepared to accept OP's right to a small do?

This was the problem with my MIL - I would have loved to have had all our friends at our wedding but my MIL's selfish and awful behaviour meant we had little choice but to elope. We simply couldn't afford the ridiculous bash she wanted and, of course, she wasn't going to pay for it because she was the groom's mother not the bride's .

If my DC want just us at their wedding then fine - I wouldn't throw my toys out of the cot that they hadn't invited all my friends to their wedding.

To quote the OP, about her mother:

"it wasn't her meddling that made us cancel our previous arrangements, it was other people."

I would have been heartbroken if one of my dc had done this.It is a snub,a rejection of much that is precious in a mother/daughter relationship.YABVVU-in fact the tense is wrong I suppose-you were VVU.I cant imagine how you will build bridges now.As for your dp's family-sorry-it is different with a son.My ds was married in Turkey.We flew out for it but if we hadn't it would have gone ahead without us-for her family.The important thing is that we were invited and made welcome.

Why on earth is it different with a son????

What utter rubbish.

Runaway Wife I'm with you on this. The marriage was something you both wanted to do and you should decide how you want to do it.

Disclaimer - me and DH eloped too (and I wouldn't have had it any other way)(although my mother too was upset!)