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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to have got married secretly with only 2 witnesses?

492 replies

fivecandles · 11/09/2011 08:50

Dp and I been together 13 odd years with ups and downs and 2 children. Decided to get married because really it's about time for all sorts of reasons BUT didn't want a big faff or the expense of a big wedding. Don't like to be the centre of attention, other financial commitments, it's dh's 2nd marriage, we're not religious etc, etc. DH has a very large family and if we'd invited his mum and dad we'd have had to invite his siblings and before you know it we would have had at least 30 people just with close family. So we had a quiet but lovely wedding in register office. DH had his best mate for his witness and I had mine and they brought their families. We then went for a lovely lunch in a nice restaurant and had a lovely day together.

Told our respective families the next day. Mine completely understood and very happy that we're finally respectable and legal. DH's horribly upset and accused us of being deceitful (because we didn't tell them beforehand) and so on. DH had long conversation with them which was very heated in places but reached a sort of resolution even if it was an agreement to differ sort of thing.

Now they've not spoken to me at all although they did send a card and a little bit of money a few weeks after the event. I sent them some photos and the only contact I've had with them directly is now a letter from MIL saying how happy we look in the photos and how upset this makes her!! She has been showing the photos to all her friends and they're also really upset apparently. She's told dh about how she's been crying for days and not sleeping and one of dh's siblings has written to say similar things.

Anway, having said nothing and hoped it would all blow over, I've felt moved to write back to MIL to remind them that a wedding is a happy occasion and ask them to put aside their negative views and be happy for us and respect our choices. AIBU???

OP posts:
LeBOF · 11/09/2011 18:33

I can understand why you went for a small wedding. What I don't get, though, is why you invited the families of your witnesses? Or did your friends suggest them tagging along? It strikes me as rubbing salt in the wound somewhat, but perhaps I'm missing something.

IreneHeron · 11/09/2011 18:40

I don't think you were unreasonable to get married how you did and I think it is a bit of an overreaction by your in laws, but don't stir it up even more by sending a letter.

My cousin did this too, they just got strangers off the street as witnesses. My brother did it and didn't come clean about having got married until about 14 years later at my own wedding. We thought he was a bit silly to have kept it from us for that long, especially as it was obvious that he had got married and we all knew anyway they kept letting things slip by accident in conversation and not realising it.

stripeybump · 11/09/2011 18:41

Lady Grin

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 11/09/2011 18:42

I can understand why you went with the small wedding, OP, congrats by the way, but it was only ever going to work like that if you pulled two strangers in to be witnesses.

Look at it from your families' point of view - you involved your best friends AND their families but disregarded your own families. They're disappointed - possibly yours too. Just be a little sensitive to the fact that in your MIL's eyes, you and your husband have deprived her of a very special day.

How would YOU feel if your child did this? Honestly?

A little sensitivity now would go a long way to soothe ruffled feathers. :)

ExpensivePants · 11/09/2011 18:44

Still going on then? OP still absolutely in the right regardless of what anyone else says? Goodo, a typical mm AIBU thread then.

Original poster
fivecandles · 11/09/2011 19:14

If my children decided to marry the man they love after being with him for 13 years and having 2 children and it was his second marriage and they were in their 40s and they were happy I would be very happy for them and completely understand why they would opt for a small wedding. Honestly. And luckily this has been exactly the reaction of my parents who have been very generous with their good wishes and in other ways. I would also like to think that when my kids are 40s I will not be sticking my oar in or throwing hissy fits about the choices they make.

OP posts:
Original poster
fivecandles · 11/09/2011 19:17

And DH feels the same way I do. And the children had a lovely day.

And it's very hard to see how I could be much more sensitvie to the in laws. I've said I'm sorry they're upset. DH and I have listened to their protracted tales of woe and threats.

There is nothing we cou

OP posts:
exoticfruits · 11/09/2011 19:22

If you have been together 13yrs with 2 DCs it seems very sensible to me. If ILs don't like it they could throw you a party.

Longtime · 11/09/2011 19:42

I don't think YABU but I'm not sure why you have posted here as you are obviously 100 per cent sure that YANBU. You could have saved yourself a lot of extra frustration and time not having to defend yourself to posters here!

DandyLioness · 11/09/2011 19:45

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

madhousewife · 11/09/2011 19:47

your wedding sounds ideal - wish i would have had the courage to do the same. fuck your mil, i had the whole hoo haa, spent 20 grand, she still was miserable even though she stuck her muddy paws in all of it.

confusedstepmum · 11/09/2011 19:53

i'm thinking that the 'devout Christian' aspect of the PIL may have something to do with this difference in opinion, and that you might have foreseen this could be an issue, compared to your 'atheist' set up...

ll31 · 11/09/2011 20:29

I think you're completely within your rghts but also can understand how your inlaws feel... You know your adults, so are they including siblings so don't really see how you couldn't have just invited your parents and your husbands parents rather than strangers... Surely your husband and you could have explained to your siblings that for your very good reasons it was just your parents going;; thats what I'd ahve done. As posters above say think you need to do a bit of expressing some real understanding of how they feel

emsyj · 11/09/2011 20:38

YANBU to want a small wedding.
YABU to say that you would have been forced to invite 30+ people if you had told your ILs. You are an adult. You don't have to invite anyone to anything.
YABU to say that this was the only way you could have had the wedding you wanted. There are a number of alternatives that would have been potentially much less hurtful to your ILs:

  • wedding with just the two of you, nobody invited at all, strangers off the street as witnesses
  • secretly planned wedding dressed up as nice lunch out - arrive at agreed venue and say, 'oh by the way we're off to get married now' and proceed to ceremony I'm sure there are more if anyone is creatively minded.

YANBU to behave as you see fit. You are an adult, after all. YABU to expect other people to then behave as you would and as you see fit. You get to decide how you act, but not how others act.

YABU to feel that they should hide their true feelings and behave in a way that is acceptable to you when you have only acted as you see fit without reference to them or anyone else.

I'm particularly amused by your post about them lacking empathy for not congratulating you and acting happy - hypocrite, much?

YABU to post in AIBU and then not entertain any remote possibility that YA, in fact, in some people's view, BU.

GiganticusBottomus · 11/09/2011 22:08

Everything emsyj said with bells on.

banana87 · 11/09/2011 22:13

I think you were a little bit selfish. Put yourself in your in laws shoes. Would you want to witness your DD/DS get married? Fair enough to have something small and not make any announcements until after, but you should really have included the parents. I would be upset as the MIL as well.

2rebecca · 11/09/2011 23:05

I find the idea that streets around registry offices are full of people who would be happy to spend 15 minutes being witnesses very odd. Our second wedding was a reg office wedding and we just had parents siblings and siblings and our kids. We could have just had parents, but only have 3 sibs between us. If we hadn't had family I would have wanted friends as witnesses and probably to then go for a meal with he friends and their families to celebrate and thank them seems a nice idea to me, and not some nasty plot hatched just to upset relatives.
I would have been worried that if we hadn't arranged witnesses then on a Saturday afternoon in our city everyone passing would have been too busy shopping to want to witness my wedding and I don't want to stand outside the registry office in my posh frock in pouring rain trying to plead with passers by.
1 friend each and their families seems much less stessful and more pleasant. The couple were getting married, why should they have no celebration whatsoever just to keep relatives happy? That seems very martyrish to me. There is nothing wrong with putting yourselves first some times.

maypole1 · 11/09/2011 23:10

To be honest I don't blame you the who ha that went on with my oh family I dearly regret nit just going away with out dd

LeBOF · 11/09/2011 23:13

Does the OP even know her friends' families well? That's the aspect of it I find puzzling. How many guests did that add up to?

DandyLioness · 11/09/2011 23:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

2rebecca · 11/09/2011 23:52

I presumed by friend's families she meant their spouses and kids, not their friends' siblings, parents, great grannies etc, so I presumed there were only 3 nuclear families at the celebration including the OP's. It may have been that the friends' kids were good friends of the OP's kids as well. I am presuming a small intimate celebration.
I agree the OP could have just invited her and her husbands parents and made it clear that inviting all the sibs wasn't an option as there were too many of them and that if the parents weren't happy with that they could stay at home, but other people on here have posted that they said that sort of thing to their parents who them moaned and manipulated and huffed and puffed until the wedding grew arms and legs and ended up with about 40 people there and all the special car, working out where everyone would stay, photographer type stuff they were trying to avoid.

takethisonehereforastart · 12/09/2011 00:25

When my aunt and uncle got married it was after being together for 17 years, second marriages for both. They lived near her children and her mother and miles from my granddad (only surviving parents on each side) so they invited my granddad and my uncle's two kids up for a holiday, gathered both parents and all four children together for the day and sprang the wedding on them. The rest of us found out later.

OP as you say, it's too late now for you to change things.

And it is right that you had the wedding you wanted.

But it does sound very much like you considered your parents feelings as well as your own ("I think I probably know how my mother feels more than you do. She and my father have been delighted. They are not religious and don't like big 'dos'. Their own wedding was very similar to ours. Maybe 5 guests and back to the pub" and "As I've said, a big wedding would have actually been enormously stressful and difficult for my parents so while that might have made my ILs happy (although I really have my doubts the wedding would ever have been what they wanted) it wouldn't have suited my own.") but disregarded those of your husbands parents.

I'll say again, I don't think you were unreasonable to spend your wedding day in the way you did if that is what you really wanted to be like and you are not being unreasonable to wish the guilt-trips would stop.

But you are being unreasonable to demand congratulations from someone who has been very hurt at being excluded from the day and complain that they are spoiling things for you, especially when you are so keen to insist you wanted a low-key event with no fuss ("You may not have read that I have not spoken to them at all because they have not even been able to bring themselves to say congratulations. What I have heard from them via dh is how they haven't been able to sleep and have been crying for days. Many other posters have acknowledged that this is a slighyl over the top reaction to what should be a happy occasion.") Obviously, for them, it is hard to say congratulations about a happy occasion they cannot understand why they were excluded from. But they have tried, with the card and the money etc. You have to give them credit for that.

I can understand that you don't want to apologise in the way suggested by other people on this thread ("I am sorry that we hurt you") but could you perhaps try once more with something along the lines of "I am sorry that you have been so hurt, we honestly did not think that this would upset you in the way that it has. If we had realised how upset you would be we would have spoken to you before the wedding and explained our reasons for wanting and having a very low-key day. We cannot change things now, but we would like to move on and I hope that you can be happy for us and understand that we did not do any of this with the intention of hurting or excluding you."

takethisonehereforastart · 12/09/2011 00:26

That should read "wanted it to be like."

EldritchCleavage · 12/09/2011 01:04

I do have some sympathy for you OP, because of what ChaoticAngel said. If MIL lacks boundaries or tact and would have tried to guilt trip you both into a big family do, then all the suggestions posters have made as to how you could have done it all better simply would not have been practical.

I suspect your MIL is really upset because the lack of invitation, and the decision to do things without reference to her and FIL has given her an uncomfortable reminder of the differences between them and their son (and you). She can gloss over the fact her son doesn't share her beliefs and isn't prepared to defer to them for most of the time until something like this just smacks her in the face with the true state of things. Plus, as a devout Christian she probably had her heart set on saving your souls by getting you two into a Church wedding.

All that said, you do sound a bit hardhearted about it all. If one of my siblings had married without me I would have been very hurt and deeply worried about what it signified for the state of our relationship. Not to the extent of saying the things your MIL has said, but still.

But it's done now, and my advice is least said, soonest mended.

SansaLannister · 12/09/2011 01:06

It's a done deal now. If I were you, I'd have hired two strangers, Gumtree worked for us, and then told them after the fact or never at all. But you did what you did. Now's just the fallout to deal with.