to have got married secretly with only 2 witnesses?

[fivecandles]

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???

Also if OP feels as you do then why is she making a fuss about wanting to be treated like a newly wed etc.

I think marriage is important to the OP, because she actually got married. Whether she did it for legal reasons or more romantic ones is not really a factor in this. She and her Dh wanted it to be a certain way and regardless of what the Il's wanted or expected, their wishes don't trump those of the two people actually getting married.

There are so many weddings where the bride and groom don't end up getting what they would have liked (my own included)because the parents have all stuck their oar in and taken over. I think the level of fallout the OP has had from her MIL, indicates that she is not the type to be quietly respectful of how her son and dil want to get married.

At some point in the future I may be in a similar position to you fivecandles. For different reasons - a few weeks before me and OH were to have our civil ceremony (and a week before my dad died) some one from my family decided to declare she hated my OH, and it turned out apparently none of my family liked him (my dad and younger sibling excluded). This led to a family blowout, which led to OH's family getting involved and further fighting between mine and OH's family with OH's mum then accusing me of what my family had accused OH of. Our wedding was cancelled a few days before my dad's death.

So the decision you faced - to involve family or not - is often something I think about. Even though some very vile things were said by both sides I do still think about their feelings, and consider what is the "right" thing to do. Personally I would like a wedding with just me and OH - we run off to another country somewhere, have a fantastic holiday and get married. I know were I to do this I would face the same thing you're getting now. It doesn't help that OH wants the same wedding we were planning, whilst I am unsure whether we can even have a wedding with both sides of the family there at once.

I don't actually think weddings are just about the bride and groom - it's not as though the 2 live in a vacuum independent of family, and so family need to be considered whenever planning anything as momentous as a wedding. The "right" thing to do isn't just about what the bride and groom wants, it involves everybody. Any decision a bride and groom come to, imo, should only be made after a LOT of thought and very careful consideration of how it would affect everyone. If the bride and groom than decide, once considering all the factors, to do something that they know will cause hurt to other people then I think that's fair enough - it has to be right for them. But the decision shouldn't be made without this careful consideration.

With that said, my answer is very much dependent on whether you really put the time and effort into thinking about how much it would affect them to be involved. If you can put your hand on your heart and say you did, you could see how much it would hurt them but with all the careful consideration you chose to do it this way because [...] then you're not being unreasonable. If you can't then you are.

I think if you have family to whom marriage is important and you don't intend to invite them to yours then the kindest thing to do would be to tell them in advance. Say 3 months before "we are going to get married at some point this year, we will not be inviting anyone except two witnesses because we don't want it to be a fuss" personally I would then give them the option of being witnesses with the caveat that only parents (no siblings or hangers on allowed). You can acknowledge at that point that it isn't the way they would choose to celebrate but it is the way you choose and the choice is just arents or no family at all.

Or you can keep it a secret from them exlcude them for any possibility of being involved and be surprised when they act like you've punched them in the face.

Or maybe Warmster is right and they are horrible hypocritical people who don't deserve any consideration and afterall its really nothing to do with them and really you'd rather your friends and their families were there rather than your whinging old hypocritical in-laws.

DizzyK - I think there is something subtley different about running off with just the two of you and actively inviting otehr people who aren't your parents. It a much clearer statement that you didn;t really want them there.

And you didn't really OP, did you? Be honest.

I don't see the big deal still from your point of view. You got what you wanted, you can bask in the glow of having it done the way you wanted. No-one can take that away from you (as the song goes). Your MIL is terribly hurt - you must have known she would be, she isn't obliged to "respect your choice" though the fact that they sent you a card and present is surely a sign that she is tryng her best.

Suck it up.

emsyj, you are quite right that I could have had a different sort of wedding. However, not one of the alternatives you suggest would have been the wedding dh and I wanted. I think frankly organising your weddding to suit othe people rather than the actual couple getting married goes rather against what I think marriage is for.

And as I've said, there are 2 families involved here. My family would actually have hated to have had a big do - by which I mean even 30 people.

And as I've said, I'm not actually sure that any wedding we had planned would have pleased the in laws. For a start off it would never have been in a church so we were always starting off from a point where they would not have been happy.

You're also quite right, that I'm an adult and don't have to be forced to do anything I don't want to do. This is exactly why I had the wedding I wanted.

'You could have stood up to the hypothetical guilt-tripping about siblings and uncles and aunts etc.'

But then my ILs would have been no more happy. And we would have had all the stress of dealing wiht their demands before the wedding which would have made it a fairly rubbish occasion.

'Suppose you hadn't ever got married at all, would they have been OK with that? '

You see, being Christians, they have almost certainyl been really quite unhappy with the fact that we've been 'living in sin' for 13 years in their eyes. As you can tell from the fact that it's taken 13 years getting married hasn't been high on our list of priorities and ironically one of the reasons was to set their minds at rest about this as well as to sort out all the legal issues.

'You were too weak to face a conversation with your IL's in advance '

I don't think that's fair. We didn't want to get pressured into a wedding we didn't want to have so a conversation beforehand would have done nothing except protracteed any upset and ruined our day.

'"to remind them that a wedding is a happy occasion" but it wasn;t for them was it.'

Good Lord, do you have to actually be present at a particular event to be able to share in someone else's happiness?

do you take the same view about the birth of a child?

I think that's a very strange point of view. While I accept that the ILs may have been unhappy about not being invited to the wedding it doesn't make the wedding itself unhappy does it?

'you knew they would be terribly upset thats why you didn't tell them before'

I wonder if you know how accusatory you sound. A bit scary actually. As it happens I didn't know they would be upset. DH and I hoped they would be happy. However, we didn't see any point in telling them in advance given that we didn't want a big wedding and didn't want to be pressured into having one.

Exactly Bellaney.

"I think frankly organising your weddding to suit othe people rather than the actual couple getting married goes rather against what I think marriage is for."

I am a bit confused as to why you have posted really, since you are so utterly convinced that what you did was right and your MIL's reaction is wrong.

I agree with the previous poster who said that you are coming across as a bit of a bridezilla. To me, a bridezilla is someone who wants their wedding their way, regardless of the hurt, offence, expense or inconvenience that might cause anyone else. You can be like that if you like, but the consequences are that you and your DH have caused a family rift. Was it really worth it?

Sometimes adults compromise a little so as to save other people's feelings. I think that would have been the nicer thing for you to do, but hey - it's your life. I don't have a great relationship with my ILs and I can tell you it's a huge headache and I would advise anyone to avoid creating that situation for themselves if they could possibly avoid it.

Their ideal wedding would always have been my nightmare and would have been impossible anyway given we're 13 years too late and neither of us virgins!!! There was never going to be a way to please us both.

So you are totally In The Right then.

Fine.

Although it sounds pretty disingenuous to say that you didn't know they would be upset, but on the other hand you didn't want to have any conversations about it with them beforehand because you know they would have hoped for something different.

'Its about feeling excluded from an event that it is usual to include your family in.'

Well, God forbid that anyone should ever do anything unusual

"There was never going to be a way to please us both."

Well there was very very probably (almost certainly, in fact) some sort of compromise - but you didn't want to compromise.

'But YABU to fail to acknowledge that your choices were hurtful to others, and may have caused some long-term damage to a family relationship.
And YABU to want to dictate other people's feelings and reactions.'

Eh? It's possible you missed the million times that dh and I have told the ILs we're sorry they hurt. We have not ever dictated other people's feelings and reactions. And it's worth repeating that my own parents reacted very differently and were both understanding and happy.

We are sorry they're upset, genuinely but we could not anticipate or control their reactions and we we would not have done things differnently.

' think the OP probably didn't invite her own parents as you can't have one set of parents but not the other. In her own way, I think she was being fair.

Also inviting parents would have led to the snowballing effect that the OP and her DH didn't want.'

Exactly. All right. If we could ever have invited just both sets of parents without the pressure to invite the rest of the world we would have done.

You knew it wouldnt be what they wanted therefore you dodn't tell them. SURELY that counts as being able to anticipate their reaction???

'why is she making a fuss about wanting to be treated like a newly wed etc.'

God, I'm really not. I can just think of a million and one more appropriate responses to a marriage than 'We haven't slept for days, we're very upset, we're not getting any younger and we never want to speak to you again'

If DH and I had done what you did, my mother wouldn't have cared in the least. But PILs would have been devastated. Because, you see, they're different people. So it isn't worth repeating that your parents were understanding and happy really. Because they're different people and have different ideas and different feelings. The fact that they were okay about it doesn't mean your ILs ought to be, any more than the fact I really like cats means that you should like cats and that it would be reasonable for me to be incredulous if you told me you didn't.

You have expressed disappointment with their reactions, come on be honest - you are offended that your MIL hasn't congratulated you personally, you think they should respect your choices and be happy for you etc. So perhaps not 'dictating' but certainly being annoyed with their feelings and reactions.

'To me, a bridezilla is someone who wants their wedding their way, regardless of the hurt, offence, expense or inconvenience that might cause anyone else.'

Eh? We didn't think our wedding would cause any hurt. And our wedding certainly was designed for minimal expense or inconvenience to anyone. What a peculiar thing to say.

I haven't read all of the thread, but OP, YANBU in the least. We're planning to do something similar within the next few months purely for legal reasons. I've made it plain to my own parents in the past that this was what was going to happen if I ever married my beloved longterm partner, not being the Barbie's Speshul Day type, but I don't think they actually believe me, and it's perfectly possible my partner's mother will be as histrionic as your MIL in her disappointment. But frankly, I think all parties need to accept that this is what we want, a low-key, plainclothes registry office wedding, with witnesses off the street - if we tell them at all, it will be some considerable time later. I think you're perfectly reasonable to consider your own feelings first - the idea that 'weddings are for other people' strikes me as ludicrous.

OP, I wouldn't engage in further discussion with the ILs - they will have to put on what an American friend of mine invariably calls their Big Girl Panties. You don't 'owe' anyone a day out in a hat!