who is being unreasonable here ( I think its him)

[JustforMe]

Ok so im getting married in a couple of weeks and everything is paid for just counting down the days.

My dad decides to ask who is goin from our side and I tell him that its him my aunt both nans my mother and a couple of my mums sisters. He then proceeds to have a go at me for not inviting all HIS aunts and uncles and random family members I have not seen in years. I told him its my wedding and I have all the fanily I want there.

Well next thing my aunt is ringing me saying he now doesnt want to give a speech as he wont know any one at the wedding ( this is man who cant keep opinions to himself and has no problem with confidence).

I feel like he is being childish and now just want to cut him out of the wedding altogether. There is a major history between me and my dad and his constant failures this is just tje last straw.

Sorry its soo long needwd a vent.

Toad im not saying I want him at my beck and call I always ask first and if people say no that's fine. He shouldn't be dictating to me who I should or shouldn't invite especially when he thinks I shouldn't invite my own mother.

He is being VVVU. If I were in your shoes he'd have been disinvited immediately after his temper tantrum.

Maybe he's panicking about the speech - given that he doesn't have a great deal of shared history, and the speech was going to be about wider family, hence that he's pissed off his intended audience won't be there?

I didn't even tell my bio Dad that I was getting married, so given that you sound much more emotionally mature than me, maybe ignore my advice

I hope you have a lovely day x

I meant 'given that he doesn't have a great deal of shared history with you.'

wow Toad my theory is that it is mine and my husband to be's wedding and therefore the only people who should be there are those we want to share it with not randoms that we don't know.

thank you singingsilver

justforme

If that is how you and your fiance wish to organise your wedding, I think you should accept a refusal to give a speech with equanimity. I think if I were in your shoes I'd tell him that I respected his choice not to give a speech and he was welcome to change his mind, but if he did change his mind he would need to let me know by x date so I could arrange a substitute.

What I don't think is OK is expecting to have sole say over the wedding and calling in family obligations to get what you want.

Toadinthehole No family shouldn't be at the beck and call of the couple to be married, but that isn't what this thread is all about. Don't family do stuff for others out of love. Is it too much to ask that the dad in this case is happy to see his daughter get married with his family around him and give a lovely speech? Why can't he just do that without trying a bit of emotional blackmail?

The OP isn't asking for anything that 99% of brides manage to achieve without all this song and dance.

what do you mean family obligiations. I just think that if he isn't going to giva a speech then he can no longer walk me down the isle and the whole role will pass to my nan. he can attend as a guest. Of course me and my fiancé have sole say its our wedding. We would never force anyone to do anything they had a genuine concern doing.

A father doing a speech at his daughters wedding is a "family obligation"! Well you learn something new every day. There was I thinking that it was a joy.

He's being dreadful and should be ignored. He's welcome to come, welcome to make a speech but you will need to know about that for certain by a couple of weeks beforehand at latest, as you'll need to arrange an alternative speech otherwise.

Or, could you arrange one quietly, stay calm, brazen it out, then if, on the day, he doesn't want to speak, have someone else ready to stand up and do it. That may be preferable, as it lets him grumble to himself for as long as he likes, without affecting you or giving him any bargaining power.

If he was paying for the wedding, you might have consulted him about the guest list, months ago. If he isn't, you asking him to speak is doing him an honour, for which he should be very grateful and it doesn't sound very well deserved.

he isn't paying him he said he was saving for the wedding and when money got tight our end I asked him if had still been saving and he asked how much we had left to pay out so I said about £600. Not expecting £600 off him. He gave me £400 but then complained to other people about how he could no longer afford the new playstation he had been saving for.

Well yes, my way of looking at it with my wedding was that these things ought to be a joy that the whole extended family should get to share in. That is what we all thought, in fact.

Very sad for Toad if people only pay her attention and came to her wedding in return for being able to choose who comes and have a say. Your family relationships sound 18th C Toad - most of us have moved on a do things out of love rather than 'family obligations' and outdated socail mores.

Thank you for your sympathies, but they aren't necessary. We all get along very well.

Unfortunately none of us have extended country estates, so we're not like the sort of family I guess you have in mind in any sense.

That's nice toad if you have a good relationship with your extended family. I have no contact with some of my immediate family let alone my extended family.

It was the same for us. We gave them the choice. Some of them attended, some didn't. On my side, not many pitched up because the wedding was overseas in DW's home town, but that was just too bad.

Also, I apologise if my comments were unkind. I hope you get it sorted out and restore harmony.

well there you go toad you did what im doing. either come overseas to my wedding or don't come. Im saying either do the whole role of father of the bride or don't do any of it.

that's ok I want it sorted. I want him there just not sure if I want him involved anymore

You may get along well Toad but it was obvious from the OP that this family may not have the same sort of relationship as you. I have family with country estates and they are the most casual of us all - I find its only Royals and Mrs Bouquet types that have this attitude any more. But thats only my experience

My db gave the speech at my wedding, my df having passed away. Never occurred to either of us that he should have a say in who was invited! How odd.
I think if you go back in time to couples getting married in late teens/early 20s and everything being entirely paid for by bride's parents, then yes the parents basically wrote the guest list.
I knew every person at my (small, modest) wedding, and it was lovely.

Toadinthehole you seem to think that there are only two possible scenarios.

1. Bride and groom bending to the will of an overbearing parent (which is what the OPs dad is).

2. Bridezillas who can't give a stuff for anyone else except to get what they want, riding roughshod over their poor parents.

There isn't just black and white.

We did sit down with our daughter, her husband and his parents and discussed the guest list. Ultimately it was the couples decision who was invited and as it happened they had all the relatives there that could possibly have been expected of them. I have some aunts and uncles which my children have never met and there is no way that it was right to invite total strangers.

Anyway is doesn't matter much what we think because it's not our wedding and we don't have the family that the OP has.

Well yes, Justforme, but that would have been true if I'd got married across the country. I don't think anyone would argue that my choice of spouse was anyone's business but my own: the fact that she is from another country is neither here not there.

We're not old-fashioned. Honestly.

Well I had a lot of involvement in my daughters wedding, but I like to think that that is because I didn't go around demanding a say in who, what , where ,when.

oh no that wasn't what I was saying just that ultimately you had the majority of say in your wedding.