To think our wedding could be a bit more of a priority to him? Feel like crying all the time.

[NitaNitron]

Partner and I became engaged in Fed this year with the aim to get married summer next year. Money is tight at the moment, we have a holiday booked for August and are going to Glastonbury in a few weeks. IMO we're lucky to be able to do these things but obviously it doesn't help our money situation so next year we agreed on no holiday, saving up for our wedding and generally being as careful as pos, especially as next year my full time wage drops down to £300 a month for a year until I finish my course. Baring all this in mind it started to dawn on us that our dreams of a nice wedding may be unrealistic so we've agreed to make it a cheap affair, prob reg office and a pub afterwards (classy eh!).

I was happy to do this. However, he's now saying he still wants to go to Glastonbury next year. Glastonbury costs us over £500 for 3 days away. Yet he keeps saying we'll have to make sure the wedding is as cheap as poss. AIBU to think that if us getting married even meant anything to him he'd prioritise it over a bloody music festival?

This is a massive deal to me and he knows it yet he's happy for it to be as cheap and tacky as possible as long as he gets to go to Glastonbury. AIBU to think he might have thought a bit more of me than that? Especially since spending that £500+ we don't have could possibly jeapordise the wedding completely. We'll struggle to do it as it is :-(

I'm just feeling all disillusioned with it now. It just feels that his priorities are all wrong. I don't feel like I am engaged at all, we never talk about it, we never look stuff up - I met up with a friend yesterday and she said "you do realise we should be sat here looking through wedding brochures and stuff? I actually keep forgetting you're getting married, isnt it a big deal to you?" I nearly started crying!! Because yeah it is and I feel like I'm the only person who gives a shit about it. Being engaged should be exciting and happy - for me it's just a massive bag of anxiety and sadness. This is my first time getting married and I feel like I'm missing out on all the 'normal' excitement and feelings a woman gets before she marries.

Pissed off and fed up. If I have to listen to one more excited bride to be at work organising her day I think I'll burst into tears.

isnt glastonbury every other year now? i agree with all the others saying get married at/just before glastonbury, it will make it special for both of you especially as it seems to be soething you enjoy together

I kind of agree with DP on this one. Weddings are a massive waste of money. I'd rather go to a music festival and on holiday. Are you sure he wants/ needs to get married? Is it as important to him as it is to you?

I am married and we just had a registry office followed by a meal in a country restaurant, with a few friends and family. Having a big party and wearing a meringue just wasn't a priority.

Your friend was insensitive.

If getting married is so important to you, why not elope have an inexpensive ceremony at the registry office followed by a nice meal with close family and friends?

This is my first time getting married and I feel like I'm missing out on all the 'normal' excitement and feelings a woman gets before she marries.

I think that your friends are not helping you by making you think that it's all about the big day. Honestly, it's awful that you are so sad. Take a step back. The risk was that you would spend your life trying to find the right man to marry and build a happy life with. You could have spent years with a tosser who isn't interested at all.

Instead, you have done it. You have got someone you love, who is up for a happy life together. That's what's exciting. Not the dress-up day.

Get married at Glasto. Camp for your honeymoon. Don't make this a trial of stength between the two of you about which matters more to him. Honestly, Glasto almost certainly matters more to him. But he has a point. It doesn't mean he doesn't love you. It does mean he has a better sense of proportion about the whole Bridezilla industry.

This "big day" crap is just designed to suck your hard-earned money out of you. Seriously, go alternative, go mega-cheap, take two fingers to the industry.

I generally think the cheaper the wedding the less tacky it is.
There is so much unnecessary pressure to have it blown up into something expensive - your friend and her brochures aren't helping.
Like others have said, get married at Glastonbury and have a big party when money's less tight - first wedding anniversary or something.

I do think though that you need to have some frank chats with your DP about money and how you will deal with it through your married life, what your priorities are and I don't mean have a row about wedding vs Glastonbury

Just to put the opposite perspective across - I cannot imagine anything more dull and pointless than Glastonbury. Given the OP refers to it as a 'bloody music festival' it doesn't sound like it's the highlight of her year either. That's ok, you compromise as a couple and each does stuff the other is keen on from time to time.

OTOH, a big party with all my mates, and a chance to see people I've not seen together before - that, I'd love. And for some people, that's an important bit of a wedding, getting to spend a day with friends and family. A small, quiet do isn't going to feel the same.

I know it's worthwhile being a bit cynical about weddings as they can get huge and be extremely expensive, but I just don't see how this is comparable. She's not trying to take out thousands in debt to pay for it, she just doesn't fancy it done on shoestring.

Neither of your priorities are wrong, but you need to talk about this. You're getting married - you're going to have to compromise, prioritise, listen to each other, discuss things, really hear and understand the other person's point of view for the rest of your lives.

This might seem like an insignificant issue to some but that's not the point, it's good practice for the times where you're discussing whether to have a(nother) baby, whether to move a significant distance, whether one of you takes a new job which is going to affect both of your lives enormously.

You don't have to agree on every little thing, or every big thing, but whether you can compromise (and I mean really compromise, where both of you are happy with the position you ended up in, not where one person is stretching for the other and the other is sitting in their perfect place or where both of you are unhappy) or not and discuss something or not and understand each others' opinions and be happy to listen and consider them - these things are really important. Start as you mean to go on! If you can't discuss this, then I would seriously reconsider the wedding full stop, TBH.

Others are right that there are lots of ways you can incorporate what you both want to do but you need to talk to him.

besides

this is my first time getting married

^^this suggests your expecting there to be a second time.

have the glastonbury wedding this time and the big white 'dream' next time.

"I think whether or not a cheap wedding can be nice is missing the point"

Whilst I would normally agree wholeheartedly with this, I was responding to the OP's comment which read: "Baring all this in mind it started to dawn on us that our dreams of a nice wedding may be unrealistic so we've agreed to make it a cheap affair, prob reg office and a pub afterwards (classy eh!).

A cheap wedding can be classy, she's not missing out on anything by not having much to spend. Nice does not mean expensive.

What you feel is what you feel, but your OP suggests you have some quite 'set' ideas about how an engaged woman is supposed to feel -whirl of excitement, wedding 'fayres', brochures, endless planning etc. Do you actually want these things, OP, or do you just feel you are supposed to want them, because of your colleagues (who sound a bit tiresome)? I refused to marry my partner for well over a decade, and in the end only agreed if we could do it in a registry office in jeans with just witnesses etc, because I have neither the time nor the inclination to waste my time and money on something I consider a total nonsense. My lack of interest in a wedding doesn't mean I take my marriage lightly, or don't love my husband.

Obviously, if you really want to be planning, and whirling with excitement, then you need to talk to your fiancé, but this thread alone will almost certainly give you some alternative points of view on what is 'normal' fir a woman to feel about an impending marriage.

I've been married twice. I know loads of married couples too and ALL of them say that they regret spending so much on their wedding. Looking back they wish they'd had a cheap wedding and done something else with the money. I am with your DP, I would far rather have a cheap wedding and do something brilliant not Glastonbury though because that sounds like hell on earth to me

Yeah, true, you have a point arsepaste.

I just feel that everyone is telling her to be a nice person, submit to what he wants, be happy about a wedding in a field - why the heck should she?

I know loads of people aren't into weddings and I have a lot of sympathy with that, but I would't be happy seeing a friend of mine in this situation.

sholer - or possibly, that it's her partner's second marriage?

What Bruno said.

If the two of you can't get in synch at this stage in your relationship then you really want to think about whether it is the right thing for you.

It sounds as if he doesn't really want to get married - how did you 'become engaged'?

Ahh LRD I missed that (I also thought my post was a little harsh after I pressed post )

Oh, I don't know for sure either - I just was suggesting that might be what she meant?

Registry wedding, honeymoon at Glastonbury :)

It's not that I want an expensive wedding at all. If I had my way I'd walk into a reg office tomorrow and get it over and done with within the hour. I agreed we couldn't afford a big do and I wasn't that bothered about having one initially - however getting married IS still important to me and I just wish he'd show just the slightest bit of enthusiasm for it. All he ever thinks about is Glastonbury. Even this year we're going on the holiday of a lifetime in August and all he's bothered about is Glastonbury. I'm so excited about the holiday yet he refuses to talk about it saying we should be concentrating on Glastonbury. FFS. We went to Glastonbury last year, again this year, again next year - he's hardly a deprived man is he?

Anyway I've just put it to him that we get married in reg office the day before glastonbury next year. The festival can be our honeymoon and from then on we have a guaranteed aniversary celebration to look forward to almost yearly. I'll let you know what he says.

Will there be a Glastonbury next year? They have a year off every few years, unless it's 2016.

I don't think yabu OP, although I don't agree with your comments about cheap weddings. You can have a wedding on the cheap, do lots of it yourself and it still be lovely. You don't have to buy into everything.

If you're saving then I agree, your DH shouldn't be wanting to go to Glastonbury next year. He needs to prioritise.

Have you actually sat down and budgeted together?

It's a bit of a fashion/competitive thing on mumsnet I find, that caring about your wedding and wanting it to be a big deal is somehow considered vulgar or not the right way to feel.

I think that's bollocks. You're (hopefully!) only going to do this once. If it's special to you it can be special to you! We got married very quickly and while I was happy with the day there are a couple of things I didn't get to do and I won't, now, ever. I do regret that. I think whatever your budget it's important to make your wedding special if you want it to be special.

if he declines that op, I'd be seriously questoning weather he wanted to get married and if the weddign was ever going to happen. I hope he agrees, but if not you need to have a think about what is important to you - getting married v's living together unmarried. I do hope this all works out for you though.

Agree with Iggi and LRD that it's not the wedding itself which is an issue but the fact the OP and DP seem to be on differnt pages.

OP your suggestion sounds good - will be interesting to see what he says. If I were a betting woman I know what I think would have the best odds.

Hope you manage to resolve this.

I agree with that, bertie.

Good luck, OP.

Also maybe this is a dealbreaker. Do you really want to listen to him bang on about Glastonbury every year for the rest of your life? Red flag! LTB etc!

(Joking!)

I don't think it's really a competitive thing Bertie. It's just that online you can be more honest about how you feel about these things. I genuinely absolutely hate big, fancy , OTT weddings and find them really boring. I can't say that to many people in RL for fear of insulting them, but it's genuinely how I feel. I never feel they're special or memorable and find that no matter how hard people try to make them different, there's a sameyness about them. And I hate it when I see posters upset that they can't afford a big fancy affair (not this OP) or when in real life I see people forking out a small fortune for a wedding that will leave them in debt for years.

Bertie it's not so much of a "fashion" as common sense and refusing to fall into the trap of being conned into thinking that you need to be "princess" for a day or that "it's your big day" and that "It should be the best day of your life."

This is all hogwash. Sure, a wedding should be a fun, gorgeous and romantic day...but thinking it needs two years of planning and consulting hundreds of "wedding brochures" (whatever they are!) is just plain daft.