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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask how to avoid being a CF/bridezilla

138 replies

LoveInTokyo · 23/04/2018 10:30

Been reading a lot of bridezilla threads lately.

We are having a sort of destination wedding, which can’t really be avoided. My OH is foreign and we have to get married somewhere, so either way half our guests will need to travel from abroad. We’ve chosen to get married where we live, so there is at least some logic to it. It’s an easy destination to get to and there are plenty of hotels and AirBnbs within crawling distance.

How can I make it easier and more fun for my guests to attend?

And what is the best way to handle the gift issue? I don’t want to make it sound like we are expecting anything, especially from people who have travelled a long way, but people want to know what they’re supposed to do. We don’t want to have a gift list because we don’t need anything and don’t have any space for extra stuff anyway. Most people seem to ask for money these days but I’ve heard that described as CF-ery. Confused

Any tips about how to help people with children? There are likely to be a few babies but none over the age of two. Should we do anything for them apart from providing a quiet room for people to breast feed etc?

Any tips would be much appreciated!

Thanks.

OP posts:
OlennasWimple · 23/04/2018 16:10

I'd love to go to a Parisienne wedding - promise I won't bring any needless wine glasses! Wink

Honestly, there are so many MNers who hate weddings or see them as a big chore - it's one of those "do I live in an alternate world" topics for me. I love weddings, I am pleased when I'm invited to one, and provided I know what the deal is so I can sort out travel / accommodation / feeding DC at a decent time so they don't turn into demons, I am happy to go with the flow, whether the B&G want everyone to join in country dancing, wear green or sing the hymns in Welsh

GorgonLondon · 23/04/2018 16:11

fallen yes, she says that she's not expecting it but it's totally obvious that what she's really asking is how she can ask for people to fund her honeymoon without sounding rude. The answer is you can't, because it is.

TheFallenMadonna · 23/04/2018 16:11

She doesn't expect it. She's said so several times.

TheFallenMadonna · 23/04/2018 16:11

That's not obvious.

Original poster
LoveInTokyo · 23/04/2018 16:12

I’ve said before, my main concern is actually making sure people don’t feel obliged to give us a gift, and also that they don’t - due to a lack of guidance) buy us a toaster or wine glasses or something we don’t need and can’t physically fit in our apartment without getting rid of something we already own. That will benefit no one (except the charity shop it goes to the week after).

I do appreciate everyone’s opinions, which is why I started the thread. But I’m not sure what a couple of you think you’re contributing by expressing the same opinion several times.

OP posts:
MargaretCavendish · 23/04/2018 16:12

The fact is it's cheeky to expect people to give you money if they've had to go way out of their way to travel to the venue, pay for a hotel, etc.

By that logic I've never been to a wedding where I should have given a gift, because I've always had to pay for at least a train, and normally an overnight stay - and surely that's totally normal? Again, people make a huge fuss about this on MN, but in real life people accept that other people's weddings are unlikely to be on their own doorsteps and don't consider this to be some sort of unacceptable insult directed at them personally.

GorgonLondon · 23/04/2018 16:12

X-posted with expatinscotland who said it much better.

OlennasWimple · 23/04/2018 16:13

The fact is it's cheeky to expect people to give you money if they've had to go way out of their way to travel to the venue, pay for a hotel, etc.

Don't most people have to travel fora wedding these days? Now that we tend not to live in the same place that we grew up, we marry people from other parts of the country (or other countries) and we move for work?

I can think of a handful of weddings I went to in my early 20s that were local (college friends who got married shortly after graduation), but every other wedding I've been to since then has required at least an hour's drive and most have (to be practical and make the most of the event) been a hotel overnight. I still think it would have been miserly to turn up with nothing other than a Hallmark card and the sense that they should just have been jolly grateful that I was there

expatinscotland · 23/04/2018 16:14

It's not a train ride away, it's in another country.

'She doesn't expect it. She's said so several times.'

Then you say NO GIFTS PLEASE and mean it.

Of course, there are already a couple of threads right now in active from brides who did this and then were disappointed people didn't hand over money. Or they got vouchers rather than cash.

OlennasWimple · 23/04/2018 16:15

It's not a train ride away, it's in another country.

Eurostar

GorgonLondon · 23/04/2018 16:15

my main concern is actually making sure people don’t feel obliged to give us a gift, and also that they don’t - due to a lack of guidance) buy us a toaster or wine glasses or something we don’t need

And you've been given the answer multiple times, which you've ignored.

You simply state that you don't want any gifts and you nominate a charity if people feel that they want to make a donation to mark the occasion.

Because that's not your main concern at all. Your main concern is transparently how you can get people to pay for your honeymoon. It's really, really obvious.

Original poster
LoveInTokyo · 23/04/2018 16:15

It literally is a train ride away for anyone coming from London!

Grin
OP posts:
MargaretCavendish · 23/04/2018 16:16

But it is a (Eurostar) train ride away. Is Northumberland or Cornwall a destination wedding? Because I could get to Paris quicker and cheaper than to Northumberland or Cornwall.

MargaretCavendish · 23/04/2018 16:17

Do you tell everyone who has a traditional wedding list with forty pound champagne flutes etc that they should have asked for charity donations instead? If not, why not?

TheFallenMadonna · 23/04/2018 16:18

My mum and her husband said "no gifts please". They meant it. They got loads of gifts. Now, they are old, and gifts were mostly boozy, but still. Lots of people want to get a gift.

As to other threads, I just tend to believe what the poster says, rather than someone else's interpretation of that.

OlennasWimple · 23/04/2018 16:18

I think Gorgon must be reading a different thread to me Confused

Sonotcivil · 23/04/2018 16:19

It is a destination wedding though for some of your guests.
Just say no gifts

expatinscotland · 23/04/2018 16:20

If you don't want gifts, you just say so. But you do. You want people to pay for your honeymoon. So go ahead and state that rather than larking about with all the 'your presence is our present but give us money' malarkey. You asked how not to be a CF, and plenty of people said, 'Don't ask for gifts' in this case as the wedding's in another country. But you still counter with, 'But, but! I don't want toasters! I want money!' So go ahead and put that in the invitations.

Original poster
LoveInTokyo · 23/04/2018 16:20

TheFallenMadonna

I will never take a “no gifts please” wedding invitation at face value again after my previous experience.

OP posts:
GorgonLondon · 23/04/2018 16:21

Yes olenna I'm reading the same one as expatinscotland ginger foxy and a bunch of others. I have nothing more to add though, I just really dislike disingenuousness.

Original poster
LoveInTokyo · 23/04/2018 16:21

expat You’ve made your views very clear. No offence but you and a couple of others seem a bit strangely overinvested in this now.

OP posts:
Sonotcivil · 23/04/2018 16:23

Sorry didn't realise you clarified it. Not a destination property.

expatinscotland · 23/04/2018 16:24

'No offence but you and a couple of others seem a bit strangely overinvested in this now.'

Haahaa! Nice try, Love. Hmm You think whatever you like, people are allowed to post as they wish as long as it's within guidelines. You don't like hearing that it's rude and CF to ask for honeymoon money, so why create a thead in the first place?

Original poster
LoveInTokyo · 23/04/2018 16:26

Because I am looking for a range of opinions and tips, rather than the same three people expressing the same opinion over and over again.

There has been some useful advice on this thread which I appreciate.

OP posts:
MargaretCavendish · 23/04/2018 16:26

If you think that 'You don't need to get us a present at all, but if you do we'd prefer contributions to our honeymoon' is disingenuous then I think it says more about you than the couple saying it.