My wedding was shit, aibu feeling like this?

[catbynature]

With our first anniversary approaching I'm feeling all down again. We got married last year and it was sooo stressful. Firstly I had my sd 13 tell me she hated me 2 weeks before, it came as a shock and I was really upset. Then my husband to be just one week before the wedding had a heart attack and was in hospital having heart surgery. Against my better judgment we didn't cancel it, the drs said he would make it, the money we had spent was ridiculous, so it was hard to cancel.
My dad died the Xmas before and my mum died 2 years before that. Then my sister who has always let me down in the past said she wasn't coming because her dp couldn't make it 🤷‍♀️. I was devastated. I had a few family members there but people I wasn't really close to. I felt sad on the day but kept smiling. It also decided to rain allllll day, we had that fantastic summer and it was one of the only days it rained and rained!
My husband obviously wasn't himself he was tired and it wasn't the day it was supposed to be as I just wanted to get him through it and look after him. He managed to make a speech but and I know he was ill but I just felt he didn't mention me at all . Yeh I know that sounds selfish and at the time I don't think I thought too much but now it's just another horrible memory. We had to cancel our honeymoon as he couldn't fly, I said to him we have all our life to go don't worry but now it's just another thing on top.
We've had an up and down year with his health and mine suffered too tbh. He has been tired and not feeling great so he has been so moody not his fault but I'm just saying it's been tough!

Surely though I should be grateful he's still alive we had a nice day ish it's just one day it's the marriage that's the important bit right! But no I don't feel like that.... why? And AIBU!!!!

Sorry to hear all that, YANBU.
For you

No, you’re not being unreasonable, it sounds like a disaster. Have you made peace with your SD? Could you do something nice on your anniversary? A family tea with cake at your place?

I'm sorry that so much went wrong in the run-up to your wedding.

It sounds as though all the things that happened in the run-up understandably stayed with you to affect your day. I think a wedding is always going to be bittersweet if you have recently lost your parents and were close to them.

It is all still so very recent - as the years pass, you might find you remember more of the nice day you had, and the awful things that happened around that time will become more separate in your memories.

Would it help to plan something lovely for your first anniversary - is your husband well enough to have a belated honeymoon as your original one was cancelled?

Yanbu

Don't know what else to say. I didn't love my wedding either but I'm getting divorced so maybe that doesn't really help.

I know someone who had an awful wedding so had a blessing a year or so later with a party after

Maybe focus on your health - both of you. Get in the most amazing shape mentally and physically & then go and renew your vows in Vegas or something like that? Make new memories, life isn't perfect, but you have a husband that loves you & you love him, nothing awful has happened to ruin that. Just re-write the memories.x

@catbynature Sounds like you have had a difficult start to married life and its not unusual to feel down when things dont go as you would expect. Have you thought about seeking some help from a counsellor to help you figure things out?

I didn’t have the best wedding day. I was angry and hurt about it for a whilst afterwards. BUT we are celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary this year and honestly the wedding day doesn’t matter. What matters is that we said our vows to each other and have lived up to them for the last 19 years.

I don’t mean any of that in a patronising way so apologies if it comes across that way. Could you plan a renewal?

Yanbu! That was a day full of unexpected things. I'm not surprised your feeling down.
If it helps...

1. Your dad getting remarried and being 13 are difficult times and unfortunately can cause a child to get confused and lash out, but I can understand why this would hurt.

1. It can be really hard when the weather is rubbish it happened to my mum. Then everytime it chucked it down bucket loads they would curl up in front of the TV and talk about how it rained like that on their wedding. It was so romantic part of me was gutted it didn't rain on my wedding.

1. Weddings are huge things and we all want our day to be perfect. But the truth of the matter is if I asked you if the only way you could get married was in a card board box wearing a bin bag and no reception after, but you would be married to your husband would you do it? If the answer is yes then trust me you got all you ever wanted on that day.

I agree with chihuahuamummy. Why don't you plan a little celebration and celebrate getting through all you've been through. Inviting just people who make you happy. Or plan something super romantic with your dh.

That's a lot of stress to be experiencing at any time nevermind on your wedding day. The important thing is your DH survived to become your DH and you got married. Could you have a honeymoon now or next year? Make a special memory for the two of you.

There was a probably lot of expectation and then a lot of disappointment. I would imagine it feels like a massive waste of money too, which is hard to deal with if you're not well off.

Its probably not really even about the wedding OP, it was a difficult time and now you've got a yearly reminder of it. Sounds like things are still tough too.

Keep ploughing on and as others have suggested, maybe plan something for the future to replace those bad memories. Hope DH is on the mend

I know that's true @Slazengerbag that's why I'm annoyed with myself for feeling like this. Thank you so much for the suggestions of renewing or doing it again, it's worth thinking about, just don't think I'm ready yet and I almost feel like it'll be doomed and start feeling stressed again.
I know a lot of people thought it made it even more special the fact he made it, but I didn't feel like that and I don't know why! I feel guilty for not feeling like that, I remember just disappearing a few days before and just crying. The approach of the day just brings back all the stress.
Btw the relationship with my step daughter is much better now thankfully. That is one small mercy

I didn't especially love my wedding. It's such a formula. Nothing especially went wrong, just, your day is a hotel's production line. It's just a day. With 180 of your close friends and family.

OTOH I love my DH and my little family. I hope your DH feels better and relations with your SD improve. Perhaps she was unable to cope with her dad's marriage and illness - and you got the fall out. This is your family now. Best of luck to you.

I didn’t love my wedding. Yes it was a nice day but when I hear people say theirs was the ‘best day of their lives’ I feel a bit sad. I don’t feel like that.
However, I’m married to a wonderful man and we are very happy.
Your feelings will fade and try to remember it’s about the marriage not the wedding.

Cross posts.
All your feelings are valid. Don't feel guilty.
If I were to marry again it certainly wouldn't be attended by extended family, work colleagues. It would be more like the garden, with garden flowers and a dozen of our friends. If you had it to do over, and only yourself to please, what would you choose?

I had norovirus on mine. I didn’t quite know or believe it would be anything more than nerves, but 17 visits to the toilet later...

I look like Kermit the frog in my photos. My mum and brother came to the wedding and stayed with me a few nights before the big day. They too fell ill and contributed to My Big Fat Pukey Wedding.
Do you ever watch Family Guy? There’s an episode where they take ipecac. Well, that’s my wedding in a nutshell. By late night, I was no longer sick but my absent MIL express delivered a scathing letter which I read before bed at the end of a very bilious day. My wedding... apparently it was fun, I’ve been told! I spent most of it in bed.

I digress. My point is:

Renew your vows in Vegas, OP!

Ours was an absolute disaster.

You had a lot go wrong The day itself is probably so closely related to the stress and worry about your DH that you can't separate out those emotions from your memories too.
Don't feel bad about it. It's ok to acknowledge it was a difficult time.

It all sounds very stressful, no wonder you don't look back on it with any pleasure. Some kind of renewal or blessing on a different date, might be something positive to focus on. Not necessarily a huge all singing and all dancing event, but something meaningful. Maybe at Christmas? Or maybe abroad. Something you can in future look back on as your alternative wedding day.

This weekend we had a family party to celebrate my DSIS and DDBIL golden wedding and we were telling their Dc's about how the caterers let the family down by providing virtually no food, no exaggeration there was no food apart from a lovely wedding cake that my aunt had made,
My dad sent some cousins out to the local supermarket to get bread etc and various aunts managed to cobble together some sandwiches etc. My Parents were so very upset everything had been planned down to the last detail and it was disastrous, and the "no food" at Dsis's wedding was talked about at every family wedding since. However they have been happily together for 50 years so the awful wedding has had no bearing of the sucess of their relationship.

If I were you I would renew my vows but do it in a very intimate way with just a few of you or even just you as a couple, then go on honeymoon. Don't try to recreate a big wedding it will just add to your dress. renew your vows, have a lovely dinner with a handful of close people. No drama.
As for DSD.. please truly and fully forgive her...I was a nightmare at 13 to my DSM and she is lovely and I actually adored her...but had a lot of teen angst going on around that.

YANBU it sounds like a really tough time, and with the wedding you had your heart set on a perfect day that didn’t turn out the way you imagined. It’s understandable you find the anniversary painful. Like PPs suggested it might help to plan something to look forward to together and try to make time each week to spend as a couple, even simple things like going for a walk, making a nice meal together or watching a movie you both like can make you feel better.

Try not to take the speech thing personally, he may not have realised you were expecting a mention although it seemed obvious to you. My DF wasn’t sure what to put in his speech and was genuinely surprised when we read a few blogs together to give home ideas and they contained lots of topics he hadn’t thought of including mentioning me! He was thinking of doing a quick general thanks.

I hope things start to get better for you soon

Don't feel guilty for feeling like this- you are very much entitled to feel hard done by, after a very rough couple of years, and a disastrous turn off events. At the best of time, weddings can be an anti climax with all the pressure for it to be the 'perfect' day.
Why not maybe have a lovely holiday together to try and make up for it in some small way

Due to stress, tiredness and a trult awful bitchy bridesmaid i hated my wedding.

It took a few years to get over it and now i do at least have wedding pics up in the house. I took my mind off it by redecorating so perhaps a small project would help?

I think you've had a stressful time of it all lately and you are focusing it all on the one day. But that was just one part of a shitty year.
Difficult as it might be, just try and file it away as your "annus horribilis". Onwards and upwards from now on, and a nice renewal of vows to look forward to when life is better.