embarrased about wedding

[nic033]

since having my DD over 4 years ago i lost all of my friends and havent spoken to anyone other than mine and my OH family since, im a stay at home mum and dont really go out unless its to take my DD to nursery. Me and my OH are getting married in a year and im really embarrassed writing our guest list, my OH only has work colleagues but our guest list is 50 people in the day yet 75 evening. with only our family on the list its still less than 50, my OH doesnt care and is inviting his work mates to the evening but i have no one and its really made me upset. i know its about us but it still makes me realise how lonely i am. advice?

The fact that you have not seen your friends for a while doesn’t mean they are no longer friends... unless you have offended them.

We had 10 (including us) at the ceremony and 25 evening guests later. It was a brilliant day/evening.

Mind you we aren't overly keen on people.

I lost touch with a couple of really close friends about 10-12 years ago for no particular reason apart from lives going in different directions,young children etc and I caught up on FB ...have never looked back!!

@Pinkblueberry

We had 40 in the day and 60 in the evening, it never occurred to me to feel embarrassed about that

im not embarrassed about how many people are coming. i was saying how lonely i felt by not having any friends to add to my guestlist and mentioned in my previous comments that i have a package with a number of guests that i need to fill.

Honestly OP, please don't worry about the wedding. People just will not notice. I suspect you have got yourself into a mindset where people are going to be sniggering or asking you about it? That just isn't going to happen.

With regards to widening your friendship group, it must be so hard at the moment. Maybe have a think about how you can do that when pandemic is over, if it is bothering you.

I have about ten good friends. I could turn up at any of their houses in the dead of night and they would look after me But that's pretty much it. Suits me just fine. Having dozens of friends isn't a measure of success, although no doubt it suits some people very well.

Do you work? Have plans to work? You might make "school mum friends" although I never did!!

You really have nothing to be embarrassed about though. I hope you have a lovely day.

@KarmaNoMore

The fact that you have not seen your friends for a while doesn’t mean they are no longer friends... unless you have offended them.

i have only had a few good friends in my life and walked over a lot, tried to get in contact with my old best friend and even met up with them but after that she ignored all of my messages.

Just because the package is paid for doesn't mean you have to bulk out the numbers with random people. The venue isn't going to care as long as they get paid. Much nicer to have 40 people you care about than work colleagues you wouldn't bother seeing again if you left your job. Think about the wedding photos and don't invite anyone whose name you will have forgotten in 10 years time. You don't want your wedding to be full of other people's plus-ones.

@lockdownalli

Honestly OP, please don't worry about the wedding. People just will not notice. I suspect you have got yourself into a mindset where people are going to be sniggering or asking you about it? That just isn't going to happen.

With regards to widening your friendship group, it must be so hard at the moment. Maybe have a think about how you can do that when pandemic is over, if it is bothering you.

I have about ten good friends. I could turn up at any of their houses in the dead of night and they would look after me But that's pretty much it. Suits me just fine. Having dozens of friends isn't a measure of success, although no doubt it suits some people very well.

Do you work? Have plans to work? You might make "school mum friends" although I never did!!

You really have nothing to be embarrassed about though. I hope you have a lovely day.

@lockdownalli thank you! this is the reassurance i needed, im worried my OH family will judge anything i do especially lack of friends, as i believe they still havent excepted me even though me and my OH have been together for 6 years. i do have plans to work and im hoping to go back to college this year if thats possible with the pandemic.

I'll come @nic033! I'm not usually a massive fan of weddings, but I've had a quiet year!

I can be relied upon to dress appropriately (I've read the threads), and make up a highly believable friendship story of how we met at university then ran into each other on a river boat in Vietnam - it is a small world!!

I think the minimum numbers might be because that number of meals need to be paid for or booze expected to be drunk.
I think a previous suggestion of inviting friends of your sisters if you know and like them might be a thought if money would be lost by not making up numbers. Or could your parents invite some of their friends as your dad has paid? Obviously ones you like and have stood the test of time!
If you get on brilliantly with your sisters there has probably been little need for friends outside the family but going forward you will meet lots of new people once your DD starts school. Is working a possibility to get you out the house (post Covid) and talking to/meeting people?

If I got married now They’d be maybe 8 guests on my side. Quality not quantity

I feel you OP. I could have written this post five years ago. Neither of us have many friends (through choice I hasten to add - I'm far too lazy to maintain more than a couple of friendships at a time and DH is very reserved) although DH does have quite a few he's kept in touch with from school and college. I literally had my best friend from Uni (who doubled as my bridesmaid), another Uni friend and three of my colleagues (plus partners) on my side. We both have small families too, so my parents had to invite some of their friends to make up the numbers. Mortifying! I think we had 55 for the day and 85ish for the evening, which was the bare minimum for the venue.

To make matters worse, my cousin and his wife had got married a month before us and had over 200 people - they have oodles of 'couple' friends and school/Uni mates between them.

Honestly don't give it a second thought. The actual day will go so fast you'll barely have time to eat, let alone worry about how many guests you have.

I booked 50 for my wedding which was unfortunately cancelled cos of covid.We rebooked and married with 15 guests as we just wanted to get married after everything. Would have liked more people but it is what it is and the day was good. People have everything from tiny to huge weddings and it's nothing to be embarrassed about.

I also lost touch with a lot of pre-baby friends, but I have re-connected with a few since. I think we all dropped out of the loop for a while due to a mixture of career development and motherhood. Looking back, the big gap really was between discovering that DP was more than just a boyfriend and our children becoming big enough for us to have a semi-normal social life again - about ten or twelve years altogether. Meanwhile the suggestion of trying to get the venue to upgrade the level of food/drinks etc to reflect the lower numbers is a good one.

They say the parents of the friends your child makes at school will be your friends

I know it’s hard at the moment. My dd3started Pre school sept so been there 4mths plus all obv wear masks and 2m rule

Any friends your dc mentions. Ask nursery to point out them /the adult

Chat to people in the queue. Maybe suggest meeting up

Plus. Weddings may. Or be up to numbers next year. Venues shouldn’t say has to be x many or as, for a smaller package

I think with just family and colleagues it will be great, and you will have a brilliant time. Even though you are feeling worried now, I promise that on the day you will feel absolutely fine with it, and swept up with the whirlwind of the day with no time to feel sad. This thread should show you that people won't judge you, they will support you and feel happy for you both. Honestly no need to stress about it xxx

Why are you embarrassed? There's no need to be.

By choice in 2015 we had a 3 month engagement and planned the wedding within 2 months. We had a small wedding, 30 all day including us, no extra just evening guests as there was no need to. Everyone we wanted there was at the whole day.
It was just close family and friends.
On my side there was 9, the rest were my husbands family and friends. Also before the wedding day the only members of his family and friends I’d met were his mum and dad. So it was mostly a room full of people I’d never met before. The reason was it all happened extremely quick.

I first met my husband end of April 2014.
We became a couple 9th may 2014. We decided to start trying for a baby in July 2014, we moved in together in October 2014, I got pregnant in November 2014, we found out I was pregnant 19th December 2014. We got engaged 13th January 2015, and got married 9th April 2015. Baby was due 30th August 2015, was actually born on 5th September 2015.
So we had been together exactly 11 months the day we got married. I know it's very quick, being married and expecting a baby within less than a year of being together, but it worked for us. We had discussed marriage and both agreed it was what we wanted, but we weren't officially engaged. But when we found out I was pregnant we both knew it was important to us to be married before the baby was born, and I didn’t want to be showing if possible, so we made sure we were. It was perfect. Some people might think we only got married because I was pregnant, but that was never the case at all.

On top of that the reception was in the function room of the pub my husband worked in at the time. Which meant that it was even more people he knew better than me and from his side.

The day never felt unbalanced at all. I was glad we had a small wedding. It was perfect.