To cancel my wedding to save the embarrassment?

[RubbishAtWeddingPlanning]

I get married this year and I was really excited when I got engaged two years ago. Since then, the financial pressure of it all has been horrendous. I have a big family and I literally cannot make it any cheaper and it's costing thousands. DH's sister has since got engaged and has a lot of money and has planned and booked everything straight away. I have rubbish bridesmaids who aren't at all interested in the planning or even really me for that matter, a rubbish family who have little interest in my day and after a family do at DH's Uncles house a week ago where his entire family sat round the table discussing DH's sisters wedding which is after mine and asking me ( rather insensetively ) why I haven't and when I will book things I can't afford I have been so sad about my day, crying whenever I think about it and their inevitable opinions. I kept it together then and there but he has some strong, female voices in his family unit who frankly make me feel like a loser in comparison and I cant shake the idea that I can't pull a wedding off. I just feel like no matter how hard I try it's going to be such a pitiful, lesser event and no matter what I spend on it nothing will compare. I can't wait to marry DH and we have a lovely little life but honestly when I see how people talk about weddings on here it seems like nobody appreciates the effort anyway and often slags the day off after. I also feel like with the support I've had with planning my day will never compare to DH's sisters day ( she is lovely and deserves a wonderful day but the family just have no consideration of anyone else's feelings ) and his family will compare the two forever more. They're all quite delusional about the cost and how much I'm trying to juggle at the moment and I feel like I'm interrogated whenever I see them, even when DH to be has said I don't want to talk about it at these events or tried to change the subject. Shall I just call it off and go to a registry office? I have six months to go and I'd lose about 8k. Has anyone else done the same thing? I can't honestly be bothered to try to resurrect it or throw more money at it at this point and I don't want to compete. I have nothing sorted and no money to sort it either really without looking at loans etc and I'm starting to think that a nice meal after and saying the words just me and DH to be and none of the fuss would be better?

Yanbu- cancel
Yabu- ride it out you're just having a wobble

I think in reality most people go to weddings and have a lovely time. I've never been to a wedding and thought "oh my god their decorations are awful and cheap". I go, admire the bride beaming in a lovely dress, 'think awww isn't this lovely' a lot, get fed, chat to people I knew before and people I've never met. Wonderful time. My wedding wasn't cheap, but there were some things I personally didn't want to spend on eg we had origami flowers (I like making them), second hand but fancy dress, went with the cheapest meal options etc. as we couldn't afford it all so compromises were made. the day is about celebrating a marriage, it's shouldn't be about making it an amazing day for the guests. You're not a circus. I think Instagram has made people go a bit mad with weddings.

We eloped
Had a fabulous holiday
Told people afterwards

Don't spend money you don't have

We eloped but we hadn’t already committed £8k! I would just go ahead - the weddings I’ve enjoyed the most have definitely not been the most expensive! It’s about the people there - choose your guest list wisely 😄

Expensive weddings are a waste of money in my opinion and I had one! It’s one day and half the people I had to invite I now don’t see. If you have paid for the venue I’d be tempted to keep it but scale it down. I.e get married as late as possible in the day, so you only have to feed people once, ditch bridesmaids, ushers, don’t bother with expensive cars, maybe invite less people, could you change the date to during the week so it’s cheaper and some people would be at work? I’m divorced and would definitely choose a registry office if I did it again!

OP, I would ask yourself this question: do you want a wedding or do you want a marriage? Don’t lose sight of what really matters because you’ve allowed the other stuff to blind you.

You've got the venue, entertainment and dress sorted. Surely these are the essentials. And you always wanted a big wedding

I'd say go for it, but stop comparing (competing?) with other people and it's unrealistic to expect other people yo do planning for you (apart from DH who should be pulling his weight)

OP I’m also getting married this year and it’s overwhelming. There’s so much to do, my fiancé is amazing but not really a planner, my family have quite a few dramatic distractions… it’s a lot. We considered eloping. But after a few months of drudgery, once stuff is more locked in you do start to look forward to it (or at least I think I am). What has helped for me was totally outsourcing my hen to a friend who offered months ago (not a bridesmaid) because I was just getting bogged down in way too much stuff, and talking to friends about how planning is going. It’s not too late to change bridesmaids and reach out to others, if this is what you still want.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Focus on what you and your partner want. It's your day, after all.

To repeat what pp have said - its not the wedding, its the marriage that's important.
I can instantly think of 3 lovely big weddings I've attended, that didn't make it past 18 months. All 3 brides later remarried in much smaller, more intimate occasions and are lasting the course.

The only thing I regret about our low key low cost wedding is not having had a photographer. It was 20 years ago so it's probably easier now to get lots of good pictures, but the few we have are more like a news recording than a reminder of what it was really like. Now that DH is no longer here I wish we'd had more.

Get married at a registry office using 2 strangers as witnesses. Send a WhatsApp out after it’s done and leave it at that. Everything else is a total waste of time and money.

I couldn’t be bothered with a big wedding. I just don’t see the point even if it was free I’d refuse it.

We were lucky to have a decent budget for our wedding, but after months of stress and tears, we cancelled it all and had a registry office wedding followed by coffee and cake in the cafe next door. You could give me £5m to plan a wedding better than ours, and I couldn't.

Do what will make you both happy, your family can frankly fuck off! In 20 years, you'll look back at your wedding fondly if it's what you actually wanted. Don't give yourself something to regret.

The vows and getting the marriage certificate are the important bit, everything else is window dressing.
Don’t cancel just scale it back, you & your fiance plus immediate family ( parents, siblings & grandparents).

Yup I would cancel it and elope!

If your family and friends are so rubbish and uninterested you should have no trouble trimming your guest list. Ruthlessly chop out cousins you never see, friends that you are no longer close too etc. But you're still going to have to feed them. If you really can't scrape up the money without going into debt I would cancel.

I had one bridesmaid - my husband's teenage sister. We computer printed the wedding invitations on nice peach bond with matching envelopes. We didn't bother with a wedding ring for my husband or any stag or hen does. We economised by bringing some of our own methode champenoise into the venue (obviously this was agreed up front with the venue).

A friend made the wedding cake as her present and we hid the slightly wonky bit on the far side and it looked impressive when we were cutting it. We had a string quartet - moonlighting members of our local orchestra and you got whatever four string players who weren't on tour and were available to play. It was surprisingly affordable and students could be even cheaper.

I didn't bother with professional makeup though my bridesmaid and I got our hair done. As long as you don't want a complicated updo you can do your own hair having a run through about attaching the veil. The men hired suits - cheaper to hire if you haven't got a good suit. I got married so long ago that the men wore morning suits which was correct for an afternoon wedding. Choose flowers that are in season and go for modest posies. Don't knock yourself out with table top decorations, chair covers etc. Careful economising can come across as elegant simplicity.

The marriage following the most beautiful expensive wedding I have ever seen - the bride and groom arrived by helicopter for the reception - with no expense was spared, lasted literally six weeks. On the other hand, a friend who had a very cheap and cheerful double wedding with her sister who had a lot of frills in the front of her hired dress to hide the bump are both still going strong decades later.

Change it.. get married in the evening so you just have s night do with a buffet. Get rid of the formalities

We did - nearly 25 years ago. It was great - no stress, fantastic holiday and we got married with no fuss or extortionate costs. Would recommend it

Keep the dress, cancel the rest, have a small registry office wedding and a slap up meal afterwards. Book yourselves a lovely honeymoon and swan off into the sunset. Be refreshingly honest to anyone saving the date or already invited (including apathetic bridesmaids) that you have decided not to plunge yourself into debt with a wedding you can't afford.

Can you scale it back. Get married in a small ceremony with one bridesmaids use the 8k towards a ‘party’ to celebrate your wedding?

This is what I was going to suggest. Our wedding was small and we enjoyed it. There was minimal organising and it didn't cost a fortune.

Your wedding day is about you and your partner, don't worry about what others think.

Hi OP, I really feel for you. I was in a similarish boat, difficult family politics.

My husbands sister had already had ‘the big family white wedding’. Everything was done “correctly” yet still there was a lot of bitching behind their backs. It was eye opening. We didn’t have the budget or mental resilience to compete with that. 😁

We found a venue through www.celticcastles.com and it was brilliant, all we had to do was sort out the registrar, and the photographer and turn up. We put most of the budget towards having a lovely honeymoon around Scotland.

We had a wedding day that was so special
and personal to us, everyone deserves to feel happy on their wedding day. I hope you do too!

I’d rather lose 8k than get into further debt.

I really wanted to elope to Gretna Green until I discovered it’s on the motorway and looks like a Premier Inn.

But you could do something romantic with your husband and stuff everyone else.

the wedding isn’t for other people - it’s for you and DP. you won’t be letting anyone else down. What do you want? Would you be happy with scaled down version of what you have planned so far? If you are t going to be happy then just elope - but be aware that you have lost £8k. What does your DP think?
if it makes you feel any better in hindsight I wish I had eloped. SILs attitude and comments on the day really ruined part of it for me and DH - if you elope then you are in complete control of your day but I think you have to accept that you won’t have the big celebration which you might otherwise want.

I would say to first explore if/how much money you could get back if you cancelled - as previous posters have said, it might be that the entertainment and venue can find other people, dress could be sold, etc.
If you can't get much or any back, then elope to Vegas or something, wear your dress, then come back and just have a party to celebrate - wear dress again, use venue and entertainment. No direct comparison to be made with SIL as yours is not a wedding then, just a celebration.

Honestly bar my own wedding , the best weddings I’ve been to are one in the local church , then a huge party in the village hall with caterers, a tiny bar and a band where we danced the night away.
another was at the church for ceremony at 6pm and back to a social club for a party, no meal, no faff, fantastic evening we had,

neither were extravagant or pretentious and both couples still happily married.
both were probably the cheaper end of the wedding scale regarding cost but we still talk about them many years later.