To ask my maid of honour not to announce her engagement at my wedding

[Skyhu]

I'm getting married next month, my MoH has just told me that she's engaged. Obviously, I'm super happy for her, but we have a lot of mutual friends, and the next time we will see most of them is at our wedding. I don't want to have to ask her, but I just want our day to be about me and my FH.

All advice appreciated!

But if they mention her wedding, it'll just be a quick "Oh congratulations. That's great news". They won't be "preparing for the next wedding". If my best friend/maid of honour had just got engaged and there were loads of mutual friends at our wedding, I'd actually raise it myself!! I'd stand up and say "Can we all toast my dear friend xxxx, who's just got engaged!".
Why wouldn't you? I feel like you're going to be stressing all day in case someone one finds out about her engagement. What are you going to do? Ask her to remove her ring?

but the problem is if she or her DP have already told even one of your mutual friends, you'll have to also tell them not to mention it, and then it gets really weird.

Otherwise someone will ask her 'So what's new with you?' she'll reply 'Oh, nothing much,' but then friend who has been told will say "Except for your engagement, that's big news!" or later on in the night "Hey guess the next time we'll see each other is at (MOH')s hen!" and everyone will be thinking your poor MOH is weird for not telling them really big news and start gossiping about if she's unhappy with her DP.

Even if she doesn't tell them at the wedding and then messages them/meets up with them after to tell them once she's "allowed", they'll obviously ask when it happened, she'll say the date, and they'll all be confused asking 'Why didn't you say anything at the wedding?'
Unless you also want her to lie about you telling her not to tell people as well as about not being engaged, she'll say "because Skyhu told me not to tell anyone so as not to take the attention away from her" and then all your friends will think you're weird/self-obsessed.

weddings last for ages, people will talk about everything going. Your friends will be catching up with each other for 8-12 hours, do you really expect them not to talk about or focus on anything other than you for that whole time? In pretty much every wedding I've been to I've spent far more time catching up with other guests than actually engaging with the bride and groom, because they are spread out trying to spend a little bit of time with everyone.

Your other friends attending might also have big news to share - are you really expecting them to not bring up theirs either just incase it overshadows yours?

You might do all this to enforce on poor MOH to not say anything and then a different friend will rock up with an engagement ring or pregnancy announcement or something!

Rarely does an OP’s update actually put them in a worse light than the Op itself

To those of you who have called me a jealous child, yes - I suppose I am jealous. Jealous of the love she will get that I haven't had. The lack of love I have had from my family is perhaps what is making the attention from my friends all the more important to me. But if anyone is able to say they've never been jealous of anyone, then hats off to you!

Seriously, you’re trying to elicit sympathy for why you want the day to be squarely about YOU.

I do love it when people come on here with a complaint expecting everyone to agree with them.

They will soak up your wedding by attending your wedding ritual.

The party afterward is to thank your guests for attending, not for the bride and groom to be placed on a pedestal and "supported" (whatever that means) by their friends. You are getting married presumably to someone you love and trust. What more do you need? And endless stream of people coming up to tell you that you look nice and wish you well? What??

@Skyhu, I know you're upset because this thread hasn't delivered what you wanted to hear. You do, however, need to adjust your expectations otherwise you are going to spoil for yourself what should be a happy and joyous event.

If you do that - and I hope you will make the alternative choice - it will be your own doing. The power and the control over that choice, however, also rests solely with you. You can put this into perspective and have the day of your dreams, but you need to actively choose this. As the old mantra goes, you can only control your own behaviour but you can't control other people's; this includes the topics of conversation they might engage in at your wedding.

I suspect you've become caught up in the headiness of your wedding planning, as well as your disappointment and unfulfilled childhood needs in not receiving the love you deserved from your family, and as such are not seeing this situation with the clarity that you might. Your envy of the love which your friend has in her life - and which to some extent I do understand having grown up with a violent and absuive father - is tainting your perceptions of what your day means to you.

You have clear options available. You can choose to let it. Or you can choose to celebrate the love that really matters on that day: that between you and your fiance, which on this important occasion no painful past history should be allowed to taint.

At present your MoH rather than your own personal happiness is occupying the forefront of your thoughts and concerns about this day. This needs relegating to the place it merits. (Also, no one is ever the recipient of 100% of others' attention, even as a bride). But, as I think you already know, this isn't really about your MoH, but about you. When the time is right it might therefore be worth seriously considering seeking some counselling or trauma therapy to come to terms with your past. I know all about that still-crying child inside the seemingly confident adult, who has not had her needs met by the people she trusted most to care for her in her formative years. I've been that child too. With work, it is possible to find a place of consolation and acceptance, and to live a happy, loving and fulfilled adult life. I'm proof of that.

I wish you happiness. It's up to you whether you choose it, and I hope you will. 💐