Page 10 | Backlash after DP proposed on pre-Wedding holiday

Westendgoer · 2025-07-31T19:19:01+00:00

I got engaged last month - DP proposed whilst we were on holiday prior to my friends Wedding. The holiday was in the same resort, but we went over a week before the wedding date as it was somewhere we’d always wanted to visit so made sense to combine the two. I have had comments made by a couple of friends - not the bride - that this was a bit out of order and could have over shadowed the Wedding. I haven’t relayed to my DP, I don’t want it to taint the experience and personally I don’t see the issue with him proposing in the circumstances. Do you agree with me that my friends have overreacted?

Cheeseplantandcrackers · 01/08/2025 08:05

Congratulations! I would probably have waited until after the wedding to tell people but you’ve not done anything wrong.

Genevieva · 01/08/2025 08:05

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/08/2025 08:02

Yes, well, a few years later SIL went no contact with us because we reused her daughter's (very common, top 10) second middle name.

We're all now wishing someone had taken BIL aside and said that his pretty new girlfriend/fiancée's strop about other people's lives not being put completely on hold until their wedding might be a red flag and was he absolutely sure he wanted to marry her?

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My niece has the same middle name as my daughter. I took it as a complement.

I hope it’s just her they has gone no contact, not him too. Sadly, if he was besotted, there’s nothing anyone could have done.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/08/2025 08:08

Genevieva · 01/08/2025 08:05

My niece has the same middle name as my daughter. I took it as a complement.

I hope it’s just her they has gone no contact, not him too. Sadly, if he was besotted, there’s nothing anyone could have done.

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He's more or less no contact with his parents, siblings, nephew and nieces now, because that is what his wife wants.

Genevieva · 01/08/2025 08:11

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/08/2025 08:08

He's more or less no contact with his parents, siblings, nephew and nieces now, because that is what his wife wants.

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That is really very sad. I’m so sorry. It must have caused a lot of pain. And his kids are using out on a big loving family. If your husband can maintain some one-to-one contact with his brother, maybe he’ll find his way back eventually.

Grow123 · 01/08/2025 08:14

It is a shit wedding if an engagement a week before overshadows it. If someone gets engaged, usually people say congrats and how was the proposal. Once the story is finished, it is never mentioned again. Also people reminisce their own weddings at weddings

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/08/2025 08:20

Grow123 · 01/08/2025 08:14

It is a shit wedding if an engagement a week before overshadows it. If someone gets engaged, usually people say congrats and how was the proposal. Once the story is finished, it is never mentioned again. Also people reminisce their own weddings at weddings

You've hit the nail on the head here. The sort of wedding people are still reminiscing about years later (for the right reasons) could never be overshadowed by someone else's engagement/wedding/pregnancy/new baby etc.

The only thing I think is really not on is making a scene at the wedding itself. Don't propose at someone's wedding. Don't announce your recent elopement or engagement during someone's wedding ceremony or reception. "I'm not drinking, I'm pregnant" during the reception is fine though IMO.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/08/2025 08:21

Genevieva · 01/08/2025 08:11

That is really very sad. I’m so sorry. It must have caused a lot of pain. And his kids are using out on a big loving family. If your husband can maintain some one-to-one contact with his brother, maybe he’ll find his way back eventually.

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I hope so too but it is difficult to see a way back for him at the moment. We're not sure whether she has actually brainwashed him or he feels he has to take her side because they now have kids together and he thinks the only thing worse than being married to her would be getting divorced from her.

Cyclebabble · 01/08/2025 08:44

I do not think I would have done this personally. At a wedding the couple getting married need to be the focus. Appreciate that it is before the wedding, but an engagement is a big thing and it would have been better afterwards.

Echobelly · 01/08/2025 09:23

LurkThenPost · 31/07/2025 23:48

lol he didn't even have a ring? wtf how can you propose without a ring?

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Just as sincerely as someone who has one?

Fair play to you anyone who insists there is a ring or wants their bloke to hire a choir or propose at the top of the Eiffel Tower, but for a me I love that it was spontaneous.

We've just celebrated our 18th anniversary, so I think we're doing OK. 😉

spoonbillstretford · 01/08/2025 10:06

Cyclebabble · 01/08/2025 08:44

I do not think I would have done this personally. At a wedding the couple getting married need to be the focus. Appreciate that it is before the wedding, but an engagement is a big thing and it would have been better afterwards.

A week before. Just how long do these fucking divas want the focus for?

Not even the bride and groom in the OP's case but some friends upset on heir behalf. Bonkers.

samthepigeon · 01/08/2025 10:37

UnintentionalArcher · 01/08/2025 06:15

What a horrible judgement. Some
of your other responses to people are also quite unpleasant.

I initially wasn’t sure if your earlier post asking how you can propose without a ring was serious, but then I’ve seen some of your other posts and I assume that it was.

A proposal is a suggestion to do something - in this case, get married. A man or a woman can propose (with or without a ring) or a couple can simply have a discussion and decide that they want to get married.

You seem to be assuming that an engagement ring is necessary - it isn’t. I don’t wear one for a few reasons. Mainly, I don’t like the symbolic inequality of it - the idea that women are a prize whose possession is to be indicated by a ring. To me, it reflects the old-fashioned marriage economy where women were financially dependent upon men and the ring was an indication of an intention and ability to provide. I also don’t generally like engagement rings as jewellery - there are some nice ones but a lot of them are really similar (and not to my taste). Lastly, I just don’t like wearing a lot of jewellery and an engagement ring would be something else to remove and potentially lose during sport etc.

If other women want and like engagement rings, I have no issue with that whatsoever and I’m not judging them but I’m giving you these examples because it’s ridiculous to suggest that a lack of engagement ring is somehow a poor reflection on a man’s character. You seem to be very focused on the ring - an object - rather than the substance of the proposal - a person asking you to share their life with them. I take my husband’s lack of purchase of an engagement ring for me as a positive indication of his character- in that he knows me well enough to know I wouldn’t want one and is on the same page as me in terms of the values underpinning this preference.

Another thing - weddings don’t have to take many months to plan. Lots do (again, the modern wedding economy is something I don’t particularly like as I think much of it is overblown) but you can simply organise the right documents in a few weeks, invite a few friends if you wish (or not) and get married. Someone else has mentioned that the amount spent on a wedding is inversely proportional to its likely success. I know there are many exceptions to this, of course, and I’ve enjoyed celebrating with many friends at larger weddings, but it is a fact that money spent does not correlate with future happiness or marriage success.

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Perfect.

cardibach · 01/08/2025 11:57

LurkThenPost · 01/08/2025 00:36

But, you need a "RING" to propose - that's the point of proposing?

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The point of proposing is to see whether your partner would like to marry you. That’s it. Once you’ve done that you’re engaged. Then you marry, ideally within an agreed timeframe. Rings are lovely, but they are not ‘the point’ of proposal.

SnowFrogJelly · 01/08/2025 12:02

Idontjetwashthefucker · 31/07/2025 20:20

Your friends are dicks

This 😂

Zov · 01/08/2025 16:39

LurkThenPost · 01/08/2025 00:01

Its about having basic respect and making an effort. It could be a home proposal, but you clearly have very low standards so there's that. The bar is very low for men.

Simple proposal at home:
Order my favourite take away
Light some candles
Make an effort in some decoration
Get a nice ring I'll like

Not wait for me to come out the shower. Not everything needs to be on Instagram. I don't even use Instagram !!

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Well exactly @LurkThenPost !

Paganpentacle · 01/08/2025 16:45

sciaticafanatica · 31/07/2025 20:28

I mean it’s a lazy proposal but I don’t think it’s stolen anyone’s thunder .

Ours was .... ''shall we get married now we've bought a house then?''
Lazy? Probably.... but then again we're still together 25 years later.... unlike many.

OP... I cant get my head around what certain brides think they can dictate to others. If they're so fragile or egotistical that someone else being happy pisses on their parade... gods help them.

Unless he got down on one knee during the actual ceremony or stole the microphone during the speeches crack on I say.

Paganpentacle · 01/08/2025 16:55

EmeraldShamrock000 · 31/07/2025 21:47

Yabu.
You should have kept the news to yourself until after the wedding. You don't use a friend's wedding day to announce an engagement.
Thankfully he'd the sense not to ask you at the wedding venue.

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It was the week before the wedding.....

Pinkissmart · 01/08/2025 17:19

SunshineAndFizz · 31/07/2025 20:27

It’s a bit thunder-stealing, yes.

How?
Everyone is a grown up. Are the bride and groom so mean that they can't be happy for their friends? And they need every scrap of attention to be focused on them?

Echobelly · 01/08/2025 18:57

Yeah, I really don't think it's thunder stealing at all. has anyone here talked about their friends' engagements for a week?! Other things happen in the world.

UnintentionalArcher · 01/08/2025 21:47

Paganpentacle · 01/08/2025 16:45

Ours was .... ''shall we get married now we've bought a house then?''
Lazy? Probably.... but then again we're still together 25 years later.... unlike many.

OP... I cant get my head around what certain brides think they can dictate to others. If they're so fragile or egotistical that someone else being happy pisses on their parade... gods help them.

Unless he got down on one knee during the actual ceremony or stole the microphone during the speeches crack on I say.

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The idea of him stealing a mic during the speeches made me laugh.

While I agree with avoiding formal engagement announcements at other people’s weddings (though I wouldn’t be bothered at my own wedding), I just don’t understand the idea that the time leading up to or after someone’s wedding is somehow sacrosanct in terms of ensuring that all attention is on the couple. It especially seems to be the expectation that all attention is on the bride - I find this reductive in terms of women’s roles as it often idealises certain limiting gender roles and performative behaviours. Being so precious about these things also places too great a weight on the wedding day - yes, a wedding is an important day for the couple involved but it’s one day in a hopefully very long relationship and I would argue that each subsequent day is more important in terms of the reality and success of the marriage.

This expectation of excessive focus on the couple to the exclusion of others also seems to link to the idea of a wedding as a consumer product (which, to be fair, lots of weddings are, given the cost), and the couple perhaps subconsciously feeling a need to get their ‘money’s worth’. I was always uncomfortable when girls I knew, from primary school age onwards, would imagine and idealise their wedding day - a totally abstract concept disconnected from the reality of two people making a lifelong commitment. If that’s the culture we have around weddings though, perhaps it’s no wonder that some people feel entitled to a sustained focus on them.

I love what a previous poster said about the friends not being bothered if they’re not getting married for attention! So apt.

CheeseWisely · 02/08/2025 13:17

Tumblingthrough · 31/07/2025 21:51

I would love it if someone else got engaged at my wedding.
But then I’m not a self centred egocentric twat.

Me too. The girlfriend of a very dear friend caught my bouquet. If he’d got on one knee then and there on the dance floor I’d have been absolutely over the moon. As it happened their engagement announcement 2 years later coincidentally came on the same day as our DS was born. I was and still am thrilled for the both of them, and that we all share a special date.

Echobelly · 02/08/2025 14:01

I don't think I have minded either, the only way it would bother me was if I knew or felt that the person being asked wasn't comfortable with it being done in public (which I generally think is a no-no) but in terms of 'attention', no, a non-issue.

One of our best men had become a father for the first time two weeks before the wedding (and he and his wife and baby heroically made it). That's a major life episode and we didn't feel that he'd stolen attention from us by bringing a newborn! We were just delighted for him and that he still made it and we were also prepared for him not to make it if he couldn't on account of the baby, because that's what friends should be like with each other.

ZoeCM · 02/08/2025 14:32

I still remember a thread about bridezilla who didn't want any of her friends to get engaged before her wedding (which was eight months away) and also wanted a "cool-down period" of no engagements for at least three months after her wedding.

Andbegin · 02/08/2025 14:43

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 01/08/2025 07:51

I imagine they stayed the week before the wedding rather than the week after the wedding because that was what suited them best. At this time of year it might have been the difference between school holiday prices and term time prices.

Surely if you are having a destination wedding in a place that is far enough away that some of your guests decide to stay a week to make it worth the trip, you should be pretty happy they decided to come in the first place and not mind what else they decide to do whilst there. And the bride has not actually indicated that she is bothered by it at all.

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I did have a destination wedding and some came before we arrived and some stayed on afterwards.

I’m not saying the week before didn’t suit them better. I was suggesting that the lead up to someone else’s wedding (in a lovely location) is more exciting than afterwards. So was in fact, pigging backing somewhat.

No skin off my nose but I’m not a fan of proposals that link to other peoples events including Christmas and birthdays.

cardibach · 02/08/2025 15:16

Andbegin · 02/08/2025 14:43

I did have a destination wedding and some came before we arrived and some stayed on afterwards.

I’m not saying the week before didn’t suit them better. I was suggesting that the lead up to someone else’s wedding (in a lovely location) is more exciting than afterwards. So was in fact, pigging backing somewhat.

No skin off my nose but I’m not a fan of proposals that link to other peoples events including Christmas and birthdays.

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It’s only more exciting for the bride and groom (and their immediate family). Friends are probably more excited about their holiday.

Gingercar · 02/08/2025 17:43

It’s no more exciting whether before or afterwards. People who have destination weddings often seem to forget that a lot of guests will often have given up their leave and holiday budgets to come to your wedding. So it is their holiday as well as your wedding- and that involves doing things to please themselves too…. You should be thanking your stars that they made the effort, not sulking because they happened to get engaged a few days before the wedding.