Breaking it to your family they aren’t invited to your wedding

[mostimportantaspect]

My DP has been married before. Church wedding, stag do, big reception etc.

I’ve never been married. I am quite anti traditional weddings. I do not need convincing otherwise about weddings. My DP is fine with it don’t worry 😂

I’ve been to many weddings which have been nice and I am happy that other people do love them as an option for them, I just don’t want a traditional wedding with guests.

I don’t want any planning, making guests lists, organising a meal or any stress relating to any other people at all.

I don’t want to share the day with other people or be stared at, taken photos of unawares, separated from my close family all day by obligations to converse with people I barely ever see. I don’t expect any gifts or involvement from others either.

As I said, this is not a personal diss or judgment about other peoples wedding choices it’s just my preference.

I have a complicated family and his is massive so it isn’t a viable option for us to have a wedding that involves anyone else apart from us and our children. If I can’t have a quiet intimate wedding with just us, then I will not get married at all. Our families all get along so it’s not an issue of whether I like them or not. I just want it to be very small and private.

DP has proposed to me in private and we are very happy and planning something exciting with our kids. I want to be married to him so something tiny is perfect

As you can perhaps guess we are being badgered by family asking about our plans and when I have tried to explain we will have a tiny private quiet wedding, they are still under the impression this means they will be invited to the tiny private part.

DP can’t decide if WABU to be vague and none committal about any wedding chat, or is it just better to let people down gently and be up front

Also AIBU to be weirded out that people like watching someone get married who is so visibly uncomfortable with the concept of being watched 😂

I think it's only a problem when some people aren't invited to a tiny wedding. A genuinely tiny wedding, just you, your kids and witnesses (if kids are too young) doesn't really put anyone's nose out of joint.

Tell them you're taking the kids away and will get married there. Explain that you want it to be just you and the kids. Be firm but kind if that's possible.
But think about some sort of compromise like invite them to a tea party or a meal so that they feel included and loved. Limit the numbers, make it clear you really don't enjoy the whole spectacle etc.
From the sounds of it they are really looking forward to their idea of a wedding. They want to be involved and although you don't owe them anything -it's a nice gesture to prevent hurt feelings.

I would feel exactly the same as you OP. My DH comes from a large close family of cousins in Ireland. One of them went off to Italy and got married there - just the two of them. Photos were shared and some given in proper frames as gifts afterwards. As far as we know everyone was really happy for them, and nobody batted an eyelid.
Could you do similar? The distance in actual miles made it easier for everyone to accept happily.

Also, if family are giving you a hard time about not having a big wedding, just keep telling them that you can’t afford one. Hopefully that will make them feel bad enough about it to stop asking! In my experience they do eventually stop asking about wedding plans after a while if you keep saying there is no plan/ long engagement/ can’t afford a wedding etc

To be honest (and unlike lots of the replies you're getting here) I would have been devastated if my children had got married without me there. I would hide it, but be so upset. Can you not just have parents at least?

People are hurt by things like this because they care OP. If my DD had chosen to get married without me there or if my DS's do then I would respect that choice and I wouldn't show up uninvited but of course I would be hurt. They are my children and I love them so sharing one of their biggest life events would be extremely important to me and I would be heartbroken if they didn't want me there.
You and your fiancé are of course perfectly entitled to get married in whatever way you want, but as the saying goes, no man (or woman) is an island. Our actions do affect other people whether we like it or not. You are not unreasonable to want your wedding your way but you are very unreasonable if you expect other people not to care about it. You can prevent people being there - that's your prerogative - but you can't dictate their feelings about that.

Cynic17, finally "a register office".. do it, don't tell anyone! As soon as you have an engagement ring, people start asking about the wedding.. DH and I had both been married before,big mortgage,4 DKs. I booked Gretna Green for the 6 of us ..he mentioned to his M what we intended, but not when. She went ballistic,(he owed her nothing, she walked out when he was 7, went off with another man,he has serious issues and phobias because of this) he said we would HAVE to invite her and her second h,pay for the journey and hotel....we live in Sussex!!! It was cancelled,lost deposit and the next 2 plus reception deposits. By the time we had booked a Register office, she had invited lots of relatives. I had HER wedding. It was meant to be child free, I had arranged childcare at our house 15 minutes away,no one used it,bil kids and gks ruined wedding, photos and reception. I am still angry and last year was our Silver wedding anniversary.

Tell them you’ll be having a really long engagement, that you don’t really want to get married but you feel the need to show some form of commitment for the kids sake, hence the engagement ring.

I’d say that you are aiming for 2030 or maybe sooner if you feel like it, but if you do that it’ll just be a low key local registry office at short notice. At the moment there are no plans and you’ll start thinking about it in a couple of years time if it’s going to be a fancier affair in 2030.

Then book your holidays as normal and just come back married.

😂"having" an engagement? Someone proposed to someone else, and they accepted. That's all. There has been no mention of big announcement drama, cards, engagement gifts, engagement party etc (what IS the point of those anyway?). Relatives noticed the engagement ring and asked what it was.

And no, in this day and age, weddings are NOT about 2 families joining together, that concept went out with the ark.

You sound exactly like the type of nightmare opinionated, controlling relative that people like the OP try to avoid when wanting to get married.

Have the day you want. I think you do need to tell them clearly you are not having a traditional wedding and to stop asking. All this joining families stuff is bollocks, my pil met my parents once after the wedding and that was it. We also wouldn't have the my family/your family Christmas nonsense either if we were joined.
It's your day as previously said they've all had their own weddings they don't get to hijack yours.
Hope you have the day you want. Do not give in.

Do exactly what you want and don't explain anything to anyone. I have 2 DDs, who both got married in the past year. Neither asked for our opinion on the wedding. One had a fabulous 4-day jamboree in the European country in which she lives, with friends and family flying in from all over the world, the white dress, caterers, wedding photographers, beautiful decorations, fun games and competitions etc etc. We had a ball.

The other went off with just her other half to Copenhagen (easy for paperwork purposes, minimal documentation required, and they needed to get married quickly for a visa for her, or she would lose a training post she very much wanted, thanks Brexit!). They sent us a picture of them looking lovely in the town hall after the event (she was wearing a beautiful white trouser suit), which they hadn't told us about beforehand. She was very happy with doing it that way, and I was very happy for her. We certainly didn't feel put out.

We told our families that we were eloping with just the dc.
I guess technically not eloping as we told them but although they expressed disappointment not one person tried to change our minds.

We had a lovely day.

Congratulations.

For someone who wants a low key wedding you are conducting yourself in a way that is guaranteed to cause drama.

You could have the wedding you want by just getting married and telling them about it afterwards but you want to talk about your wedding plans, exclude them from the day AND have their blessing. Just as no one can make you have the wedding you don't want you can't control how people will react to the choices you make.

If you are intent on making a point about your boundaries then carry on behaving as if it's weird that your family might want to attend your wedding OR you could choose the path of least resistance, marry quietly and tell them when it's done. Treating everyone else as if their expectations are unreasonable is childish.

I got married on a beach in Mexico and told my family and friends that I was love for them to be there but I had no expectations because I wouldn’t expect anyone to come. It was originally just going to be me and my DW, but a few people took us up on the offer and so we had four guests. I was happy with that, but we could have easily used it as an excuse not to invite anyone.

I’ve also had a friend who invited us to a bbq and when we arrived she was in a wedding dress and they’d been to the registry office and gotten married that morning and this was their surprise (for the guests) wedding party.

Just do what you want, do it confidently and either don’t tell anyone or tell them immediately that it will not be a typical wedding, and you plan to do it just you and the kids as you don’t want a fuss

I'm sure many people reading this would be thankful not to have a parent like you who can't be happy for them having exactly the wedding they want.

@mostimportantaspect OP, you say numerous times that it's your wedding and marriage and no one else's.

I felt this same way two decades ago when I got married.

Since then, many, many people who were at our wedding have died, including my parents, and I am so glad I had the wedding. From this remove, I can see that a wedding/a marriage is 100 percent not just about the two of you. Other people are necessarily involved, because a wedding officially connects people who were not connected before. It doesn't just connect the bride and groom. It makes people, who were previously just minding their own business 😂, into mothers and fathers in law, and brothers and sisters in law. It officially brings a new person into each family, changes the dynamics, and has huge implications for the future. There are good reasons why people have big feelings about weddings, and contrary to what you say about it being only about the two of you, a wedding/marriage is the point at which your relationship becomes public property. If you want your relationship to remain private and nothing to do with anyone else, the way to do that is not to marry.

At age 30, I saw none of this. None of it whatsoever! I think perhaps you need to live it to see it, and twenty years of blur and blot - and loss - to perceive just how meaningful weddings/getting married really are. They're an event which reverberates down the years and changes everything, not just for you but for your families.

Just my perspective.

need. There’s no need for our parents to speak to us once we are an adult really, to celebrate milestones with us and want us to be happy. Same for our friends- there’s no legal reason for them to come when we throw a party or consider going on holiday with us or even to answer our text messages. That’s what you mean by need isn’t it?

Some people think that to make vows to a partner binding you together as a family and each others closest kin does need your other closest family there, especially your parents who birthed you and brought you up as a product of the vows they had made. That’s an important need too. Anyway obviously the op doesn’t have that need. But she may have expectations of her family and not have thought through that her shaking up their expectations of what she will welcome them to may hurt, and it may shake also their delivery of her expectations of them. It may not of course, but it often does.

Yep, as often happens on here, first reply nails it!

OP, just elope/do it quietly/secretly. YANBU at all to want to not want a big fussy wedding/a lot of faff! I HATE massive bloody weddings, and find them ridiculous, and soooooo tedious. Trying to make conversation with loads of people you don't know (or don't like!) And hanging around like a spare part between the different parts of it..... Often for HOURS. 😖

So much cost, so much stress, and as you say - loads of people you barely have anything to do with, paying for a big party for lots of other people, having pics taken of you when you're not looking/not aware, people filming etc. And everyone looking at YOU. Speeches, toasts, cake cutting, first dance, having to talk to everyone all day. Etc, etc, etc.......

Many weddings now are so predictable and twee too. Every 'big wedding' is the same as the last one, at all the big wedding venues. Far better to have a cute and tiny intimate wedding, and have it as you want it. If your family don't like it. Tough shit. They'll get over it.

All the best to you and your fiance @mostimportantaspect Have a wonderful life. 😄

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I can’t abide the “I don’t owe my parents anything” thing, or the “my wedding my rulez” thing. It demonstrates a mindset I find singularly off-putting. But I wish more people would have not-weddings: just get married, quietly, and get on with life. They’re not a big deal imo. But for many parents (mine, my in laws, probably me too when the time comes) they are a significant moment in their parenting lives and not one that can glibly be dismissed with a breezy “what’s it got to do with you?”. Whatever.

You’ve only got yourself to blame, and you yourself are making this a bigger deal than it needs to be. Just shut down the conversation if you don’t want to have it repeatedly: we’re not having a wedding. We are not having a wedding. Repeat: we are not having a wedding. We will just get married at some point, when it suits us. We have no plans yet; but we can tell you now there will be no wedding. Repeat: there will be no wedding. There will be no church or registry office, no party or wedding breakfast, no guests, no meal no dancing. None of that. There will be no wedding.

Even if my sons decided on this I would not be upset at all.

Personally, I WOULD explain myself about the engagement party. “No, we’re not having an engagement party, we’re not ones for a big fuss, we couldn’t think of anything worse than a party to celebrate someone asking me a question and me saying yes. So please no-one organise any surprise ones!”

party for the engagement? Just say no.
Asking every day when the wedding will be. "I am not discussing it" plus massive change of subject. Rinse and repeat.

@MrsAvocet People are hurt by things like this because they care OP. If my DD had chosen to get married without me there or if my DS's do then I would respect that choice and I wouldn't show up uninvited but of course I would be hurt. They are my children and I love them so sharing one of their biggest life events would be extremely important to me and I would be heartbroken if they didn't want me there.
You and your fiancé are of course perfectly entitled to get married in whatever way you want, but as the saying goes, no man (or woman) is an island. Our actions do affect other people whether we like it or not. You are not unreasonable to want your wedding your way but you are very unreasonable if you expect other people not to care about it. You can prevent people being there - that's your prerogative - but you can't dictate their feelings about that.

I wish I could give this a thousand upvotes.

I'm getting divorced now, and if I ever marry again, my parents won't be there as they've passed away. I had one shot at having my parents at my wedding, and I felt just like OP. I didn't see how special it was. I'd give anything for my parents to be able to be at any future wedding.

You do realise that it isn’t that easy to get married abroad. Most people have the ceremony here then go for a holiday with ‘fake’ vows. Just have a small ceremony here with the kids or whoever then go off on holiday. No big deal.

Yeah that's kind of the thing. I love my parents and my in laws. My father hated big weddings, so did I. I enjoyed talking to him about how fucking ridiculous it was, and meanwhile my in laws were having a wonderful time. I would far rather have got married on a beach without anyone at all, but now I pick up the photos of my family from the day. Many of them aren't with us any more, and I'm happy I did that for them. The marriage is for me, the wedding was for them.