Possible to not upset people over getting married without any family

[narnia2025]

We are planning to get married next year. We want to do a no thrills statutory wedding . Can only have two witnesses. Not even able to have dc there due to restrictions. So to not upset people we are thinking of having non family there so a co worker of dp and a friend of mine. We have even considered having random people from local fb page etc.

although I very much want to do it this way. I’m slightly worried that it is gonna cause fall out and upset especially dp family. Has anyone got married and not had family there? Was there fall out? Was everyone ok with it?

My sister in law did this. Register office minimal thing with two witnesses.

They regretted it as soon as they left the registry office. They said it was a complete anti climax, and just so 'cold'.

Nope we want to be married. I want to be his wife. I just don’t feel the need to say it in front of a bunch of people and spend money on it.

If I ever did it again I would absolutely elope - my parents eloped themselves. You can always have a bit of a party when you get back.

Am 100% we won’t regret it. The actual act of getting married isn’t a big deal to me. It’s the being married that I want.

Just don’t do what my brother did, announce you are getting married, get everyone excited and then backtrack on the implied upcoming invite and only have parents not siblings in order to fit in the capacity of 12 room. I tried to be logical about it but still felt upset about it as I’m v fond of my brother. Apparently SIL was relieved to have an excuse not to invite her rather overbearing sister.

Why do you need to tell anyone afterwards?

I’ve known people very happy after an elopement - my in laws eloped and got married in their lunch hour due to family issues potentially causing grief. They did in fact tell their colleagues, who were so delighted that they were both given the afternoon off (same workplace). They had an exquisitely happy marriage for 62 years - many difficult life events but they loved each other so very dearly. FIL died within 4 months of MIL.

Don’t do what my friends did which was ask his mum to babysit for an hour then get married and tell her when they got back. She was fucking livid. She’d travelled hours to see them for the weekend and thought they were announcing their engagement not sneaking off to the actual wedding. She’s known to be fiery so god alone knows what they were thinking. It was ugly.

Would definitely tell her if she was babysitting before hand although thinking a babysitter may be the kinder option

Neither dh nor I have regretted it 15 years on. Like you the act of getting married wasn't a big deal, I never dreamt of being a bride or any of the trapping that go with a wedding. I really dislike the spotlight being on me and would have spent the whole day self conscious and hating it if we had any sort of 'wedding'.

My parents eloped too and mil and fil are divorced so I think both sides were quite pragmatic about the whole thing.

Have your parents or his ever shown an interest in you guys having a wedding?

You don’t have to say any vows in a civil marriage ceremony either. We literally said that we were free to marry one another and that we were marrying each other. That was it. Lots of people on here seem to have weird ideas about vows and ‘in sickness and health’ being compulsory.

Tbh if I was babysitting and my ds got back and told me he’d got married I’d be ecstatic.

Just to offer a different perspective - I am a single mum and make countless choices everyday out of love for my child - choices that put my child first (over work, career, my partner etc). I would be quite hurt if my child grew up and didn't include me in such an important event in his life. But it does depend on the relationship you and your DP have with your respective parents.

Personally I think not inviting your parents and grandparents if on good terms is liable to cause upset. Could you explain you are just having a basic ceremony and would like them there but numbers very limited so it will just be you and parents, grandparents.

I have put dc first and if they want to get married without me that’s fine as it’s what they want.

i am close to my mum and dp is very close to his mum but we want to do the basic marriage ceremony. If we invited them then we could disappoint siblings, if we invited his mum we would then feel bad excluding his dad etc so to us it makes sense to just not have anyone there. If we didn’t do it this way we wouldn’t get married. We have zero want to have a wedding.

We can only have two witnesses so someone would get upset that’s why we are doing no wedding.

the other choice would be us just not getting married.

What bad luck for you with those mean rules about witnesses only. A third person to 'babysit' outside, nearby? Explore using a different register office/venue? Trip to London?: Chelsea Old Town Hall in the Kings Road is fab. And I put my hands up to being factually wrong: I've only just discovered from other posters here that our registrar outright lied to us 40 years ago when he insisted that we had to know the witnesses!! That's so weird. Why did he do that? Never crossed my mind that it wasn't true. Mind you, it was nice having two non-judgemental old friends there. Good luck with your plans.

People will almost certainly moan at you no matter what.

Do what YOU want to do and TELL them, don't ask. Be calm and don't engage with the moaners. Look up grey rocking in case you need it. You can only control your own behaviour and you have some control over your own feelings, so just focus on what you can control and put possible whinging out of your mind.

Most parents especially are going to be disappointed if they don’t get to see their children get married. You can’t control that reaction.

if they are decent people, they won’t create huge drama. You will get congratulations and everyone will move on. That doesn’t mean their feelings won’t be hurt.

This is funny though!

It’s rude to tell people about events they aren’t invited to.

just get a sitter and make your announcement afterward.

How rude. Imagine telling someone "you're not invited to my big event but do you mind watching my child?" 😅😃

Get a babysitter. Obviously.

Good point.

why do you need to tell anyone afterwards, OP?

it’s not an event. We are signing a bit of paper. The whole thing is said to last 10 minutes max.

we wouldn’t even make an announcement. Just tell people as and when.

The only reason is because I am planning to double barrel my last name.

But that’s your perspective. Your child may feel differently. My relationship is/was important, but marrying absolutely wasn’t. We certainly didn’t want anyone around who was insisting it was some kind of big deal. So we did it in the most low-key possible way.