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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

...to refuse to move my wedding date to avoid upsetting someone I don't know?

149 replies

LoveInAColdClimate · 16/11/2009 17:28

I and my wonderful DF are getting married in May. Until last week, we had planned to have the marquee in my parents' garden - the marquee chap had previously visited the site and said it was definitely big enough and would be a lovely location. Unfortunately, when the caterer came for a site visit last week, she said she it really wouldn't work as there wasn't enough room for her catering staff and she didn't think the gaps between the tables would be big enough for food to be served and cleared away without a huge fuss and people having to move chairs etc.

Cue much panic, until we managed to persuade a local farmer to let us hire one of his fields. He was actually lending it to the daughter of a friend of my parents' for her wedding three weeks later, so he phoned her mother to check they wouldn't mind - she said she didn't, although didn't check with her daughter as she didn't think she'd mind either.

The next day the other woman's mother phoned my mother (they are friends) to say that her daughter was terribly upset that someone else would be using the field three weeks before her and could we possibly either move the date of our wedding to after hers or find another venue. It's the first time a wedding has been held in the field and she thinks it will be less special if hers is second.

There really isn't another venue that is suitable without having at least a half hour drive between the church and the reception, and we can't move the date because almost everything else (caterers, church, florist etc) is booked and lots of our friends and family have booked their accommodation, booked time off work etc (as have we). In any case, I really don't want to change the date, as it's a special date to us for various reasons. I'd also really like to have the wedding in the village where I grew up, and this is the only big enough flat place we can hire to fit the marquee for the reception (it's a pretty hilly area!).

Am I being terribly unreasonable in refusing to move our wedding? Neither I nor my fiancé have ever met this girl, and while we will have two guests who will "overlap" and attend both weddings, it's not as if many will do so at all. I really don't want to upset her, or cause any awkwardness between our parents, but I also don't want to move things around to accommodate someone I don't know. My parents are also sorry that she's upset but also of the view that it's not really fair to ask us to change things for a girl we don't know.

Am I being unreasonable... or is she?

OP posts:
LoveInAColdClimate · 17/11/2009 12:52

ManicMummy - am loving the divot stamping idea! To be honest, though, can't imagine there'll really be a mess - it's a field rather than a croquet lawn! We're having a floor in the marquee so it shouldn't get damaged by the dancing/tables/caterers etc - plus it will have cows in it the week before so can't think my guests will be able to compete in the field-messing-up stakes!

OP posts:
TheMightyToosh · 17/11/2009 12:52

@ nickelbabe

LoveInAColdClimate · 17/11/2009 12:55

Also should have said - this is costing a bomb more than the original garden plan (need a full floor as the garden was flat enough to just have matting and a dance floor, have to hire a generator, the hire cost of the field itself isn't cheap - it's actually costing us in total about another £4k to get married in our second choice venue ! Trust me, if my parents' garden was big enough, we'd be saving £4k and having it there!

OP posts:
ilovepiccolina · 17/11/2009 12:57

YANBU. Suggest she brings her wedding forward if she needs to be 'first'.

clam · 17/11/2009 13:11

Someone needs to tell the bridezilla that it's not all about the wedding, but the marriage that counts.

FimbleHobbs · 17/11/2009 13:12

Shame you can't BOTH move your wedding dates and have them on consecutive days, splitting the costs of the marquee. It'd be loads cheaper and much more eco friendly to only transport and rig one marquee.

Sassybeast · 17/11/2009 13:18

Excellent point Clam. So OP - if it's not about the wedding, you can easily move your date. Problem solved

LoveInAColdClimate · 17/11/2009 13:19

FimbleHobbs - I know, that would have been perfect, and earlier on in the planning we had actually looked into having ours the weekend after hers (in the same venue and saving costs on marquee as the company was prepared to leave it up there for the week between) and having the same marquee. But unfortunately we couldn't get the church for the weekend after hers as it was fully booked.

Nothing in this planning seems to have been straightforward!

OP posts:
thumbwitch · 17/11/2009 13:22

YANBU, she is being utterly precious and ridiculous.

Couldn't you have just changed your catering company though?

LoveInAColdClimate · 17/11/2009 13:25

Thumbwitch - sadly I think the caterer was right and we'd just blinded ourselves to the reality of the fact that the spaces between the tables were just too small becuase we wanted the reception in the garden so much. It would have been very tight - I'm not sure people would have been able to get up and go to the loo once everyone was sitting down, never mind the catering staff getting between the tables to serve the food. The marquee guy is really sweet and optimistic and had just said it would be "cosy" but ok, but I think the more realistic view is that we wouldn't have been able to move!

OP posts:
thumbwitch · 17/11/2009 13:29

pity! but probably just as well you found out beforehand...

SolosScrapingUpForXmas · 17/11/2009 13:33

Suggest she brings her wedding forward by 4 weeks. That'll fix it! YANBU

whomovedmychocolate · 17/11/2009 13:39

God you are being so unreasonable. Expecting those poor cows to be evicted twice for your nuptial convenience

BalloonSlayer · 17/11/2009 13:47

You could say to her, I suppose, something like this:

"Oooh, are you offering to have your wedding first? God, I'm so glad. I've been worrying myself sick about all the cowpats. At least after your wedding all the worst ones will have been trodden down properly into the grass by the time we have ours. Thank you SO much, I can't tell you how much this means to me - I've been worried sick!"

That should do it.

GrungeBlobPrimpants · 17/11/2009 13:52

I still can't get my head round why someone would feel their wedding was 'less special' because someone had a tent in a field - not a romantic historic castle - a bleedin FIELD with cowshit on it ffs - 3 weeks before? I mean, it may be the only field in the village but seriously, is the whole village ging to be gossiping about it bewteen now and next summer? Is this really parish newsletter material? Will the WI take one side and the churchwardens take the other?!!!

I'm getting images of some petulant toddler saying "It was my idea first waaaahhhhh snot fair waaaaahhhhh" or maybe the other bride was just hoping to consummate her marriage there first. Which indeed probably would make the parish newsletter.

grumblinalong · 17/11/2009 13:58

Oh lord. It's a fricking field fgs. What if some cows have already married there in secret cow land language. Will she have them slaughtered because they have ruined her day?
Rid.Ic.U.Lous. YANBU.

DandyLioness · 17/11/2009 14:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

BaronessBarbaraKingstanding · 17/11/2009 14:13

Does the farmer know she is upset? He is the one asked isn't he, suggesting he was concerned about how they'd take it?

(he must have a 6th sense for unreasonable brides)

So, has your mum told her mum you're not moving it now? how did they taek it?

do finish the tale for us.

Did you all live happly ever after.....

SoupDragon · 17/11/2009 15:39

"Rid.Ic.U.Lous"

Or Ridicmoolous.

GentleOtter · 17/11/2009 15:49

Fieldzilla can have one of our fields if that helps.

Bubbaluv · 18/11/2009 10:29

I wonder how many people are going to the OP's wedding. I am having visions of widlflowers and waving grass for wedding number one and post-Glasto mud dried to a flat brown cake for wedding number 2.

diddl · 18/11/2009 10:41

What made you think of asking the farmer about his field?

LoveInAColdClimate · 18/11/2009 13:17

Today's update is that our mothers had lunch yesterday at which weddings were appearently not mentioned at all - am hoping the other family has had time to consider the matter further and is now mortified at having raised it...

Bubbaluv - they're both about the same size - about 150 at each.

diddl - we used to walk the dog past it so knew it was there. There is actually another field nearer the church that people generally rent, but this year the farmer has decided to put crops in there rather than an endless series of marquees!

OP posts:
cory · 18/11/2009 20:54

now if you'd insisted on bonking her groom three weeks before her wedding...

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