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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think this wedding isn't a wedding?

33 replies

Downdog · 03/02/2010 09:44

We have been invited to a dear friends wedding in Spain (we all live in UK). Wedding is in early summer & coincides with a bank hol & half term so we were given plenty of notice so we could book flights early. Now money is pretty tight at the moment, but OH has just started working after a year of redundancy - I have a 0% deal on credit card, so reasoning the flights aren't going to get any cheaper I booked for a week away, thinking we will go to wedding for a few days then have a few days family holiday.

Due to leave & financial restraints, we therefore had to cancel our planned summer holiday in France staying at a relatives holiday home.

Bridetobe recently returned from a venue hunting trip to Spain. I asked if she had found somewhere nice for the ceremony and she said "oh we will be married in UK registry office several weeks before we go to Spain. In Spain it's just a party really."

Now I'm trying really hard but I can't help it - I'm pissed off & annoyed for several reasons:

  • I've recently attended a wedding in UK town hall & it was fantastic. Registry office, pub, resteraunt - a gorgeous celebration and a wonderful WEDDING! It's all about the day for me. It doesn't even sound like we will be invited to the ceremony part of the June wedding.
  • I'm now feeling I've been manipulated into going on a huge group holiday, which if not for the wedding (that isn't a wedding) I wouldn't go on. The other people going are nice enough, but lots of hugely competitive women already getting in shape and looking for dresses - for a JUNE "wedding". It's just not my thing & certainly not the summer holiday I would choose to go on.
  • I would certainly have gone to Spain for the party but I would have gone just for the party/weekend, leaving OH & DD at home. Then we still could have gone on our family holiday as we had planned as we would have leave days available and some money to fund it.

From trying to be organised and juggle the finances so we can afford to go away and share in a dear friends celebration, I now am feeling well & truly rogered. And I really really need to get over this in my head and move on so I can focus on having a fab time in Spain.

So I guess what I'm asking is, do you think the event in Spain is actually a 'wedding', AIBU for feeling a little shafted, and am I going to be expected to fork out for a huge pressie too?!?!

OP posts:
Hassled · 03/02/2010 09:47

No, YANBU. I quite understand why you're feeling shafted. At least you get the party - but it's not the same, is it?

sowhatis · 03/02/2010 09:48

What a wierd set up?! I would cancel if i could personally.

morningpaper · 03/02/2010 09:49

you have been strung up like a kipper, mate

YAdefNBU

Original poster
Downdog · 03/02/2010 09:50

If I cancel that's like burning £400 - no refund on air fares

OP posts:
LynetteScavo · 03/02/2010 09:50

YANBU...hope you enjoy the PARTY!

SolidGoldBrass · 03/02/2010 09:50

I think YANBU as well. Initially I would have thought that the couple wanted to have (for instance) a humanist or pagan ceremony in Spain which would be their actual 'wedding' - these ceremonies aren't legally binding but to some people they are the important part of the wedding and the trip to the registrar is just a formality.
But if the bride is going, well it's just a party, then it does seem a bit much that you were initially invited to a wedding and now that's not what it is given how much it has changed your arrangements.
But I don't know what you can do about it without falling out with the friend.

Portofino · 03/02/2010 09:51

I would be mightily pissed off. YANBU! Could you change your flights to France and have the holiday instead?

Maleeka · 03/02/2010 09:52

YANBU, i'd be pretty pissed off too, well just until the cocktails started flowing, then i wouldnt give a shit

Would have been nice for your friend to have given you the heads up tho, as like you said, you could have gone for a girlie piss up and left the family at home, then done the family holiday another time.

Grandhighpoohba · 03/02/2010 09:53

Is she having a blessing type ceremony whilst in Spain, or just a reception? Because if she is having a ceremony, then you are being a teeny BU, for some people, a blessing is more important than the legal bit in the registry. If its just the party, then YANBU, and she is a bit odd.

LoveBeingAMummy · 03/02/2010 09:56

YANBU

Enigmatica · 03/02/2010 09:57

Will your friend will be getting married in a church in Spain or a registry office?

In Spain you have to do the paperwork in a registry office before you get married in church. Otherwise the wedding is not valid.

So your friend's wedding is not technically a wedding unless the registry office bit is completed.

Since doing the paperwork to get legally married in Spain as foreign nationals would take months your friend has to be married in the UK.

I understand why you are peed off tho.

Original poster
Downdog · 03/02/2010 10:01

Thanks for all the comments - I think I'm just looking for some validation of my feelings as it's difficult to talk with anyone about it.

I would certainly hope they are having some kind of ceremony in Spain & that would be great. Why go to all the trouble otherwise?

But she has said it's just a party. Not all details to hand yet, so fingers crossed it will be more than a party, it should be a special celebration. At the moment it all feels like a monumental fuckup, and an expensive one too. Having just come out of such a tough year living on one income, the financial aspect hurts me too I admit it.

I need to breathe deep, acknowledge I can't control this & focus on creating a fun holiday with my family.

OP posts:
sowhatis · 03/02/2010 10:03

I hope she is laying on a very lavish all paid for party!

GetDownYouWillFall · 03/02/2010 10:04

How annoying!! I wonder if there are other people who have been invited who are in a similar position to you?
Sounds as though your friend has been very self-centred and not really thought about other people at all in all this.

You can't possibly waste £400 on cancelled flights so looks like you are all going now anyway. Just try to enjoy it as best you can.

sb6699 · 03/02/2010 10:09

YANBU - why on earth would you expect your friends to travel all the way to Spain for a party?

Fwiw, I know you cant cancel flights but you can change them for a fee if that's any help.

TheSmallClanger · 03/02/2010 10:15

Can't you use the flights, show your face at the party, then excuse yourself and have a little family holiday in Spain?
Use the kids as an excuse. It usually works.

OtterInaSkoda · 03/02/2010 10:18

YANBU. If she was having a blessing there, that's be different. But she isn't. I hope it's a bloody lavish do - that might calm me down if I were in your shoes.

The b2b has be very disingenuous, imo.

BettyButterknife · 03/02/2010 10:19

I don't think YABU at all - I had a similar situation last year with a very dear friend of mine. Just felt that we were being made to choose between her wedding and a family holiday, due to our financial situation.

In the end, we did lots of compromising - went and stayed at a friend's house the night before which saved one night of hotel bills, didn't buy them a huge present but found cheaper more meaningful ones.

If you can't get a refund on the flights, I think, although YANBU, you will have to suck it up and try to have a lovely time when you're there. Maybe your friend is trying to play things down by saying it's just a party? If she's invited everyone out there to celebrate their wedding, it's a WEDDING party and that's different . Umm... can you put the UK register office bit out of your mind and try to focus on Spain being their 'wedding'?

Our wedding involved inviting people to a hotel where we were married, for which we subsidised rooms, but we had a couple who complained a lot and put a bit of a downer on the day. When I was complaining about my friend's wedding, DH turned and said to me 'you're sounding just like xx' which made me pull up my socks.

Sorry, this got long - YANBU but you have to move on!

RockbirdandHerSpork · 03/02/2010 10:21

I would be majorly pissed off if I'd spent my hard earned holiday money and all my annual leave on a party in a country that I had no interest in visiting, when I thought it was a wedding. Doesn't seem like there's much you can do about it now without losing your money but I would have steam coming out of my ears. YAdefNBU

ChippingIn · 03/02/2010 10:27

Are you sure you can't change the tickets to go to France? Then get one just for you for the 'wedding'.

It's sounds like the 'reception' is in Spain, but the wedding will be in the UK.

I would be annoyed at not having been told this before I made my decision, but I guess, giving her the benefit of the doubt, if she sees the party/celebration bit with friends/family as the important part and not the signing of the little bit of paper - then maybe she just didn't think about saying anything, as to her, the wedding is in Spain...

(if you followed that!!)

Squitten · 03/02/2010 10:55

Our friends want to get married in Madeira, where the groom is from, but the law there states that residency of 30 days is required in order to get legally married. They are having a teeny weeny registry office wedding this year in London, which nobody is going to be invited to, and then a big do in Madeira in 2011. There will be a church service there so it's not just a party.

People don't usually invite lots of people to a "wedding" without a ceremonial aspect of some kind so it sounds to me like she is probably doing something similar to my friends and just hasn't explained it properly. Wait for more details or you might be getting all worked up for nothing!

MrsC2010 · 03/02/2010 11:01

Can you still fly out there and go elsewhere for a family holdiay? Just tell them you're not going full stop?

Perhaps they are still having a full on mock up of the wedding ceremony, and genuinely see it as their wedding, whatever the legalities say.

MmeLindt · 03/02/2010 11:09

Try and change your flights. Most airlines will let you, you do have to pay a surcharge but at least then you can have the holiday that you want.

Alternatively, look for somewhere to to in Spain so that the 'wedding' is just one day of a fab holiday.

girlywhirly · 03/02/2010 11:10

Are you to be invited to the marriage ceremony if it is to be in this country? Because if not and the party in Spain is just that, no blessing or anything extra special, I would be just as annoyed as you. Given your circumstances and the changes to your holiday you've already made, she'd be lucky to get a wedding present. I'd be questioning just how good a friend she really is.

If you are set on going, I'd start planning what you as a family are going to do the rest of the time, as you would on a normal holiday. Then if she starts organizing everyone's time you can honestly tell her you've planned to do X Y and Z with your family as this is their holiday. (I have visions of people going out for expensive dinners en masse, and being stuck around a swimming pool all day, with people you may not even like because you're part of the wedding party.) In fact, I'd be wanting to stay in a different hotel if poss.

Of course yanbu. I have very little patience with bridezillas. People are too accommodating of their bad behaviour.

hatwoman · 03/02/2010 11:18

I wouldn't read too much into her comment "It's just a party really". it seems like it was a quicjk remark and it doesn't seem you have any info yet as to the nature of this "party". coul;d it be more what you'd call a celebration? for some people celebrating their wedding with their close friends and family is the important bit - regardless of where/when the actual wedding tok place.

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