AIBU to have an outdoor wedding with hayfever suffering guests?

[EleanorLemon]

Hello! i've been a mumsnet lurker for a while but have only just got my act together to sign up so please forgive me if i break any of the [very confusing] etiquette!

Basically, I am getting married next June, and we're being extremely hopefully and having an outdoor ceremony at my mum's, who has an amazing garden that is her pride and joy.

We've always wanted an outdoor one, but last week MIL and SIL told us that we couldnt possibly have it outside then because of the hayfever sufferers in their family. [this includes DP, SIL, BIL, MIL]
im really upset that they are so against it, they are acting as if i've deliberately done it to make them miserable on the day.

I have a lot of sympathy for hayfever sufferers, as my brother suffers quite badly, but has found the right mix of stuff to keep it under control.

But AIBU to tell them that i think they can handle it! pollen gets everywhere anyway, even so my mum has offered to open out her conservatory and take all the plants out prior to the wedding to try and have a less irritable environment, but my MIL says that wouldnt make a difference and it would be IMPOSSIBLE for them to come.

help! any hayfever sufferers out there? im not being cruel am i?

YANBU

It's your wedding. As long as you and your DH-to-be are happy then the rest will just have to get a grip.... and some zirtek! There's a lot more inconvenient places you could plan your wedding that just plain old outside!

I would leave this to your fiance to sort out

ivykaty- we are, i think i said above we're having a registry office bit, then having a 'ceremony' of sorts the next week. non-religious, but we havnt decided who's going to lead the ceremony yet!

Don't give in to the buggers or next minute it'll be:

"Oh you can't possibly be having flowers!"

Yep, my diagnosis would be Nose-Out-of-Joint-re-The -Other-Mother.

YANBU.

As someone who has realy bad hayfever (swollen eyes,scratchy throat/ears and go through a box of tissues in a day with my nose) I wouldn't dream of telling someone they couldn't have an outside wedding/birthday celebration.

My hayfever my probelm. If I didn't control it then i wouldn't leave the house between March and October as i am allergic to tree pollen through grass & flowers to the end of the fungi season.

lizziemum-thanks, my brother is like this but has some strange cocktail that keeps him from being miserable. although i have a strong suspicion he is just planning to get very drunk on my wedding day and forget about it. maybe i should get my MIL and SIL drunk

id just continue as planned, dont make a big deal out of it, just send the invites out as planned and get your future hubby to explain that the ILs have a choice - to either come along and take medication if they need it, or to not come. simple really!

id certainly not start changing plans on the basis that someone suffers hayfever!

well, i just wasn't sure whether i was being totally unreasonable or not.
i've read the 'children at weddings' threads, you never know!!!

tell them to dose up and snooze throught the do...will save on wine

YANBU I suffer from hayfever and take the appropriate drugs to alleviate the symptoms. Its a minor inconvenience not a life threatening disease.

YANBU I get v bad hayfever. June is prime grass season and inside or out doesn't make a lot of difference. If anti histamines don't work (and they don't for me) they should go to the GP and talk about alternatives (for me a combination of steroid nasal sprays and prescription eye drops make life bearable).

Are you sure its not just that they are pissed off that it is in YOUR mums garden?

Get them a bumper pack of anti-histamines and do what you want. They sound awful but don't budge. They'll come.

It will probably rain so plan for that. I got married at the end of June. It was the wettest June for 70 years. I wore a beautiful white dress... and wellies. Most of the guests wore wellies/hiking shoes and there are lots of really good photos of people with brollies.

Couldn't hear the speeches for the rain pelting down and we had a humanist celebrant.

It was brilliant and I loved every minute of it!

This has got to be some sort of joke, right?
They are being totally, outrageously unreasonable (and I speak as someone who has suffered terribly from hayfever for the last 40 years). It's a fact of life, you manage it as best you can with medication and Get On With It.
Sounds like there are other issues going on here.
Although I have to wonder whether it's wise to piss them off so soon into your married life. You realise that forever more this will be Your Fault? Some would say that you need to assert yourself from the off, and they'd have a point, but I agree that you should pass this one over to your man to sort out.

If your DP gets hayfever and he is fine with it then they haven't really got a leg to stand on.

You could always license your mum's garden and then stick a £100K/day hire fee on it so that nobody else is likely to be able to afford it - or if they do it is such an outrageously huge amount that it is worth it

Have you found out if your MIL is using this as an excuse because she was always expecting her son to get married at her church / favourite castle / football stadium / other venue...? Or just as control over the proceedings?

If it is the dream of both you and your dp to have this wedding then it might be worth asking her outright why she is so dead set against you having the wedding of your dreams. You never know, she might have had to put up with her mum or mil meddling in her wedding and in her day would have expected then to have the wedding of 'her' dreams by having her offspring do what she wants but unfortunately time has moved on and she is the generation that got the m/MIl meddling but doesn't get to meddle for her kids IYSWIM.

But finding out her expectations and what she did for her wedding might be a starting point for discussing it with her rather than what you want, because either she got what she wanted - and therefore you should be able to have what you want - or she didn't get what she wanted, has resented it ever since and therefore it would be pretty unreasonable to make you do something that you didn't want...

good luck!

YANBU - I suffer from hayfever from april til about october but would never expect anyone to arrange a special occasion around that!

How the hell do they function in the summer?

Hayfever varies quite a bit. Most people can find a medication that suits them but there are a few who just have to suffer. My ds has days when he has to stay inside if the pollen count is high, despite a combination of antihistamines, eye drops, barrier creams etc etc. Within seconds his face will puff up and his eyes run and he is utterly miserable for a couple of hours till it wears off.

That said, it's not common to have hayfever to that level and I think it's unlikely that all your future ILs will be immune to all treatments, and it does sound as though MIL is being rather controlling about your plans.

It's your wedding, and your plans sound lovely. Go for it, I say.

But if ds was invited I'd have to decline unless I could be sure there'd be somewhere indoors where he could lie down and recover if needs be .