Renewing Wedding Vows-is 10yrs too soon

[RedRadish]

I've been married for just over 4yrs but since the day of my wedding I have wanted to do it again. My wedding day seemed to be more about what everyone else wanted than what i wanted and it is something i have regretted ever since. We had planned to wait a couple of years after getting engaged to allow us time to save up enough money to do it properly but MIL offered to pay for it (she wanted us to do it quickly) and so we set the date for the following year. It wasnt until i started planning it i realised what a mistake it was. Everything i had dreamt of for my wedding went out of the window. I had to clear everything with MIL before I could book it or buy it and if she thought it too expensive i had to go without. I had to get married in a horrible 70's style church because the one i really wanted would have cost £100 more, I had to get married at 4pm so that we wouldnt have to feed the guests until the buffet later that night. I had always wanted a sit down meal for 30 close family/friends but MIl wouldnt allow it, i even offered to do the evening buffet myself so that it freed up enough money in the budget to do it and i had a caterer friend who would have done it cheap for us but MIL still wouldnt agree to it. It was more MIL's wedding than mine, she even chose my bridesmaids for me. I had only wanted 3 (my sister,my neice and my best mate) but i ended up with 5 (my sister, my neice, my SIL and 2 of dh's cousins). I even had a cheap photographer who was a load of rubbish, his pictures look as though my ds took them

I have always said that when i got married it was for life and i love my dh to bits but i feel I was robbed of that special once in a lifetime day. Your wedding is supposed to be the best day of your life, mine was the opposite of what i had always dreamt of. As the years go by i watch more and more people having their dream weddings and although i hate myself for it, i feel jealous of them. My sil is getting married soon and she is allowed to have everything her own way. She is getting married in a country house, with sit down meal, gorgeous dress (of her choice), personalised invites, posh cars, expensive photographer the works. Nothing is too much trouble. We had a budget of £3,000, my SIL's wedding is costing £12,000 (well so far anyway).
My dh knows how i feel and has said that we should do it again. We thought of doing it on our 10th anniversary but will it seem too soon. I know most people do it on their 25th but i dont want to wait that long.
This time i would do it all my way, we would be paying so we would be able to spend what we wanted. It wouldnt be OTT just a simple renewing of vows but in a venue of our choice with who we wanted in attendance, some lovely photos and a sit down meal. Followed by a night in a hotel, something we werent allowed to do as it would have been too expensive! It probably sounds petty to get upset by this when there is worse things going on around the world but i want a day i can look back on when im old and grey with fond memories, at the moment all i remember is how it wasnt really my day, it was my MIls

Is 10yrs too soon to renew your vows or doesnt it really matter when you do them as long as it makes you happy

I don't think 10 years is too soon but, tbh, it sounds like you just want to go "yah boo sucks to you MIL" and the party is more important than the vows - which are marriage vows, not wedding vows.
I think if I was going to do it, I would want it because DH and I had been through a tough time and we wanted to reaffirm our commitment to each other.
If you want a big party - why not just have a big party?

We are thinking of doing this for our 10th anniversay redradish so no i dont think its too soon at all.

We are planning(atm) renewing our vows with our children with us and maybe close family in attendance and then a party at the night time in a hotel.

I dont think anyone can say to you if its too soon etc because at the end of the day its how you feel, we got married on a budget of £3000 and had to forgo a lot of things also so know how you feel about that.
If its what you and your DH want then i say go for it

As someone who got married on the same budget as you and didn't have anything unless my mother approved it - and has a 10th wedding anniversary coming up next year - I would not say it is too soon.

However I will say that when the time comes you may just think that a couple of weeks all inclusive on an island somewhere is a better use of thousands of pounds than feeding your friends and having a posh frock.

I dont think 10 year is too soon - but I think that what you want is a big party, so you shoudl just have one. Have it for your 5th wedding anniversary or a special birthday for you or your DH.

I dont think you are petty - but I DO think TBH that you are getting obsessed about this.

"i want a day i can look back on when im old and grey with fond memories, at the moment all i remember is how it wasnt really my day, it was my MIls "

I think you need to start thinking differently about your wedding day. Yes I realise that your MIl was very controlling & you couldnt do everything you wanted. But most brides cant do exactlty what they want - either for money or tradition or family reasons. I coulndn't do everything " the way i wanted" because a key member of the bridal party was too ill to travel so we couldn't get married abroad. Now he is dead - should i do the whole thing again the way "i wanted"? It was still one of the best days of my life becasue I married my wonderful Dh who means the world to me . Even if I'd had Madonna's budget my day coudln't have been better.

If you and your Dh are happy, that is one of teh best things in the world. Money cant buy that. there are loads of mumsnetters here who would LOVE to be in a happy relationship.Read the rlationship threads and you will see that many are very unhappy and struggling to save their marriages or living with abuse etc

Honestly, no one's wedding is prefect. You could do it again and soemone woudl get ill or there would be a freak thunderstorm or the photos woudl get lost in the post or there will be a train strike etc ect ect

You say you only had a budget of £3000. Thats lots more than many brides. OTOH some woudl feel deprived with a £20 000 budget . I think you need to let the resentment and jelousy go. There will always be someone with more ££££ than you

So.....I dont think you shoudl redo your wedding because it wasnt perfect. I think if you want a party you shoudl just go ahead and have one. Not to fix the past - as a celebration NOW

As someone who's wedding day was far from perfect (and I'm NOT giving any details!), while I was upset at the time, I don't see the day itself as a big deal now - the births of my children were far more important events and have made it pale into insignificance. I enjoyed our 10th wedding anniversary far more - dh and I went to a lovely country house hotel, without children, and had a fantastic meal (and some much appreciated time to ourselves.)

But then I am someone who wasn't very happy being the centre of attention for a whole day and tbh maybe we should have done something smaller for the wedding itself....

If you are still yearning for your wedding day to be "put right" then definitely go for it on your 10th anniversary - but maybe with a few more years between you and your wedding day you will feel differently when the time comes.

I agree with the "have a party" comments. Unless you have been having a bad time and come through it I don't see the necessity to renew vows personally. The vows you made on the day still stand, whether you made them in a shed or a palace is neither here nor there. If the peripherals were wrong, then just have a party of your choosing to celebrate 10 years of marriage. I had some friends who were very skint when they got married so had a really great party at 10 years, it was lovely. They had the original wedding video playing (very funny to see how much everyone had aged) and had speeches etc.

RedRadish - if it is any consolation to you, I did have pretty much everything I wanted for my wedding, at the time I wanted it, and both dh and I still look back on our wedding day a far from the happiest of our lives. It was just too much expectation to place on one day - I had an unheard of (for me) attack of nerves, I hate my decision not to wear a veil, I even have doubts about the dress I chose, dh and I both felt we were just pawns being moved around a board, not free to enjoy the day as everyone else could.

I think you have to look beyond the day itself. Our not very pleasing wedding day was followed by the sort of honeymoon most people only dream about - a once in a lifetime experience - and, even more importantly than that, look at your marriage since. Dh and I have been married 12 years now and have 4 children. It has not been easy - loads of stresses and strains with having the children, countless house moves, job changes, etc, but we are together through it all and I know, from reading other people's stories here, that I am lucky in that dh and I know we chose the right partner and intend to be married for life. You sound just as sure of your own husband. Surely that is what is important now?

I agree with everyone else. I can't understand why so much importance is put onto just one day. Yes, it is unfortunate that you didn't get the wedding you wanted, but does it really matter? What matters is that you have made a life with your dh. I'd much rather spend the money on a fabulous holiday or a big party as others have suggested, rather than trying to recreate a day 10 years ago. It will just cause hassle with your MIL I would have thought. But as someone else said, I'm not keen on being the centre of attention either and like to celebrate personal occasions quietly with dh.

Agree with DumbledoresGirl, there is far too much focus and expectation on a single day, rather than the marriage itself.
DH and I eloped, inviting nobody execept the next-door-neighbours to be the witnesses the night before. Our reasoning was that we simply didn't want our wedding to be taken over by anyone else, we wanted to do things our way. (And also, why annoy just one person if you can annoy dozens?)
But looking back, I wouldn't have done it any other way, it was brilliant!
As everyone else says, go and have the party that you want, and have it the way you want it!

Maybe it is bothering you right now because of your SIL's impending wedding... I know when I was getting married all the others in my office (all blokes!) started reminiscing about theirs....

Thanks for all your comments. I agree with those of you who said its the actual vows and how i feel about DH that should have been the special part of the day and it was but all those other little details still bug me.

I think renewing our vows is something we will definately do for our 10th anniversary. We often go out for meals or go away to hotels overnight so we would want to do something a bit different, the same with going on a holiday without kids, by then our sons will be 9+15 so it wont be long before we will be doing that anyway. We have agreed that having an OTT wedding style service would be a bit silly and have settled on staying at a country club hotel near us with our boys and both sets of parents, spending the morning playing golf/getting pampered and then having a small service for 20-30 close family/friends to celebrate our marriage and then having a nice sit down meal followed by drinks. We would also have a photographer so that we could get some great pictures of us, not like our wedding ones. We wouldnt want to throw a big party for all those relatives you hardly ever see or hear from but crawl out of the woodwork when there is a party/wedding. The day would be about us celebrating our marriage and as we would be paying for it ourselves then we wouldnt have to listen to anyone elses views. The more we think about it the more it seems right, im even starting to feel better about my SIL's wedding!!