Well, I was confused, then happy and now I am bloody livid!

[MesaLoca]

Found out last week that DP was going to propose. This was a complete surprise as we are so happy as we are and we have religious differences so have always thought that a wedding would be a bit of a minefield.

After much thought though I had come round to the idea and had started thinking up all these lovely soft-focus kind of romantic scenarios of a wedding and was really looking forward to it.

He proposed and I said yes and all was lovely . He said he was happy to have a civil wedding (he is a catholic but does not believe in any of it and I am an Atheist, his family are vigorous Catholics).

However, the last few days I have had the following comments from him:

"We are not getting married in a hotel it wont seem proper."

"It will have to be a small wedding, I don't want my extended family all there, they wont like it anyway"

"Is it really illegal to have religious readings or songs at a civil wedding? Hmmm, I am not sure that will seem right"

"Will it feel like a real wedding I wonder?"

"My mum and dad aren't very enthusiastic are they"

"Do you think it will feel a bit Micky Mouse?"

So I told him tonight that i am not happy with these comments and they are hurting me and I wonder why he had bothered asking me to marry him if he hadn't thought through the actual wedding. He said he had only thought about the being married bit, and had thought it best not to think too much about how we would actually marry

So what do i do? I can't get married in a Catholic church, I would be so embarassed telling everyone the engagement is off, I desperately don't want to pay for a wedding that he is not happy with as we are not rolling in free cash... so I guess it will have to be the world's longest engagement and I will have to think up excuses when people ask

Am I being a selfish cow for feeling like this?

I'm an atheist, dh is a Buddhist. Buddhists don't go in for marriage ceremonies unless both parties are enthused at the prospect, so no argument - civil it was.

Day of the ceremony, we get a call from local reg. office to say we'll have to change our reading:

'It's religious!'
'No, really, it's not...I wouldn't've chosen it if it was'

It was a John Donne poem which began 'For God's sake hold your tongue & let me love' - I offered to substitute 'For f@ck's sake...' but they were having none of it...

Can you get dp to go with you to discuss possibilities at the venue you'd choose? He may have a lot of pre-conceptions re: cheesiness of hotel wedding etc - I did until I went to db's wedding, which was actually lovely.

We recently went to a hotel wedding ravenAK which he thought was lovely. It was a Hindu one though so maybe he thinks that is different.

I have heard that in civil ceremonies they sometimes say no to songs like Robbie Williams 'Angels' because of religious connotations (not that i would want that anyway!) which seems a bit extreme.

Anyway, DP was asking about ordering the engagement ring that we have chosen today and I suggested we first come to an understanding about a wedding which we are both happy with - no point in forking out a fortune on a ring if the wedding wont happen. He made a semi-positive grunting noise so we will have to see. There are some lovely castles up here in north wales that you can marry in, but they may be a bit out of our budget.