I should be excited about my wedding day but instead I am am stressed.

[JoyfulGeordie]

I am getting married this autumn (fall) to my soul mate. The only man I have truly loved. We dated over 20 years ago but I dumped him during a period of poor mental health after a bereavement. At the time he did everything he could to try and reconcile with me but I stubbornly refused and started to seeing someone else. I married the other guy 18 months later and we had three children together.
I ended up single again, having taken 15 years to realise I had married the wrong man. During that time, my fiance had never married, investing his time in building a very successful business.
My fiance asked me to marry him on a beach we have both always loved and I excitedly shared the news with all my children, family and friends. He wanted a small quiet ceremony whereas I wanted a large wedding as I have a big family and lots of friends. He has had very little to do with them since we have been back together. He agreed to a large wedding but expressed his disappointment that most of those people had been at my previous wedding and he saw this as our fresh start. When we discussed our wedding plans he said where he would like to marry and suggested where we could go on honeymoon. He has a very good memory and these are the places we discussed many years ago the first time we dated. The problem is, I used those ideas when I married my last husband and he was disappointed when I told him. As my fiance isn't impressed by that news, he told me just to sort everything out and he'll turn up on the day to marry me.
I came home the other day to find him watching my wedding DVD from my first wedding. I made a speech at my first wedding saying it was the happiest day of my life and my ex-husband made a joke about my fiance trying to reconcile with me that I laughed at. All my fiance said to me when I immediately switched it off is that he looks forward to my speech at our wedding. I don't want to make a speech as I feel under pressure to say something that might upset my children, friends and family. He has said I can say what I like and our wedding should be a happy celebration but I am now worrying myself silly that I have to say something my regrets from our past.
I know my fiance loves me to bits as he supports me and dotes on me. He helps out with my children without complaint, even doing all the things their father cannot be bothered to do with them. Unfortunately, I now feel on my wedding day I have to express some kind of regret of the past, yet try to keep everyone happy because of the comments made in speeches that were made at my first wedding.
Am I being over anxious about his situation? I'm lying awake at night with worry.

Oh god, why are you so determined to marry someone who resents the fact that your relationship didn't work out first time round and resents your children, and makes up new reasons to get you panicked about everything on a weekly basis?

How many threads is this now?

You are ignoring everything this man is trying to tell you and steaming ahead with your wants. I’ll be amazed if he’s still around by the wedding date.

Is this the man who was slagged off and defamed by the OP’s family, including things that undermined his job?

You need a re-set. Why are you so set on the big wedding? Honestly give him this. Have a small intimate wedding and focus on him. If I was him I would be feeling very insecure right now.

Sadly this.

You need to stop making mistakes and make better choices.

There is something utterly toxic, mean, and profoundly distasteful to use a wedding speech to denigrate another person for loving your new spouse.

Utterly repellent IMO.

I don't blame him not wanting your crew at his wedding considering he was mocked in the speeches of the last one.

I would be totally rethinking this wedding and dialing it massively down because he sounds like a man that could well start having very serious doubts.

If he wasvmy brother or friend I would be most concerned.

You shouldn’t have be walking on eggshells this early in the relationship

This is awful. Small, quiet wedding or let him go again.

Just seeing this now???
@category12 is consistently wise....

Bigger issue clearly than what is in this thread.

OP, it sounds loud and clear that the big wedding is more important to you than the actual marriage.

Elope. Vegas or a registry office wedding. It's the marriage that's important. Not the wedding. If you truly love him you won't care about having a big wedding. You've already done that anyway. Women make more of a deal out of the wedding day, and it's only a day, than the marriage - which is surely the entire point.

Yep, like many women, they only want the wedding day. Not the marriage. If I truly loved a man I wouldn't care where we got married; even in the gutter outside a registry office on a bucketing down raining day! Just as long as we were legally married. OP needs to get her priorities right. Does she want the 'big wedding' (that she's already had anyway), or does she want a marriage. He wants a small wedding. He loved you enough to wait around. Give him his wish. Just do the registry wedding and no reception afterwards. Or maybe you both could just celebrate at a fancy restaurant just the two of you after.

The whole thing is weird. Like some sort of tacky Netflix drama. This bit, especially: "I came home the other day to find him watching my wedding DVD from my first wedding" 😬😄

I had a DVD of my last wedding. I honestly don’t have a clue where it is now or whether exH has it. This wedding sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. I feel like you want the big wedding with all your friends there as some kind of ‘proof’ about your current relationship but as PP have said it’s the marriage that matters not the wedding. I had a fancy wedding to exH. We were still paying it off when we split up. DH and I had a small wedding but it was still a great day.

Your ex sounds shitty making that gag in his speech. You had a big wedding already and the big family and lots of friends don't mean you need another one. Just get married. Your DP sounds good and like you don't really have to walk on eggshells, it's just the pressure you're creating with the big wedding that's the issue. So cancel it and get married the way he first suggested and get on with enjoying your lives together. it's not about the day, it's about the rest of your life.

Thank you for all your responses. I do need to start looking this from his point of view and an outsiders point of view. I know I have made mistakes in the past and I want him to know I deeply regret them so I want my actions to show my intent to be his loving wife. Therefore, I am going to suggest to my fiance tonight that we have a small wedding with just close family there. I don't want to elope as some of you have suggested as I want my children to be there.
I accept that he wants nothing to do with people who turned their backs on him when I did all those years ago and am willing to compromise on few who get invited. I feel desperately sad that my parents who are no longer with us, will not be there to see us marry.
I think my fiance wants to create a new life with me away from all the people who have been part of my life with my ex-husband. I don't blame him after the way he has been treated in the past so I will suggest we also have a fresh start making new friends, doing new hobbies, which will be good for both of us.

This is exactly what I was thinking! I'm really surprised at most of these replies but then it seems there's a background I don't know about.

Why would your family and friends have stayed in touch with someone you broke up with?

It would be weird and uncomfortable. He shouldn't dislike them for it.

If he was a first-time-round boyfriend who was demanding you isolated yourself from friends, everyone would be telling you he was being controlling and run like fuck.

Decades on, he still resents the break-up and resents the people you've shared your life with since, even your kids.

It really doesn't matter if you were a massive cunt to him years ago, if it's a fresh start together, he should be accepting of the life you built without him, not expecting you to try to erase those years.

You can't erase them, it's unhealthy and demented.

Why on earth is he sitting at home alone watching your first wedding video?! That is incredibly weird, red flag behaviour

I don't think you two are compatible at all; you're both clinging onto a dream from the past. He isn't interested in having a relationship with your family. You're not interested in having a quiet wedding because you want to be the centre of attention.

He's got big hang ups about you being married before and is trying to obliterate all traces of it. Hence the comments about guests who attended your first wedding. I wouldn't be surprised if he tries to separate you from your children. After all they are the biggest evidence of your first marriage and he's already said he's trying to erase traces of it. This man doesn't like being husband number two, his actions have said it all.

I don't notice user names and don't search out names.

However it reads from other comments that there is a toxic back story and your relationship is not healthy.

Is this relationship good for your children?
Genuinely good for your children?

If not then you are both wrong, deluded, and selfish to be bringing another twat into their lives.

Watching the old wedding video is weird.
He sounds as if he may have serious issues.

Not what you should want around your children.

Skewed priorities I think.