Wedding advice - toxic in laws

[Gee166]

Putting this here as would love a good rant to strangers on the internet 😂 get the popcorn ready.

Me and my partner want to get married after 6 years together- we own our house, and have a daughter. We moved in together after 3 months, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that we’re getting married. We aren’t ’engaged’ in traditional sense ie no big proposal, but we’ve been talking about it for 3 years and now feels right.

We are wanting to start ttc certainly by end of this year latest, we discussed timings and my partner in particular wants to get married before a second child, so we’re wanting to move relatively quickly in next few months.

We told his family, and his sister got really upset. She said it was such a shock (it really shouldn’t be), and then told us she wanted to go travelling this year and gave us literally 1 week in August when she’s free. Why she can’t come back is beyond me but she started getting confrontational when we asked.

His mum went to defend her daughter, which I kind of get, but then accused us of planning a wedding knowing his sister couldn’t be there and said how awful we are for considering it…. We literally didn’t know until that day.

Since then, his sister has rang him saying ‘are you sure this is what you want as it doesn’t seem it is’. Charming. It’s made us both really angry with her for saying such a hurtful comment.

His mum has also messaged since saying she’s happy for us (although done nothing to show that) and was going to offer financial support and wanted to be involved in some way, but we have now ‘taken the shine off it’ so she doesn’t want to talk about it.

I keep asking my partner to speak to them but he’s too annoyed. So it’s all going well…

So basically do we have our wedding during that 1 week in August, even though it only gives us less than 6 months, other friends/family may be on holiday so unable to attend, and it’s more expensive. Or, do we go for later in the year at a non peak time where we assume more people can come, but his sister may not- and if that’s the case we may never hear the end of it.

Secondly, I think I’ve made my mind up not to accept money from his parents if they are playing games with it. I don’t want it to come with strings. But then it’s very unfair on my mum to be paying when he has a much bigger family, so do I accept but run the risk it’s held over us?rel

It seems to be a complete lose lose situation which is such a horrible position to be in as it’s not the wedding I envisioned where my in laws can’t even be happy for us.

i’m almost at a point where I'm thinking let’s not bother, but I know that’s not what my partner wants and the only witnesses I’d want if we eloped would be my mum and sister which his family would see as unforgivable, so that’s not an option.

Plan the day the two of you want. It is your marriage. Other people can have the day they want when they get married.

Choose the date that you want and invite them all. They can make the decision to attend or not, as they want. You could go to all the effort to arrange around someone else, then the flight is cancelled or they catch a virus on the plane and can't come anyway.

He felt we should leave things as they were, he said “not to upset the apple cart” really tried to put us off marrying by saying we should really think hard about it. He retired shortly after our wedding thank goodness. Everyone couldn’t believe he would say such a thing.

You get your fiance to say to his mum thanks for the generous offer of money and he has a great idea - she can contribute to the wedding by paying for his sister to fly back from wherever she is in the world for the date of the wedding you have chosen. Big up the amazing wedding gift it would be to have his sister there and if needed add another layer of how much he has always wanted autumn wedding/was dreading the idea of sweating in a suit in August.

I can’t either!

Have the wedding you both want op. Frankly if his family fall out with you/don’t come, it sounds like a win. If it was me I really wouldn’t try to accommodate family members who may or may not come, and will likely always find something to argue about.

In this situation I would chose the day I originally intended (I assume you had one in mind), honour my dad’s wishes and use his money (he didn’t give it with as assumption you’d also get money from else where) and tell my sil and mil that they have taken the shine off what should be a happy announcement and then ignore them.

How about a quick register office this year then plan a bigger wedding for the year after?.

if it was me I’d just do what I want. The trouble with weddings is you’re always going to upset someone at some point. This is why my dh and I just buggered off and got it done on our own x

I think you made a mistake the minute you floated potential plans with other people.

You need to decide what your wedding will look like. Budget, kind of venue, dates, potential guest number, vibe (for want of a better word). The venue you like might well dictate the date. Some places will have been booked a couple of years already.

Don’t be held to ransom by anyone over it and I agree that not accepting money towards it from potentially difficult family members keeps things simpler.

Highly recommend picking and choosing which parts of a wedding you like and giving some parts of it a swerve.

Get married when you want and suggest the in laws pay for the sister to fly home instead of contributing to the wedding.

Just book it whenever is best for you and your family and send invites out. I would definitely not be going crazy booking something massive though, personally, it's so much money and you would do better putting it away for a family holiday or children's futures. But that's me.

DH needs to go to his mum or text and have a word, saying he thinks she and his sister are being unfair, he's booking what works best with his finances and dates with the venues. He didn't know his sisters travel plans and can't organise his life around that when the venues only have so many dates left this year and it's important for him to be married before he has his second child. The dates he's going to book are xyz and he looks forward to sharing and celebrating with his family..

He should just shut down his sister by saying of course it's his idea he wants to be married before number 2

Ideally you would have booked the venue before asking people about dates

Definitely do not confine yourselves to that one week in August. The sister has vague plans of going travelling for a year and her plans may change while she is away. There is no guarantee that she will definitely return that particular week.

Don't be me!! Second marriage almost 50,short of money,big mortgage, multiple redundancies..took 10 years to save. Booked gretna for us and 4 dks..he told his mother. She went mad! He owed her nothing, she walked out on her 3 small kids went off with another man. I was a quiet only child. He said we would have to invite her and second h and pay for them,hotel travel. We lived in Surrey,it was expensive enough
.long story short, ended up booking 4 register offices, and reception venues. Small one eventually, and she had invited relatives we couldn't unvite.. she moaned, I didn't get to sit anywhere near DH at reception. Bil kids sat either side refused to move. I'm still angry 26 years on

Set the day you want, but asap so she has time to rearrange her plans (you may not be aware but she genuinely may have been planning for months) and don’t take money from anyone, instead have a wedding you can actually afford, it’s perfectly possible to have a full “white” wedding, church, sit down meal and evening do with live band and free bar for £5k, I know because I did it a year ago. I could have brought it in £3k lower with buffet, dj, off the shelf dress and not covering the bar (40 sit down plus 40 evening with buffet in my case, plus small reception with cake and prosecco after the church, made my own cake)

Book s holiday abroad with your baby and get married while you're out there. No fuss, no drama and a holiday which doubled up as a lovely honeymoon.

Firstly, congratulations on your Forthcoming wedding. It would seem that in all this his family are forgetting that this is meant to be about you and your DP.
secondly, it is normal to check availability with the most important people you want there BUT for FSIL to say 51/52 weeks are unavailable is ridiculous. She’s travelling so could easily incorporate your wedding into her travel plans if she wanted.
thirdly, how lovely that your late DF has left you some money and that you can use it towards your special day. The money comes from a place of love. In contrast the money from FMIL and family comes with strings. I wouldn’t want to touch that as it’s going to be used to control you. It already is with her ‘we don’t want to talk about it now’ behaviour. It’s all designed to make you back down.
id plan your wedding when you want and your most valued guests can attend and not take into her money. Your wedding, your choice …. If she decides to gift you some money with no strings attached at a later date it can go towards a honeymoon or some extras for the wedding.

Sod them all and elope

Decide on both the wedding and day you both want and do not kow tow to his sister. She has likely never liked you and this is her further way of showing her displeasure. And there is no guarantee she would come back to your wedding venue for a week in August. If your future mil cannot behave then she should not receive an invite either.

How is your man when it cones to his family?. Is he a mouse in their presence?. This would be a good time to stand up for both himself and you as his family unit.

Do not accept any money now or in future from your future mil, it will indeed be used by her in an attempt to control you and you can see that already .

The money that is coming from your late father does not come with a whole heap of obligation. He would indeed want you both to have the wedding day you both want.

@Gee166 Would your df have wanted you to spend the money on the wedding you wanted or to pussyfoot around your horrid in-laws?

And if in-laws do contribute money make it clear you accept it only if It’s no strings attached.

I am going to buck the trend here… we moved our wedding date because SIL couldn’t make it (she had a bucket list holiday already booked which we hadn’t realised). We had already booked venue, ordered dress etc but luckily we were able to switch - and had to reprint invitations! DH wanted his sister there and it wouldn’t have been the same without her. However she was very gracious about it and would have been ok for us to go ahead on our chosen date - no hard feelings. Which is a bit different to what the OP is describing in terms of behaviour from ILs and made it an easy choice for us for the sake of long term family relationships.

A Wedding/Marriage is between Two People, no one else. Other people are only the audience. So in reality it is you and your partner what the day is actually about. Have a lovely wedding that you and he want. If anyone else wants to witness/celebrate YOUR wedding it is on the date, where, and under the conditions you both choose. It is not up to anyone else. Full Stop.

Have your wedding when you want to. If his sister wants to come back for it, she can. But it sounds like you understand if she doesn’t.

BIL and then partner were in Asia in the middle of a round the world trip for our wedding. They flew home for 2 weeks and then flew back out. I also had about 10 friends and family who flew to the UK from my home country. People travel to attend weddings all the time. If she wants to come, she’ll come. I wouldn’t plan around her travels because the dates could always change and then what will you do?