We've given notice and bought rings this week.
And I've ordered some invitations from an Etsy seller. I need DP to tell me the names of his friends' partners so I can finalize them and have them printed though. Seriously, I've got a list from him that says 'John Smith + wife, David Jones + wife'. 🙄
Our venue is doing a package thing, so we just need to select menu choices from the list. It was a cancellation, so they offered us the unpopular dates in winter package for a Saturday in May. 😂 The package includes venue hire, decoration, a DJ, and food and drink (including for the evening). So it minimizes planning really. I think DP has already decided what he wants from the menu anyway, and I'll go with that. I booked the registrar too, for a ceremony in the hotel.
I am trying hard not to throttle DP though. He's been married before and I'm getting really annoyed listening to lots of 'this time'/'last time' from him and his family. There's no last time for me and they could all just think before they speak. I do realise that it's just the truth and I'm probably over sensitive about it, but it's bloody annoying.
I've organised a wedding in a different council area because he was all for going to the local registry office and inevitably getting married in the same room as before etc. I don't think it's unreasonable not to want to do this. He's also suggested going on honeymoon to a hotel he really likes - but I know fine well that's where he went on holiday with his ex several times and even on what passed for their honeymoon (which was a family holiday several weeks after the wedding). He might have finally managed to read my utter lack of interest in ever visiting that hotel (I don't care how nice it bloody is) as a sign that we should go somewhere else entirely. I'd start suggesting honeymoons in places I went with my ex so he can experience how not ok this is, but my ex was a stingy bugger and we only went on holiday 3 times in a decade.
He isn't actually trying to be a dick. In his mind, he wants to marry me and he did all those things with the wrong person. So he doesn't seem to have thought about the fact that I don't want to have some rerun of what he did previously or plan a wedding where all his guests will not be able to help making direct comparisons. He is genuinely trying not to tell me what they did before in lots of ways, but I'd really like it if he'd just think before saying things like 'I do know how these things work. I have done this before' when I try to explain the options available to us right now.
I got pissed off last night and told him that the thing he'd just told me they did 'last time' was actually really shit and they will have disappointed their guests, whatever people said to be polite at the time. I have lost patience, so rather than quietly changing the subject I think I'll just be more confrontational from now on. It's hard though as I'm not a confrontational person.
Luckily he's chosen a best man who I actually know will take him to task over any of this shit. The BM is likely to remind him about 400 times a day that I've never done this before and it's shit to go on about the fact he has or to think it's any less special/important/whatever. And he can be trusted (unlike any of his family) to give a speech based on the understanding that no one wants to hear how DP has done it before. Or with anecdotes from his previous stag do or whatever.
It's all definitely affecting my mood and putting me off planning anything though. My sister keeps sending me links to dresses she might wear, and I'm having to feign interest. I don't think 'I really don't have an opinion on what you wear' is a fair response, even if that's what I think.