Will I regret having my wedding abroad if family members can't come?

[YayaL]

Looking for advice! Myself and my fiance were hoping to get married in June 2024. We've been together for 10 years and have always said we would love to get married in Italy with close family and friends.

We have planned our perfect wedding but just as we were about to officially book everything, my mum and dad have said only one of them will be able to attend because the other will have to stay home and mind my sister who is disabled. I was hopeful she would be able to come but recently she has declined in ability and it doesn't seem to be a possibility. We have looked at multiple scenarios for this but none seem to provide a solution. (ie. she won't stay with a carer and she won't be able to travel etc) To be honest I don't think she would be able to attend a wedding regardless of where it is.

As part of our plan we will legally marry here in Ireland in the registry office and celebrate with dinner in a restaurant afterwards with family.

However, if we cancel the wedding we have planned in Italy, this will be the only thing we do as neither of us are too fond of traditional Irish weddings so we don't see the point spending money on something we don't really want. I won't bother with the wedding dress I wanted because I don't really see the point if the wedding party is so small and it wouldn't be a full ceremony, and we probably wouldn't get to celebrate with our friends because we just couldn't afford the same wedding party here in Dublin.

Part of me feels incredibly selfish for wanting to just go ahead with the day we want but I also don't want to risk regretting my wedding day forever by not doing what we wanted to do.

Has anyone had a similar experience? I'm heartbroken at the thought of cancelling our dream wedding and equally heartbroken at the thought of my Mum or Dad not being able to attend.

You need to work out storage during a ceremony. You might want to ask guests to avoid seafood, for example, or pick a venue with multiple fridges, or ask everyone to keep their dish in a cool bag.

@TeenDivided
Unfortunately no, my sister has high anxiety and makes herself very sick to the point she needs to go to hospital when she doesn't sleep at home with either my mum or dad. It's a situation that has gotten worse over recent years with covid and her routine being upset. :(

@RandomMess
Thank you for this suggestion!

Your Italy plan involves a non-legal ceremony (I had one of these I am not dismissing it) and dinner in a beautiful restaurant.

why can’t you do the same at home. Have the legal ceremony where it is cheap and convenient. You don’t even have to tell people when or where this happens. Then find a spot to have a spiritual ceremony that is exactly to your liking but not bound by any legal restrictions beyond your right to be at the location. After that head to your reservation at a gorgeous restaurant, maybe even one with a private room.

Would a honeymoon in Italy also not be special and meaningful to you and your fiance? I can't get my head around planning a wedding that couldn't include my parents if they were an important part of my life.

@Mummy08m
My question was would I regret having the wedding me and my partner want if one of my parents can't come.

We have spoken to friends and family about the wedding being in Italy and they are all positive and very excited about going. No guests have declined so we have made decisions to help out their travel costs (mentioned in my previous comment) My guests aren't unhappy with costs so you don't need to be either.

Thank you for your input but as they say, to each their own! What would work for you, might not work for me :)

If your guests travel costs are higher and your wedding bills are lower, then you are shifting costs.

a wedding has expenses incurred by many people for all sorts of things, Ceremony, reception, gifts, travel, etc. Destination weddings tend to make the reception category smaller and the travel category bigger . The reception category is typically paid for by the hosts and the travel is paid for by the guests, so now the guests are paying a larger overall part of the wedding expenses. The wedding couple somehow never realizes they are getting their bargain at the expense of people they claim to care about.

We got married abroad. Dh’s parents couldn’t come and my dad chose not to come. My mum came, along with my 2 cousins, db and dsil. They were the only family in attendance. Then we had a few friends come too. About a month after we returned we had a church blessing and evening do that everyone came to.

We have no regrets at all, it was the wedding we wanted and we knew we’d be choosing between that and who was able to attend. You just need to decide what’s more important to you because you don’t want to regret it afterwards.

Honestly, now I've had a wedding I wouldn't again.
Yes it was nice to celebrate with my family and friends but that's the party.
For the actual wedding, I didn't really care who was there as it was about me and him.

If I was going to get married again, I'd fuck off abroad.

I would rather have my parents at my wedding than go abroad to somewhere they can’t go to for whatever reason. If possible have a blessing and honeymoon in Italy. Bearing in mind you are not actually getting married abroad anyway as the legal bit is being done in Ireland. So people are travelling to Italy for what is essentially a party.

The thing is, your legal wedding in the UK is a cheap option and costs you are planning on incurring anyway. You don’t have to have a big hotel in the Irish countryside. You can go to your favourite restaurant after the registry office ceremony. You can book a village hall and decorate it if you want the party.

If you want to go to Italy, fine. But it’s not saving you money because you’d still be having a meal with everyone after the legal ceremony anyway. You are pushing a cost onto your family and friends. For your mum and dad there is another complication of who stays with your sister and who goes to your wedding. If Italy means more to you, that’s fine but just own it. Italy can be still be part of your wedding by having a really beautiful honeymoon there.

@YayaL “If one thing is certain, having a sibling with disabilities makes the bond of our family unbreakable and i'm sure of that. :)”

are you really young? I know you say you have been with your fiancé for 10 years, but maybe you started dating young.

the divorce rate for having a child with disabilities is incredibly high. There are also documented issues with siblings feeling obligated to put the needs of their disabled siblings above their own. Maybe your family is unbreakable, but it is more likely that your parents have done an amazing job of shielding you from the reality of their situation.

no mother wants to miss her daughter’s wedding. If she told you to go ahead with the Italy plan? You should really be asking yourself why. Why would my mother be willing to miss my wedding? Perhaps it is because she doesn’t want me to be constrained by my sibling. Perhaps it is because my mother has spent a lifetime putting her children first. Perhaps, she is screaming inside that mother and father will not be at their DD’s wedding, but she is putting on a happy face to protect me.

My question was would I regret having the wedding me and my partner want if one of my parents can't come

If you are even raising it as an issue, then I feel it would weigh on your mind if one parent can't come. So I think you would regret going abroad if one of your parents needs to stay behind due to caring commitments.

Only you can answer that really.

I wouldn't have considered a destination wedding because none of my friends could have afforded to come and their presence meant more to me than a destination.

I think the idea of have a wedding at home but just don't have a trad Irish one because it's not what either of you want is a good solution.

Your parents are going to have a lot of guilt around this. Guilt of missing your wedding if they are the one to stay home, guilt to not being with your sister if they are away.

I don’t think I could put that sort of pressure on my parents and so personally I would have a local ceremony and have the honeymoon, or part of it in Italy and have the dinner with your friends that are local to the area to celebrate with

Only you know this. I wanted my parents and sisters at my wedding. I wouldn't have dreamed of considering getting married without them there.

I personally think you may regret not having one of your parents at your wedding and I think it will be hard for your parents to choose who goes (I understand your sister couldnt come regardless of if its in Ireland or abroad).

If it was me, I would get married in Ireland (which does not have to be a "traditional" wedding) and possibly postpone it to a later date so I could afford a wedding I am happy with. I would then just go to Italy with your husband for the honeymoon and have some sort of non legal blessing ceremony there. That way, neither of your parents miss out on the ceremony / proper wedding but you still get the Italy experience.

I understand it is a big sacrifice for you and your husband to be, but personally, I couldnt put a location over my family.

But lots of people have two weddings. Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist couples for example, pretty often have a civil wedding and a bigger religious "do".

What are the problems with you having one ceremony on your home turf with your parents and another one in Italy, exactly? If you clarify the issues the answer might well be clearer too.

Ultimately it's your choice and a very personal one.

I agree with this. Especially, that she may be "putting on a happy face to protect me". OP, I think you do need to consider that your parents may actually be hoping you abandon the Italy wedding plan and go with the Irish wedding but wont say this to you.

I think it's pretty awful to consider a wedding one of your parents can't be at. I bet they've made a huge number or sacrifices to give your sister a happy life and now you're asking them to make another huge one. This is supposedly the first and last time one of their children will be married. It's unfair on them to ask for their blessing. They probably wouldn't want to say no, but that doesn't mean they aren't thinking no.

Yes, you won't get the wedding of your dreams but you could have your honeymoon in Italy.

Honestly I don't buy that special meaning nonsense to your and your fiancé. What you mean is that you both like Lake Garda🙄
Foreign weddings are a pain do everyone but the bride and groom and whiles it's absolutely your right to have it where you want it to be. It also means that it will make it far less likely that everyone you want there will be in a position to attend.

I think most people would rather their parents be at their day than have the wedding in their favourite holiday spot without them but you do you what you want. Do I think you'll regret it, yes I do. Do I think that extended family will also think less of you ( regardless of what your mother says) then yes.

I'm Irish and it's absolutely possible to have a small intimate wedding here at a nice restaurant for reasonable cost. You just don't want to which is fine.

Just do what you want to do, your parents have had their day and they’ll not be choosing your day in ireland over your sister. I see wedding dilemmas week in week out at work, you’ll only regret and possibly resent having a day to appease or please others.

From reading the thread suggestions and your replies I think you are very keen for the Italian wedding, and it sounds like you might regret it more if you don’t go there!

A family friend had a wedding abroad that was postponed 3x due to covid, then 3 days before the rescheduled ceremony their grandfather died. It ended up a lot of family members couldn’t go due to the death but I wouldn’t say the bride and groom have any regrets about their day.

I wouldn't love a country more than parents I wanted to invite to my wedding.

We couldn't have a destination wedding as a family member would have never made it, they almost didn't make it to our UK wedding. Thankfully they did live long enough and were healthy enough to enjoy our day with us and those memories mean so much to me.

You can honeymoon in Italy.

My friend was going to get married in Italy and although I told her it was a lovely idea, in private I was dreading it. My teens wouldn't have been invited and it would have meant eating into the family holiday budget of that year by quite a considerable amount, not to mention using annual leave as there were events planned before and after the ceremony. If we'd stayed in the hotel they were looking at getting married in, the whole thing would have cost me over £1500, and that was a basic estimate. Even staying in a cheaper place nearby was costly.

Thankfully that whole idea was binned after a few family members hinted they wouldn't be able to go. Sometimes people smile, say congratulations and murmur they'd love to come to your special place destination wedding whilst inwardly screaming at the cost and time. It's hard to turn round and say "actually, that's really expensive and will negatively affect me quite badly in many ways" to people planning something like that. I didn't have the balls to do it and neither did a few of my other invited friends who were equally aghast at the cost and time. I would have sucked it up, gone to her wedding but resented the financial and familial implications. Mind you, that was better than another friend who got married in Thailand - I am less close to her so easier to say "no thanks, too far, too pricey, too much time off."

Anyway, yes I think you would regret your parents having to pick which one went to your wedding due to the location. At least if it was nearby they could take it in turns to attend. And maybe your sister would be able to be there too for a short time - which you might like - even if you feel she won't understand what's happening or care.

What I found the most special about "my special day" was all my friends and family being there and having a blast. The location was nice and all but meant very little compared to sharing a great day with those I loved the most.