My Fiancé and I are planning a wedding in a much shorter time frame than we would’ve liked in a ideal world but I’m 10 weeks pregnant and so had to speed up our timeline plans a little bit. Of course we didn’t ‘have’ to, but we are both traditional and would like a wedding and the immediate family to come together at a venue after. Our parents (despite their awkwardness in regarding the wedding) also would like us to be married before baby is born.
It was a possibility a few weeks ago that it could’ve happened in September. I told my parents there’s a chance it could happen then but they were on holiday and they completely freaked out at the clash. They accused us of ‘not wanting them at the wedding’ and messaged my fiance separately saying ‘we always knew you would break our heart’…with my mum wailing down the phone that we ruined her holiday plans (I’ll add that they go on holiday twice a year). Anyway, it transpired later that my mum said she felt like a ‘second class citizen’ to my fiances family (based on nothing whatsoever) in fact it’s probably the other way round - we’re always at my parents house and hardly at my finances.
All I said it was a tentative date and I never implied it was going to go ahead without them. Maybe selfishly I even thought their reaction would be ‘don’t worry , we will make it whatever the date’. I certainly wasn’t expecting their reaction to be so dramatic and accuse us of wrongdoing. So I told my dad not to worry, we will of course have the wedding when they are back. He said great and then 30 mins later told us he cancelled it…because he realised my uncle is away when THEY get back from holiday. So they made all that fuss, and then after we agreed the wedding would be later, they went and cancelled.
My Dad proceeds to tell us (well, shouts) it better be on the dates we were on holiday’ so me and my fiance, terrified and pressured, scramble to try and find a church and a venue that coincides with their original holiday dates but unfortunately the venue doesn’t match the church date. Because I’m so scared of my parents reaction, I told my fiance we should just have the cerenomy to make everyone happy but he insists that I deserve my ‘dream’ day where I get to have a nice dinner in my dress etc. Very sweet and so we are currently have on hold a place in October (TBC in the next couple days) but I’m completely terrified of my parents reaction. I get emotional and stressed easily and I just don’t want that especially being pregnant.
so October is looking very likely and I felt happy about that but now I have my uncle constantly texting asking what date it will be. I don’t want to tell him a ‘likely’ date given what happened with my parents. So I just told him as soon as we know we will let everyone know and now he’s stressing that ‘people’ (he didn’t mention himself) might not be able to make it due to the last minuteness of it all. I explained I didn’t want a repeat of what happened with my parents so we’re not telling anyone until we have somewhere confined. I get his concern that some people won’t be able to make it - but even if we planned a year in advance, I’m sure there would still be people that couldn’t make it.
I just feel like my family thinks we are selfish for somehow not going through our 40 numbers and asking when everyone is free. We know finances parents are free, my parents, my uncle and my fiances uncle etc are all free. To us, they are the main people that matter. Close friends will be great, but fundamentally we know it’s last minute and so we just can’t accommodate everyone.
I’ve done my research and know that the florist and photographer is available on a few selected dates and I wasn’t stressed until uncles and parents are texting me what date it should and shouldn’t be.
My Fiancés family are the complete opposite and telling me that whatever date we pick, they will be there and they’re being incredibly supportive and telling us not to worry.
I will add, that my parents haven’t offered any help with the wedding (financial or emotional) which is of course fine, I never expected them to with the former but their reaction is making everything seem 1000x more stressful.
I’ve actually realised that I hope to god I’m not like them with my child. It’s made me look back and realise other situations where they have totally over reacted….
when I was a teenager my mum let me go on her iPad (forgetting that photo syncing on devices was a thing) and I saw explicit images of messages from another man. I cried to my dad telling him I thought mum was having an affair and the next day they both had a shout and a go at me for getting involved with, I quote ‘their sex life’….. things like this all my life it’s always me that gets the blame?!