Marriage Planning - Can it be any harder?

[friendly00069]

Hello All:

 

Been a long and I mean long week; I could use some neutral advice. My fiancé and I became engaged in October – we planned on being married in February. Both of us have large families and larger extended families, add in friends and a lot of people become involved. In any case, Feb did not work as we felt we did not have time to prepare. Hunting for a venue became a challenge, balancing the usual variables, cost, location, availability – etc. We finally found a place we really liked, almost settled on it – and then after a bit of math found there was no way it would be big enough to handle all the guests. After wrangling with whom should we exclude, how to make it smaller, we decided a new venue would have to be found.

 

Finally, after much hand wringing we found new a venue, perfect location, large enough to handle the load and at a price we could afford. Truly excited, we set our date (early April), updated family and friends and started planning. Wouldn't you know, a panicked call comes in – the date is to close to another family member's wedding (a cousin), scheduled a week after ours. We knew the date of the other wedding, confirmed with them that our date would not pose to much of an issue, everyone seemed ok with the timing; until the soon to be mother in law weighed in. She felt it would take away from her daughters' wedding, that it would be too hectic on the family.

 

The call came into my fiancé; a request was made to change our date. She was none to happy about this. After all the work to get to a point where we had a date settled, the last thing she wanted to hear is that we would change it. Nothing is set in stone, and although we ordered cards, they had not been mailed. We could change, without too much of a penalty – the venue is avaliable in May. None the less, after a night of reassurances and tears, she is bouncing between "the hell with them, we will do it anyway" to "ok, we will move to May" and even so far as "forget the formal wedding/party/etc., lets just do immediate family, very close friends, wedding at home and be done with it".

 

So what to do, on one hand 30 more days one way or the other is not the end of the world. The smaller, immediate family idea is fine with me, but I know she will regret it later and the "hell with them" probably wont work, nobody wants to get married under those conditions. So, what to do?

 

Btw – other family member cannot move venues, they agreed to a contract that includes penalties should they change dates.

[newts]

It's your wedding, your day, do what the both of you want to do not the family.

[shes2smart]

Way I see it, you're tryin' to please too many people and may be starting to lose sight of what's important here....which is getting married to the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.

 

If you wait until you have the ideal circumstances & date that everyone (or even a majority of everyone) will be pleased with, you're going to be waiting a long time. That ideal set of circumstances may never happen.

 

If it was me, I'd just go off and elope. Saves a lot of time, money, and pain in the rear...and gets you started on your life of wedded bliss a heck of a lot sooner. Then again, I like to keep all aspects of my life pretty streamlined and simple and I understand not everyone is like that.

 

At some point, you are just going to have to bite the bullet & pick a date and the heck with what everyone else thinks. It's not a good precedent to let the various family/friends dictate important aspects of your life.

 

To quote the late Ricky Nelson: "You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya got to please yourself."

 

Anyone who's not happy with your plans will eventually get over it. If not, do you really want people in your life who are going to hold a grudge against you just because you wouldn't get married on their timetable?

[DN]

Persuade her to change the date. If you don't, family members will be upset, finger pointing will take place between people who blame your fiancé or the cousin, and family feuds will spring up all over the place.

 

If you think you have a drama now - wait and see what will happen later.

[Scout]

“forget the formal wedding/party/etc., lets just do immediate family, very close friends, wedding at home and be done with it”.

Quite frankly, I think that's an excellent idea! Use the extra money you'll save by taking a fabulous honeymoon or putting it in the bank for a rainy day.

[Relationship Coach]

Do what's best for you and your immediate family. With adequate notice you are being reasonable and fair to all invited. Get a wedding planner if you can, reduces the stress load on the two of you by 100%. Many marriages get off to a bad start over squabble such as this. Nip it in the butt and take control, the two of you are in charge, IT'S YOUR WEDDING!