I dont want my family at my wedding!

Twopints

We got married in St Lucia in 1994. We had six people with us: my Mum and my brother, my wife's parents and my wife's sister and her husband.

But we stayed in completely different hotels! My wife and I stayed in Le Sport and the other "couples" each travelled and stayed separately. We met up on a couple of evenings at each others' hotels and they came to our hotel for the day of the wedding.

Basically each of them treated it as their own holiday, paid for by themselves - we gave about a year's notice so they could save if they wanted to come. It worked well for us!

Quillion

I would do your own thing its your wedding and your choice.

If you feel you have to, invite them along for the second week and get married then. That way you get a week on your own to work on the tan before the wedding.

Your guests arrive just in time for the wedding and you only have to spend a week with them and not two.

Their own choice to stay for 1 week or two.

HTH x

garden-lover

I can't help but feel a little bad about it though so im still considering perhaps staying on the opposite end of the island to them and just meet for the wedding day or maybe a twin centre holiday where we would only have to stay there a week then go somewhere else but i dont know how much that would cost and i don't know if OH would be up for it so i'll look into it. I never imagined planning a wedding would be such a nightmare!!

This idea worked very well when my son got married on a beach in the sun. They stayed in a separate hotel to the rest of the party and we all got together at pre-arranged times/places. Who wants the in-laws/family around on honeymoon!

Good luck with whatever you decide.

fluffyb

Speaking as the mother of a groom to be :rolleyes:............

It would break my heart not to see my children marry You have to do what you want - it's your day, but be prepared for the fallout and lots of broken hearts and hurt feelings too. In this life you can't have it both ways unfortunately.

My DIL to be wants a small wedding [for her own personal/family reasons] but my son wants a traditional big wedding [neither of them want a church wedding]

I don't fly so couldn't go to a wedding abroad, so they are looking at castles in Scotland.This will keep the numbers willing to travel all that way down but still have the close family able to go.

I wouldn't want to miss seeing my kids marry for the world, but whatever you decide to do you will upset someone

Good luck!!

allIcouldwishfor

You wouldn't take your parents and in-laws on your honeymoon, which is effectively what a big part of this holiday will be for you, maybe if you could explain it to them in those terms you may be able to persuade them to do their own thing for at least one week of the holiday.

LittleMissAspie

snowmaid wrote: »

the reality is that after the service you will have absolutely noone to share it with, you will be left looking at eachother and you will regret it.

I don't understand this, they have each other to share it with. Why do they need anyone else?

I am like the OP, I see marriage as a private commitment, not a public statement. I wouldn't want to get married with people staring at me and I would rather have no wedding than one that I felt depressed about because people forced me to do things I didn't want to do.

BuddyBonthenet

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

I don't understand this, they have each other to share it with. Why do they need anyone else?

I am like the OP, I see marriage as a private commitment, not a public statement. I wouldn't want to get married with people staring at me and I would rather have no wedding than one that I felt depressed about because people forced me to do things I didn't want to do.

What don't you understand?

I understand what you are saying, but marriage is a public statement if you want to be married so that the marriage is valid in the UK. Firstly it is a legal requirement to give a public notice of your intention to be married. If you are married in church then the banns are read out in church on consecutive 3 Sundays before the wedding and if you have a civil marriage then you give notice at the register office and this notice is displayed on the notice board at the register office for a period of fifteen clear days before the wedding. Secondly your marriage must be witnessed by two people so again it is not a private commitment.

You might decide not to involve anyone you know when you get married and keep it private in that sense, but millions of people still think of a marriage as a reason to celebrate with friends and family. It is a personal choice and getting married is a big deal for most people. My FIL remarried without telling anyone and to say it hurt his sons' feelings is an understatement, particularly as their Dad was a widower.

Who is invited or not to a wedding is up to the bride and groom if they are paying for the wedding (that's not always the case), but pleasing everyone is always difficult and you have to live with the decisions you make.

Weddings are supposed to be a joyous occasion, but nobody said organising the wedding was supposed to be a joyous occasion aswell! I'll bet most couples (including myself) thought about eloping at some point when making the arrangements! :rotfl:

lostinrates

I've skimmed the thread, but wanted to sday we found ourselves in similar position. Our wedding plans were being taken over and it went from being a small wedding to my in laws wanting their half of the guest list to number 250 people...yes, just their guests! And on my side my family didn't like the dress I wanted, and disapproved of lots of little things...and choices were being made that were not what we wanted, but with the very best intentions. In the end DH and I married very quietly in a register office the week before payments were being made for the ''big wedding'' so it was fait accompli. Its true to say both famnilies were very, very sad, but surprisingly, much more understanding when they had been when we were disagreeing about flowers! I think they relaised that they might have been OTT.

I'd suggest having the wedding a lone and ether an inexpensive gathering with the whole lot of them (it will be les stressful if its not your actual wedding) or a nice meal out with people individually, or whatever.

Slipping away was not my ideal, but it was actually incredibly romantic, and in retrospect, the best thing we ever did.

lrr_2

Do what you want to do and not what others want, its your day and you only do it once......sometimes.......ha ha

poet123

As another mother here,and of course years ago a bride to be. I would not have considered getting married without my family or DH's. Now I am a prospective MIL I would be devastated if any of my sons wanted to get married without close family being there.

Although I would understand that the happy couple do not necessarily want to spend their honeymoon with us.:eek: So, I would book seperate hotels,well apart, and only come together for the ceremony. You have a week out there first and then everyone else comes out for either 1 week or 2 (maybe you could stay for 3 weeks?) but stays seperately.