Getting married and not telling anyone

Person_one

ViolaLass wrote: »

My instinct is that I wouldn't know - it's too great a generalisation.

Besides, the point remains. Why should the couple have the day that their parents want them to have over the day that the couple want to have?

If they have a good relationship with their parents, they know the parents would love to see their children married (I think most would) and it would be simple and uncomplicated for the parents to attend, I'd wonder why they'd be so opposed to having them there.

duchy

ViolaLass wrote: »

You're right, it should be about the groom too but why MUST it be about anyone else?

I didn't tell my parents when I had my first kiss or lost my virginity. Getting married was another major step for me but that doesn't meet you HAVE to share it with everyone.

This was in response to parents paying for a wedding ....I don't suppose you expected your parents to pay for your condoms or for a hotel room to lose you virginity in but you expect them to pay for a wedding for say a Pagan ceremony when they are say Jewish ?????

ViolaLass

Person_one wrote: »

If they have a good relationship with their parents, they know the parents would love to see their children married (I think most would) and it would be simple and uncomplicated for the parents to attend, I'd wonder why they'd be so opposed to having them there.

But that's not the point. If the couple want to do it without anyone, they're entitled to.

For a start, if they invite the parents then they 'should' invite siblings and significant others, and friends, and aunts and uncles, and cousins and so the list goes on...

There should not be a social obligation to share events in your life with anyone if you just feel like making it private. Thinking people are strange or that relationships are weak if people choose not to share means you're not allowing for people who think differently to you.

Just because YOU would want to share it, doesn't mean people are weird if they feel differently. It just means that they're different.

ViolaLass

duchy wrote: »

This was in response to parents paying for a wedding ....I don't suppose you expected your parents to pay for your condoms or for a hotel room to lose you virginity in but you expect them to pay for a wedding for say a Pagan ceremony when they are say Jewish ?????

I didn't expect my parents to pay for ANY of those occasions. I've never said I expected them to pay for my wedding (nor did they - not because I didn't want them to attend but because I thought that, as an adult, I should pay for my own decisions and choices).

If there are no guests at a wedding, there's hardly anything for the parents to pay for anyway!

Mojisola

When a marriage was a big rite-of-passage ceremony of two young people leaving home and starting a new life together, I think people would have found it very strange to have done it privately.

Now many - most? - people who get married have been living as a couple for years. There usually isn't a "do" when couples move in to together and the marriage doesn't change the way they live, apart from the legal results, so it doesn't have the same significance. Although relatives and friends might like to have a party, I can envisage a lot more couples just doing the legal privately in future.

Georgiegirl256

Person_one wrote: »

Of course I'd respect it, i wouldn't show up anyway, or try to change their minds!

I don't know if I'm expressing myself well here. I consider that I have a very good and close relationship with my siblings, and with my small circle of dear friends. The sort of relationship where we'd all want each other present and involved for 'big life stuff' whatever it may be.

If it turned out that one of them felt differently, it would mean I was wrong about their feelings, and about the nature of the relationships involved, wouldn't it?

It's never actually happened, and I don't think it will. There have been people in my family who've done this sort of thing but nobody I'm that bothered about. There have been relationship consequences, and subtle adjustments in priorities from the excluded parties each time though, from what I've seen.

Just because you think they will/should act a certain way, doesn't mean that they will.

I'm really close to my cousin, he's like a big brother to me, and when he found out I'd got married, his words to me whilst laughing was "good on ya lass, you naughty minx!" He wasn't surprised, he's knows what I'm like!

It would be a shame to lose a friendship because you were thinking about your feelings rather than theirs.

Bennifred

Person_one wrote: »

I'm sue if there was a survey then 'crushed but trying not to show it' would be the most common reaction of parents whose children married in secret or without inviting them.

ViolaLass wrote: »

My instinct is that I wouldn't know - it's too great a generalisation.

Besides, the point remains. Why should the couple have the day that their parents want them to have over the day that the couple want to have?

Hmm - not sure it's about the couple having the day their parents want them to have. I wouldn't want to dictate my sons' weddings (or have any input really) but as I have spent all their lives loving them, supporting them through good times and bad and celebrating successes small and large with them, I'd probably be sad at not even being told they were getting married. I would try not to show it though!

Georgiegirl256

Mojisola wrote: »

When a marriage was a big rite-of-passage ceremony of two young people leaving home and starting a new life together, I think people would have found it very strange to have done it privately.

Now many - most? - people who get married have been living as a couple for years. There usually isn't a "do" when couples move in to together and the marriage doesn't change the way they live, apart from the legal results, so it doesn't have the same significance. Although relatives and friends might like to have a party, I can envisage a lot more couples just doing the legal privately in future.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

Person_one

Bennifred wrote: »

Hmm - not sure it's about the couple having the day their parents want them to have. I wouldn't want to dictate my sons' weddings (or have any input really) but as I have spent all their lives loving them, supporting them through good times and bad and celebrating successes small and large with them, I'd probably be sad at not even being told they were getting married. I would try not to show it though!

I'm thinking about this more than I should be!

My grandparents parents did not come to their wedding because they disapproved on religious grounds. Everybody seems to think it's ok that they were never fully forgiven for this and that it still upsets my grandmother every year on her anniversary, nearly 60 years later.

Why are feelings so different in that scenario? Based on responses in this thread, it was the parents right, and their choice not to go, and the couple shouldn't have wanted them to do something that made them unhappy, surely?

balletshoes

Person_one wrote: »

I'm thinking about this more than I should be!

My grandparents parents did not come to their wedding because they disapproved on religious grounds. Everybody seems to think it's ok that they were never fully forgiven for this and that it still upsets my grandmother every year on her anniversary, nearly 60 years later.

Why are feelings so different in that scenario? Based on responses in this thread, it was the parents right, and their choice not to go, and the couple shouldn't have wanted them to do something that made them unhappy, surely?

absolutely .