Getting married and not telling anyone

Georgiegirl256

duchy wrote: »

You don't see a wedding as welcoming the new spouse to the family then ?

You don't have to have a wedding to welcome someone into the family. All to often I see people getting offended when there is really no need to. Is it your wedding? No. Why can't you respect the bride and grooms wishes then? You are being disrespectful to them by not doing so.
My favourite Bridezilla posts are the ones where people are complaining that just because parents are shelling out several thousand for the wedding they shouldn't be entitled to any input or opinions.

you think because people are paying for the wedding then they should have views and input into how they think the wedding should be?

Tiffany_Aching

We got married in secret and I have never had any regrets about our decision.

We both wanted a small, quiet wedding in a registry office and the plan was to have just our parents there to witness. As we started to make plans my mum decided that I had to invite my sister and her daughter. I agreed but it meant having to invite DHs siblings so they wouldn't get upset. Then she got upset because my aunties and uncles would not be there, so DHs had to be invited... in the end our close wedding party of us and our parents turned into over 40 guests!

In the end we thought s*d it, it's our day and we will do it as we want, booked the registry office, grabbed our two closest friends and got married.

My mother was furious as she had wanted a big do for our family and her friends (that we would have had to pay for and were skint at the time!), DHs family thought it was wonderfully romantic!

A couple of years later my cousin and her long-term partner decided to get married and booked a lovely beach wedding abroad with the plan of a huge celebration party when they got home - her mum went mad when she told them and insisted they married in a church here before they went on holiday. Eventually my cousin agreed and got married before going abroad. She has told me several times how much she regrets this as her wedding day was nothing like they had wanted.

In the end our wedding day was exactly as we wanted it - a simple day, no fuss, no bother. I wouldn't change that day for the world!

Gloomendoom

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

:rotfl: Did I just read that correctly?! When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, the wedding IS really just the bride and grooms day, so why shouldn't you just do what you want? Why should everyone else butt in with their two pence worth about how they think your wedding should be? It really isn't their business tbh.

I strongly disagree. It may depend on background, but in mine (at the start, middle and not just the end of the day) a wedding is regarded as a family celebration. That doesn't mean that the bride and groom are dictated to by all and sundry, just that the feelings of family members are taken into account when a wedding is planned.

Like it or not, in a lot of cases this is what happens, you only need to look at the weddings board to see that that is the case.

I'd rather not.

I'm sorry your first marriage didn't work out. It reads to me like your wife resented you for forcing her to have that sort of wedding? If both parties are singing from the same hymn sheet though, those problems shouldn't occur, it's only when they are not that these problems do.

You could be right. However, even if my wife and I had been singing from the same hymn sheet, it wouldn't have stopped our families being upset that we eloped.

ViolaLass

duchy wrote: »

My favourite Bridezilla posts are the ones where people are complaining that just because parents are shelling out several thousand for the wedding they shouldn't be entitled to any input or opinions.

Not relevant in this case since if you choose to do it on the quiet, I would assume you would pay for it yourself.

We chose to pay for our wedding entirely ourselves not least because then no one could pull the 'I'm contributing, I want a say' line.

And no, I didn't see my wedding as being welcomed into OH's family, although I know I was. I married him and his family had nothing to do with my decision to marry him.

clairec79

I think we rang about 2 days before and said we were getting married, if they wanted to attend they could, then went back to his grandmothers for a little buffet

~Chameleon~

Tiffany_Aching wrote: »

We got married in secret and I have never had any regrets about our decision.

We both wanted a small, quiet wedding in a registry office and the plan was to have just our parents there to witness. As we started to make plans my mum decided that I had to invite my sister and her daughter. I agreed but it meant having to invite DHs siblings so they wouldn't get upset. Then she got upset because my aunties and uncles would not be there, so DHs had to be invited... in the end our close wedding party of us and our parents turned into over 40 guests!

In the end we thought s*d it, it's our day and we will do it as we want, booked the registry office, grabbed our two closest friends and got married.

^^ exactly the same reasons as us

fairy_lights

If me and my OH ever get married this is probably what we will do. The idea of having a big expensive wedding and being the centre of attention is my kind of hell, and to be honest even the thought of standing there declaring our love for each other in front of just our parents makes me cringe a bit!
I know that if we did have a small wedding with just close family it would end up spiralling in to something much bigger than we would want, if we only invited our parents then my OH's elderly grandmother would be hurt at being left out, but if we invited her as well then our siblings would want an invite, and so on. Plus I know that my OH's family would have strong opinions about what we should wear and how the day should be organised, and the whole day would turn in to something we wouldn't want it to be.
Also neither of us are particularly sentimental about marriage, If we do get married it will for the legal benefits such as being each others next of kin, and not as any public declaration of our love or as being welcomed in to each others family. We've been together long enough that we already do feel part of each others families and a wedding won't change that.

GobbledyGook

I think the payment versus input debate is one that varies depending on the how reasonable the people chipping in are.

My Grandparents contributed to our wedding. They wanted too and I knew that that the money would come with no strings. We did do a few things we knew they'd like because they were things that didn't matter so much to us (we had favours which I wouldn't have bothered with, we invited 4 friends of theirs who were incredibly supportive to them when they were struggling with 2 young children landing on them unexpectedly and even though we had a buffet we had proper plates and cutlery). My PIL bought the cake because we weren't fussed about a cake, but they didn't think a wedding was a wedding without a cake and it was no skin off our noses if they did. We also invited 3 of their long time friends and everyone was happy.

Some people are very rude I think. OH's cousin expected her parents to hand over 20k without any sort of involvement at all. Her Aunt lives in America so hadn't seen her for 2 years, but has weekly contact with her Mum (the sisters have close contact I mean) and she travels home for big events like weddings. Cousin wouldn't budge on inviting her because she had a 'no-one I haven't seen for more than 6 months' gets invited rule. She also had a meal that she really wanted even though she knew half of her guests wouldn't like it (very rare meat - even the caterer recommended against it) and declared it tough because it was 'her day'. As it is no-one has good memories of her wedding because her poor parents spent most of the day apologising for her bad manners and lots of people went to the chippie for food! If she had been a bit more considerate she could have had a wonderful day with that amount of money and now she's a bit older she really regrets it.

System

I love the idea of getting married but not telling anyone. Just me, him and two witnesses. No pressure, no stress. Just lovely and so romantic!

lostinrates

silvercar wrote: »

I would be majorly hurt. A key significant event in my child's life and they didn't tell me. I would be upset.

To all intents and purposes in a situation like op's you would know. Where they were living together and had children effectively you would have someone to consider as your son's partner, living as a couple, making life decisions together. That they'd formalised it legally might not change much about the relationship.

DH and I felt, primarily, we were cementing an agreement we had already made between us, a bond we'd already formed 'emotionally and spiritually' legally.

I'm very glad we married, but don't consider it impacted practically or otherwise on anyone else in the families. We'd lived together for two years, been adamant for some time about our commitment to each other. I love the idea that we might not have tolD anyone (we did get married without family present and just with two friends as witnesses). Still, having thought about it I think its better for us we were open about it.