Good morning all, I so enjoyed writing my debut discussion feature on how to shop for your wedding dress and am hoping my latest thoughts this morning on something all together different, are useful to some of you. I think that so often, the world of weddings is seen as fluffy, pink and sweet, and perhaps just a little ‘airy fairy’ (‘Don’t Tell The Bride’, or ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ anyone?). I do however, genuinely believe there are a lot of serious issues to be discussed around weddings too. Weddings are emotional occasions and important life events that have a tendency to generate issues, problems and worries all of their own. Perhaps your parents are divorced, and whilst this might not normally effect your life, you may now find yourself, with wedding day approaching, worrying how they will act around one another on your big day, or maybe the whole planning process has given you a reason to start having anxious thoughts about your relations with your parents, friends and family members.
Certainly, one of the things people say to me, when they find out I’m lucky enough to write for Love My Dress, is ‘I bet you’re always getting letters from worried brides needing advice!’ Well actually, no. That’s partially because I’m not responsible for managing the Love My Dress inbox, but also because in general, our brides want to share their happy stories, their beautiful photographs, and come here in search of positive inspiration. In general, we’re a pretty happy place here at Love My Dress, even if we’re not afraid to tackle important subject matter through the odd thoughtfully considered discussion post.
Leah and Joe had a £450 secret wedding
Photography by Ali Lovegrove
It’s universally acknowledged, and indeed true in many cases, that while planning a wedding is an exhilarating, exciting and bonding experience, it can also quite often be fraught with stress and anxiety. It may be the pressures of trying to find the perfect dress, keeping your divorced parents apart, or simply managing the expectations of everyone around you who feels they need to tell you what you ought to be doing (and, annoyingly, how you should be doing it).
Looking back, I loved planning my wedding, and I would jump at the chance to do it all over again, but it often isn’t anywhere near as straightforward as we think or dream about – the organisation and often, the politics involved in bringing together friends from across many separate groups, as well as relatives from many far flung corners, can be challenging. It can seem like everyone has an opinion, and all too often it isn’t the same as yours, yet these well-meaners seem so confident their way is right.
Picture the scene – you and your fiance are dreaming of an outdoor ceremony with a humanist blessing, but his mother is telling you that she has already been speaking to the local vicar. You are planning a very small bridal party, with just your two oldest and closest friends as bridesmaids, but your mum has already promised your teenage cousins that ‘of course!’ – they will be bridesmaids. You would love a child friendly wedding but everyone is pulling faces and saying you should ban anyone under 5 as they’ll only scream during the ceremony. Your friends are expressing their wish for a sophisticated reception at a swish city hotel, but you had been hoping for a cute village hall filled with bunting.
The question is, how are you supposed to react to all this? How can you possibly please everyone?
This couple had an intimate London elopement
Their only guest/witness was their photographer, Dominique Bader
The short, honest, only possible answer is, that you can’t.
You can’t please everyone on your wedding day, so take a deep breath, step back and relax, and promise me that you won’t try to.
One thing we see again and again in the ‘Words of Wedded Wisdom’ at the end of each of our real wedding features, is our happy newlyweds telling others to ‘have your day the way you want it to be’ – to choose things you love and not be pushed or over-influence by others (no matter how well-meaning).
I’m not for one moment suggesting that couples should completely disregard the opinions or suggestions of close family and friends, but there are compromises and there are compromises. If your beloved granny is 100 next birthday, terrified of flying and miserable in the heat, then perhaps a wedding in the Maldives isn’t a fabulous plan if you want her to attend. However, if you have your heart set on a small and intimate ceremony and your parents are insisting that you can’t possible not invite cousin Amelia and Aunt Sybil (neither of whom you have seen or spoken to since you were in knee high socks) then perhaps you can afford to put your foot down.
This bride bucked all the usual wedding trends and worked her own, beautiful, quirky, wedding day style
Photography by Ashton Jean Pierre
My husband and I were very lucky in that we didn’t have any friends or family with any particularly pressing opinions, but I can recall the experience of a close friend, who had to be quite assertive in making her parents understand they wanted their wedding in London. London was where they, their friends, and a large portion of her fiancé’s family lived. It suited them and their lifestyle perfectly and was where they desired to be married. My friend didn’t spend her last night as a single woman in her childhood bedroom – like her Mum had wanted – and her Mum’s friends were not given permission to ‘pop in’ to the church service. And you know what? On the day itself, there were nothing but smiles. Her compromise was to let her Mum choose their traditional, fruit and white iced wedding cake (which was delicious) rather than going for the ‘explosion in a sweet shop’ style cake she’d been drooling over on her Pinterest.
So I lied, because I can’t tell you how to please everyone, but I can suggest how you can make things much easier on yourself – it’s all about picking your battles and prioritising, deciding on the things that are really the most important to you as a couple, and sticking to your guns. Being assertive and consistent like this from day one will set expectations and help send a clear message to all those well-meaning friends and family members who are excited, and want to have a say in your plans. But accepting from the outset that you can’t please everyone will make it a whole lot easier on yourself emotionally.
Eddie and Ciara cycled 550 miles to their rainy day remote Scottish wedding
Photography by Lisa Devine
Listen to the opinions of others with good grace, but don’t dwell on them if they don’t fit with your plans. Be consistent, but most of all, be happy with your choices that you make for your wedding day. Make sure the important parts of the day are how you and your husband to be want them to be, where you want them to be and with precisely whom you want them to be.
I’m really keen to know if you have any advice or personal experiences you’d be happy to share with other readers.
Have you had to overcome difficulties with ‘pleasing everyone’ of your own? How did (or maybe didn’t) you handle it?
Are you struggling with ‘well meaning’ friends, family (parents!) trying to assert their own designs on your wedding day?
What would your key advice be to other readers, to help them minimise upsetting or offending anyone, whilst still planning the kind of wedding they envisage?
Love Shona x
Shona Raffle-EdwardsView all Shona's articles
Shona is a wedding admiring bookworm with a love of the countryside, flowers and all things organisational who is currently based in sunny Yorkshire with her husband and beloved cat
Well you guys know how we handled it, from our big smiling faces at the top of this post!
Doing it in secret really was the only option for us, as there would have been way too many issues had we had a ‘proper’ wedding and it would have ruined the whole experience for us. Joe has a significantly larger family than I do, and his extended family members are also a lot less laid back than some of mine so more likely to have been offended had they not been invited. There were also step siblings and their partners and children to consider which made it more complicated. It really was a case of about 10 people on my side and around 40 on his! We were in an invite everyone or invite nobody at all situation, and we really really didn’t want to end up with a huge guest list!
We also ideally would have wanted to invite a number of our friends, but you can’t really give priority to friends over family members without causing offence. We were of the opinion that friends who have played an active part in your relationship, supported you and contributed to your daily lives should be there to share the day and play a much more important role than a distant cousin that you’ve met twice! Also we’re not into traditional stuff like the first dance, speeches or cutting the cake, but we knew that if we were in a room full of people somebody would definitely shout ‘speech’ and we’d end up having to do one anyway, or somebody turn up with a cake slice and force an impromptu cake cutting session on us! We didn’t want any surprises!
So I’m not sure you CAN make everyone happy, but you can be thoughtful about your decisions and choose the option that makes the most people happy, which I think we managed! It took a lot of list writing and discussions before we finally came to the conclusion that would offend the least amount of people. Complete privacy meant that nobody had priority over anybody else and we could enjoy ourselves fully. Out of all of our collective family and friends only one person hasn’t spoken to us since, but he was one of the main people we were expecting trouble from no matter WHAT we did, so we were fully prepared for that anyway.
Everyone else was delighted for us, and we were too!
Leah xxx
I truly love and *adore* how you did it Leah and will forever be a little bit in love with you for letting me inspire our readers with your gorgeous day.
I’m really delighted you’ve taken time to leave a comment here today too – you show in the most stylish and happy of ways how actually, couples facing a complete nightmare with all the potential issues can just keep it completely intimate and still have an ace time.
A completely delightful and truly inspirational wedding.
Big love to you both,
A xxx
Leah, this has really struck a chord! I know you wrote this ages ago – but having been searching for advice online this came up and boy, does it sum up my feelings!
My partner and I cancelled a big wedding due to be in Feb 2018, are now going it alone after having decided that although we would disappoint people, this is truly for us and we hope that they can understand, it’s not about them, but about us!
It’s very hard to get people to deal with emotions that make them think they should be there. I completely agree with your sentiment about friends over family, and as someone who has a very tiny family as well, compared to my partner’s large clan, I feel like you could be talking about us!
Currently we have a couple of people (sadly both my side) who are not laid back enough and maybe not selfless enoguh to just be happy for us, and let us get on with it. This is the last thing I ever wanted so we are going to scurry off and do it on our own. And I know it’s the right thing – thank you for confirming that 🙂
We are struggling with some of these issues at the moment. W Day is 9 weeks away, and after a year of fairly carefree planning, lots of previously unexpressed needs and wants are starting to surface, which, as a lifelong conflict-avoider, I’ve been finding pretty stressful. This post has been very helpful, so thank you! I’m feeling galvanised and sure of what I want, and I’m ready to be fair but firm again.
Fair but firm! It’s the only way Lisa it really is. Don’t let the lovely time you’ve had planning your wedding be tainted with any last minute anxieties. I’m so pleased this post has given you a little boost.
And please share some piccies in due course!
Lots of love,
Annabel x
Huw & I had always been torn between a small wedding with just us & our immediate family or something a bit bigger. Thankfully we both have small families and a close circle of friends so when we did the numbers there was only 45 in total. We had a rule and stuck to it which was if we’d seen friends and family in the last year and maintained regular contact they were invited. We had no kids unless they were part of the bridal party or immediate family. Our guests accepted this, it was actually the evening guests that we had the problem with. All of them asked if they could bring their kids! I didn’t want it turning into a kids party, plus it’s more mouths to feed and keep watered. I stuck to my guns and most were fine to come without in the end.
In terms of family opinions my family are very laid back so didn’t interfere. My father-in-law and mother in law were a little more tricky. My father in law had an opinion on everything “you’re getting married in a barn?!” “You’re not having a chocolate wedding cake are you, fruit is traditional”. We made the mistake of asking him to be maters of ceremony, lucky the best man took charge of all that otherwise we’d have been introducing people as they arrived! My mother in law kept asking if we were inviting so and so who my husband had never even heard of. Thankfully his face and “who the hell are they” stopped that escalating.
I’m lucky to have a small family who are laid back and a husband who stood up to his parents too. I’m not one to mince my words of be bullied into decisions, but not everyone is like that. I think the way you cope with it comes down to the type of person you are and what your friends and family are.. I can imagine how upsetting it can be if you’re dream day is spiralling out of control as more people wade in. My advice can only be stand firm and make sure it’s the day you want. Hopefully it’ll only happen once and you don’t want any regrets.
We are due to get married this summer. At the start of the planning process it was great fun and everyone was easygoing. As we have moved forward with plans more people have felt the need to make comments about our decisions and demands on a variety of things, including who is invited to the wedding (be that relatives we haven’t seen or spoken to in years, or children), telling us we ‘need’ to have a wedding car, that we ‘can’t’ stay together the night before the wedding and that we ‘must’ have button holes/traditional flower arrangements… The list goes on!
It has been stressful and there have been arguments with certain family members, particularly over our decision not to invite children. We have stuck to our guns, and discussed with individuals concerned why we have had to make this decision (capacity at venue and unsuitability of venue for young children). However, I fear there may be more backlash nearer the time. Any tips on how to resolve this conflict without causing anymore upset?
As an aside, I find it an odd concept that a wedding (which really is just a party), gives people the impression they can have a say on your day, when they are not paying for it and its not their party. I particularly dislike the ‘but its tradition’ approach. There have been several occasions where we have wondered whether we should jack it all in and elope!
I would be curious to know how much other couples have compromised on their plans to please family/friends?
I’d say stick to what you’re doing. You’ll see (Sarah Treasure) I had similar problems, but stand you’re ground and try not to get into confrontation about it. Those who accept your decisions will come to the wedding and those who don’t won’t. Which is just a bonus as that’s more money in your pocket. You have to just let it wash over you. I had an evening guest say “well I can’t possibly leave the boys” she had three and ones s teenager and I’m sure a babysitter could’ve been arranged. I simply said “ok” end f conversation. Everyone will have a great day but most importantly you will!
Thanks for the supportive message! Good to know we aren’t alone in our battles! Its difficult because the family members are all on my partners side and are immediate family rather than distant relatives. The response has been quite aggressive and has involved threatening not to attend if their children are not also invited. I can see we should just accept that and say we are sorry they cant come, but its very sad for my OH to know that his family cannot respect our decision and be supportive.
I need to focus on remembering we cannot please everyone and not to try to, otherwise we will end up with a day we don’t want.
“Picking your battles and prioritising” is pretty much the theme of my wedding planning.
My fiance and I are having a very small ceremony in London and then a biggg American wedding in my hometown. I’ve always envisioned my wedding in Rochester and Josh is easy going and loves America enough to fully support the decision. As we’re planning it from our home in London, I always knew I’d need lots of help from my family to pull it off. Weddings are a huge deal in my family and I’m the first of my sisters to get married, so my mom has been going a bit nuts.
While it’s great that she’s being INCREDIBLY helpful and running around meeting with suppliers, it’s not amazing that she refers to it as “her wedding.” While I easily picked the photographer, dress, venue and color scheme without her becoming “momzilla”- flowers have been a major tension point. I like flowers, but I’m not overly concerned about having them as the central point of my wedding. It turns out that my mom views flowers as the most important thing in the wedding. She’s sent me photos of floral displays that I can only call fire hazards. And she keeps trying to sneak colors into my chosen color scheme to better pick her floral vision. We’re going back in May and she literally will not let me meet the florist on my own with my fiance because she’s worried we won’t tell her to go for the “wow” factor.
So I let flower-gate bother me for a few weeks. Tension started escalating and I had a few 16 year old me conversations with her, until I realized it’s just not worth it. I spoke to her and said prior to meeting the florist, we’ll come up with a plan we both like and I said that knowing that might mean me having a few large floral center pieces. In the meantime, I’ve forced myself to laugh off the ridiculous ones she pins me. Though, that being said, since I stopped pushing back, some of the ones she’s sent me have been quite nice!
Now all I have to do is get her to stop referring to it as her wedding.
I remember finding it really difficult coping with everyone opinions when I was planning our wedding. Especially in those heady early days of being engaged when you aren’t really sure what you want and it feels like an overwhelming number of decisions need to be made….right now! If I could give the old me some advice I would say ‘just chill’. Enjoy those early days and don’t let yourself make any decisions until at least 2 months after you got engaged. Give yourself time to enjoy the whole new wonderous world of wedding before you even think about deciding what you want to do. The amount of friends/family who said ‘it’s completely your day but I think you should do this…’. Not helpful when your head is spinning. I distinctly remember coming home sobbing from seeing friends after a grilling about why I hadn’t asked a friend to be my bridesmaid and why kids weren’t invited and sitting on my bed wailing “this was meant to be fuuuuunnnn!” Dramatic yes. Meltdown yes. Stern talking to from the hubby to be, yes. Finding out who your real friends are, oh yes. But oh, you start to find your feet, you get more confident in your decisions and before you know it you are walking down that aisle with a big fat grin on your face. Sure, there are things that I would do differently looking back, but hell, it was great fun.
All the way through this blog I was thinking “pick your battles.” We had a pretty difficult time during our wedding planning to the extent that it really took the shine off the whole process for me. From announcing our engagement we ran into difficulties; from the venue (it wasn’t a hotel), we didn’t have a ‘traditional’ 3 course wedding breakfast (pie and mash doesn’t count), I didn’t choose to the bridesmaid dresses (I let them choose their own) to not inviting my mum-in-law (to be) come wedding dress shopping with me (imagine!?!).We decided to choose areas which we didn’t feel particularly strongly about and gave projects to those who were causing us problems. It worked. Looking back, if I was to plan again I would delegate these tasks from the offset and hopefully it would appease. That said, during our evening reception my in-law came to me and said even if she’d had free reign on every aspect of our day she couldn’t have done it any better. Cue a huge sigh of relief and a couple of happy tears 🙂
YOUR wedding really is YOURS, do what is right for you and if your prepared to let go of something small it could make things sooo much easier!
From talking to friends after the event I found that most had experienced something similar. Folk don’t want to mention the horrid stuff, just the lovely things. So, well done again LMD for tackling a real issue xx
Thank you all for your comments, insights and sharing your experiences. It is unfortunately a sad fact that a lot of people do find the wedding planning process difficult and stressful, thanks to advice from friends and family- some well meaning, some less so…. Any advice you are able to offer to other brides in the same position is very helpful.
I do think you need to decide what is most important to you, and stick to your guns about these things, but perhaps be willing to compromise elsewhere, if you feel it wouldn’t effect your day (and really, the smaller things honestly don’t)
Thanks for getting involved everyone x
Well said Shona xx
I don’t think I feel like the day is really just about my partner and myself. It feels like its a whole family affair or at least the coming together of 2 families. Thats why when my mum adds more of her friends to the list of dinner guests I don’t object. She would do anything for me and has been the most loving mother I could ever ask for. I feel like having her friends around her on my wedding day isn’t much to ask.
Our wedding is in 6 weeks time and is taking place in Australia. Although i am British and he is an Aussie, we chose to marry in the Hunter Valley, just outside of Sydney because it is a place that we love to visit, we feel happy and relaxed there and Australia is now where we both call home. Did my mum have an issue with this like you might think… no.. she was as supportive and encouraging as always and was just happy that we were happy with our choices. However, the single most difficult ‘obstacle’ we have had to face has been my future Monster, i mean Mother in Law.
My fiancé discussed with his parents where we would like to hold our wedding while we were still celebrating our engagement in France, because we knew instantly the venue we wanted and the time frame and there was only one date left in school holidays (i’m a teacher), so we had to make a decision quickly. Cue endless musings of how she had always envisaged Tim marrying at his school chapel where they got married and how no one would come to the wedding because it was just too far (2 hour drive) including his grandparents who were too old to travel (after discussion with them they were thrilled and excited to come). The devastation that followed our decision to have my colleague and school chaplain (an anglican minister) marry us…how could we possibly not have a Catholic wedding (he is Catholic I am Anglican), shocked and saddened me. How would she get her hair done, only her Sydney hairdresser can do it right, she would have to drive up the morning of the wedding (while the rest of the family enjoyed a long weekend). Then there was the invitations.. 6 weeks after they went out i was told they weren’t clear and no one knew how to reply (i’d had all but 3 responses by this point), we weren’t having a traditional cake like his sister had and no she didn’t know Tim’s favourite thing was macarons hence the tower of them we have chosen to prop up our one tier of sponge cake. The list goes on.. with the latest being a demand that Tim’s Dad gives a speech (said sat the dinner table in front of 8 guests we had invited for dinner.. cue awkward conversation fillers) because at his sister’s wedding, the Father of the Groom’s speech was the best one…
But those of you who have said you have to pick your battle are right… Will i concede and agree that it is ok for Tim’s Dad toe peak even though we are hugely pushed for time and I didn’t want lots of speeches… yes. Did I invite her to help with the gift registry because she knows the shop inside out.. yes. Have I rang to consult her on minor things, that I really don’t need to ask her about, to help her feel included… yes. But I feel so strongly that a couple’s wedding day is their day, not a recreation of anyone else’s and not a projection of a parent’s dreams. So I have been assertive and held firm on the important things that will make our day ‘ours’. Has it been one of the hardest things I have had to negotiate.. yes, have there been tears.. yes and will there be more in the next 6 weeks.. probably! But I think we learn a lot about ourselves, what we stand for as a couple and how our family, cultural ideals and traditions can join together to create a new family, as we go through these trials. I hope that this stands us in good stead to face, rise above and conquer the many more challenges that i am sure we will meet once married.
It is comforting to see that everyone seems to have some sort of similar issue!
The only time actual help has been offered is by my Gran, we weren’t going to have a cake or have a really small one, but she wanted us to have a ‘proper’ wedding cake so offered to pay for it and arrange it as our wedding present. Brilliant, that kind of advice and help I am eternally grateful for!
Also my dad has given us money for the wedding, but hasn’t given us a hard time about anything – other than us inviting a couple of his friends but they are family friends I have known for a long time anyway.
It seems to be people who have no intention of actually helping toward their grand vision for our wedding that offer the strongest opinions. We have had hardly any issues over the past year and the wedding is now 2.5 months away, all of a sudden lots of little things are just wrong according to family members (one in particular being my mum, but I am the first to get married so I am trying to be patient with her).
We aren’t offering a choice on the menu, other than a vegetarian option, and my mum was horrified by this. It costs extra and it is also extra work to then track what everyone wants, so after numerous conversations with her about it I eventually said ‘ok mum we will offer the choice if you pay for it and sort out the menu options for us as you are literally the only person who is bothered’. She then said of course she couldn’t afford to pay for that right now, but up until then it had been ‘oh it’s only an extra few pounds per head Katie!’ why did she think we could pay it when she couldn’t?!
Also silly things like my shoes, they are not right apparently…but only because they are not a traditional satin bridal pump (if that’s your style fair enough but I do not like them). I am not going to give in on them because 1 I have already bought them and I am not in a position right now to go any spend more money because someone doesn’t think they are right and 2 I love them and they are just shoes?! I am a grown woman who dresses herself daily why on this day does that process need to be done by committee? Same battle is currently going on with glasses, I am not wearing contacts and my mum keeps bringing me ‘bridal’ glasses to try on, I know she is trying to help but they are all horribly ugly glasses! I am going to compromise on this one and get a new pair of glasses for the day but ones that actually suit me!
I can’t understand why some people have such full on opinions about another persons wedding, especially when it involves that person spending extra money – like I have an unlimited pot of money and time for this wedding. There is no offer of help a lot of the time, just that we must have this or that or we shouldn’t have what we have already booked and paid for. Like we booked a band not a DJ, and there are complaints that it won’t be like a ‘traditional’ wedding do (i.e. macarena, conga etc) because we will have a band. Well tough it’s booked paid for and done.
Also we can obviously afford to invite whoever pops into anyone’s head at any given moment, and if I say no I am a horrible person for ‘excluding’ them from the day. We have compromised on the evening guest list and have invited mums friends, great aunts etc there, but are standing our ground on the daytime as we already have 60 just with family only. My rule with the guest list was would I expect to be invited to their wedding? However I obviously do on have the bare faced cheek of some people who have openly said to other people (and it has gotten back to me) that they are expecting an invite! This is not the family reunion of the century it is our wedding, that we are mostly paying for ourselves and we cannot invite everyone we have ever met (and some we have never met!).
Same with plus ones…I currently have a cousin who is saying she will not come to the wedding because I have not invited her boyfriend. I have not seen said cousin for years, I was not even aware she had a serious boyfriend. When I was made aware of this (when she returned her RSVP with his name written onto it) I rang to say there wan’t a plus one on her invite so he was not in our daytime numbers but he could come to the evening reception – more than fair I thought (and most of the rest of the family agree thankfully) but she reacted horribly and is now saying she won’t come because he can’t. Are people aware how much per head it costs to invite people to a wedding? Also that we are keeping the ceremony really intimate with family only, I do not want some person there who I have never met, and nobody else has a plus one. So currently I am standing my ground on that one, deadline for RSVPs is 1st March and if she hasn’t come around by then her place will be given to one of our friends who we do see regularly and would not act in such a selfish way. Ah it’s nice to vent on a Sunday morning!
It really is about choosing your battles and making priorities, in the grand scheme of things the decoration or my shoes are not what people will remember and not what I will remember in 10 years time, but I will remember who was there having a wonderful day with us!
Friends have been the worst. I’m from south america and my husband is German, but I currently live in the US. Neither of our countries has a engagement ring tradition, we just use wedding bands. Oh my…all my friends, either from my country and americans do not seem to understand I never ever thought about a diamond ring. After their sad faces when I said I wouldn’t get one and mild rude tones as to “your fiancee doesn’t love you enough”, all I can say is I simply despise engagement rings now. They look candy made, tacky, a ridiculous extravaganza that I only see lame people wearing. They made me hate diamonds, how horrible can that be?
Also, I have heard things such as:
I think it’s ridiculous to marry if you can’t have a Louboutin
You won’t have a big puffy dress?
You have to put your cousin as your bridesmaid or she would feel hurt
Can my daughter be your flower girl?
Most of the times I don’t care about it. I just think it’s funny that nobody asks those things when you invite them for your birthday. They don’t care about your dress, what food you will serve and if kids can go or not. But if it’s your wedding… The worst for me is that people reflect their own perceptions and needs. They get disappointed if the flowers are not pink or if you choose a different food or a more simple invitation. But oh well… I am glad my parents were fine with my country style wedding and didn’t demand a church or anything. And I know the friends mean well but all I can think of is: I don’t have an engagement ring, I don’t have the right shoe and have a bridesmaid and a flower girl before even thinking about it.