This is my first post on this board, but I'm feeling a little cruddy about my wedding at the moment. This is my second marriage but it's actually my first WEDDING. My first marriage was a run to the courthouse when I was 18, and we had a lame little party in the park that nobody cared enough to come to.
This time around, I wanted to have a nice wedding with all of me and FI's friends and family in attendance, which has come to about 50-60 people. It's not going to be an expensive thing, we originally budgeted for $5000 but had to knock it down to like $2500-$3000, all out of our own pockets. The thing that gets me though, is that everyone seems to think that because it's my second marriage, that I don't deserve to have any of it. Well, everyone except FI, this is his first marriage and he wants it to be the last, so he wants to have a lovely wedding as well.
I have people who offer to help with things, like making STDs or invites, picking out my wedding dress, making flower arrangements, etc. which I appreciate. But then I keep getting the sentiment from all of them that "oh, well you don't need XYZ because this isnt' your first marriage". Like, "Oh, who cares that you love that wedding dress for $500, this isn't your first marriage so you should just buy something off the discount rack for $100. Or don't even have a white dress at all." Or "Oh, who cares if the flowers don't look great, it's not your first marriage so it doesn't matter." FI's mom even suggested we just not even invite anyone except her and his stepdad, and his grandparents, and just get married in a pastor's office, because "She's already been married so it doesn't matter." But it DOES matter to me, because I never got those things in the first place! My family wasn't even there at the courthouse when I got married the first time, something that has always upset me.
Does anyone else get this feeling sometimes, like just because you've been married once, that it's wrong for you to even want a wedding this time around?