This is a long one.
Let's start with the positive note. At the end of the day, I'm still married. DH and I are very very happy together. The honeymoon was amazing and we are looking forward to start our new lives. I'm not sure that I can say I regret anything because if you regret something, you are thinking of things you could've done differently which there wasn't really.
Back Story:
Starting with my MOH's father passing from a sudden heart attack the week before the wedding. All the plans for the shower, bachelorette party...etc. is cancelled. It pained me to see my best friend so upset and I feel bad that she feels awful to not be able to attend the wedding.
My parents are divorced and my father can't attend the wedding due to a complicated visa problem to enter the states. So I asked my brother to walk me down the aisle which he happily agreed.
DH has a strange friend who is 20 years older than us, lets call him Andrew, who went bankrupt recently(due to a very poor $ management habit). DH really wanted him to be at the wedding so he paid for his flight and a whole week of hotel. Then we were pressured into also pay for his food for a whole because he doesn't have any money and always complain that the wedding party keeps ignoring him.
Drama weekend:
My mom's FI Ben drove my mom and my brother to the wedding rehearsal. He stayed around during the REH but secluded himself in the lounge and said he had a head ache. After the rehearsal, my mom said Ben won't be able to go to the dinner and she will take him home then come back out to the REH dinner. My brother followed.
On my way to the REH dinner, my god mother called using my home phone(My god parents are staying at my house). She started out saying that it's not right that my brother's walking me down the aisle because he's not an adult (he's 16). Then she said that she thinks Ben should walk me down the aisle because they are engaged so he's now my new dad. I tried to explain to her very nicely that I barely know Ben, they've been together for 2 years and I've only spent a collective of a month with him. It is too late, and I shouldn't take this thing away from my brother. She just won't budge and said that Ben doesn't have a headache right now, he's upset he's not apart of the wedding which I know Ben isn't that kind of guy.
To be honest, I hated Ben the first yr he's dating my mom because he treated me like a child whever I come back home to visit. My mother had 3 other ex bf that would've made more sense for either of them to walk me down the aisle than Ben. All of my friends had the same response when they heard about this: wtf?
I politely and firmly told my god mother that I'm sorry but this is my decision and it's final.
We arrived to the REH dinner and all 25 guests sat and waited for my mom and my brother to arrive for 50 minutes. My MIL called and called. Finally, my brother picked up the home phone and said that they won't be coming (he's the just the messenger). When my MIL came by and whispered this in my ear, I started crying and had to leave the table to the restroom.
I collected myself and told DH that it's for the best. Now I can really enjoy myself without having to deal with my mother's problems. The worst thing now is for them to show up. 2 1/2 hours later, after everyone already finished their meal and had dessert. My mom and my brother showed up, sat down and started eating from the first course. I was realy embarrassed by her behavior. (In case you are wondering why my 16 yr old brother isn't really apart of it is because he's been so suppressed by my asian mother that he doesn't have an opinion on most matters. If I had the money, I would rescue him out of my house. )
Later that night, my mother demanded to know why everyone at the dinner was ignoring them. That maybe she shouldn't even come and had to pay $7 for Valet parking. ....
It's the wedding day. My mom decided to cancel her hair and make up appointment with the salon to show that she "doesn't care". The whole day, she's glaring at me when she gets a chance to. My bridesmaid Anna was playing the peace maker. To keep her from really making a scene at the wedding, she's been talking to my mom back and forth. All day long, my mom demanded all kind of ridiculous last minute requests and demanded that the message must be passed on to me. Her threat is if we don't do what she says, she will walk out of the wedding or in the middle of it. First she wanted Ben to be apart of the ceremony some how. Then we figured a way for him to escort her at the introduction of the wedding party. Then she wanted me honor my god parents and announce that they came all the way from Canada...etc. (We wanted the mothers to be introduced together because DH's father died not too long ago. So now we will be leave MIL walking by herself and feeling more lonely than ever)
Needless to say, the ruined my pre ceremony emotions and the ceremony itself just felt so weird. The ceremony started late because Andrew wouldn't sit down and kept roaming around to tell the waiter to bring out more water. Then he saw me before the ceremony waiting and wanted to chat. Have no idea how rude he is being. So I couldn't shake off all these negative energy when I'm walking down the aisle. I couldn't bring myself to even be happy about getting married.
At the introduction of the wedding party, my mother grabbed my god parents and their son out so they can be "introduced". I'm sorry, but Matt's got a huge family that all flew in from DC and Rode Island to CA for 2 weeks does it make them less important!?
After Andrew's speech, he found out that his flight back is 1AM so he decided to LEAVE the reception to GO PACK. He knows that our reception has to end by 9pm the latest because it's a Sunday wedding. There's plenty of time to pack and get to the airport between 9pm-1am so he doesn't need to leave at 6:15pm to pack. So he grabbed a good friend of ours, who also spent a lot of money and time just to be at our wedding, to drive him back to the hotel 10 minutes away so he can pack. So they didn't come back until 8:30pm where the reception was basically ending. Everyone was furious at Andrew even to this day.
I'm not even going to bother saying that any wedding details went wrong, because that's so beside the point. I guess I just want to know how I'm ever going to get over what my mother did.