Destination Weddings
Knottieeae075af6c8c13d1
member
Destination Disaster!! ADVICE PLEASE !!
I'm
Re: Destination Disaster!! ADVICE PLEASE !!
To the second bolded.....Make a choice as to the date and wedding you and your FI want. Invite guests that you can properly host. The guest(s) choose whether or not they can attend.
You cannot/should not delay this wedding since you have already hosted a reception, which was inappropriate in the first place.
Let me explain the etiquette of being married ON a cruise ship. You cannot "INVITE" anyone on your cruise unless you, yourself, pay for their cruise. You cannot charge money to people to attend your wedding. I don't care what the cruise agent told you. He is only interested in profit. He doesn't care about good manners. (I have been on 23 cruises, and I have heard the complaining by the so-called "guests" at the at-sea weddings.)
Your Bon Voyage party was improper. You could have held it AFTER the cruise, but not before it, and your post tells us why not. Stuff happens. You violated a basic etiquette rule by doing this, and I am not surprised at the response you are getting, especially after the hurricane cancelled your plans.
If you want to have a lovely wedding, plan a simple ceremony at home that is convenient for guests, and then go on your honeymoon. Nothing fancy. A daytime simple ceremony with sandwiches and cake would be nice, and many people wouldn't mind taking a few hours out of their Sunday to attend. After all, they have already taken time out of their schedule to attend your first non-reception. Your guests probably feel that they have spent enough time celebrating a wedding that hasn't happened yet. I'm not at all surprised at their responses.
If you do decide to get married in Florida, remember that this state has a three day waiting period for you to get a marriage license. The marriage license you would have used in St. Thomas is not valid anywhere else except St. Thomas.
I am sorry that your wedding plans didn't fly, but you now have the chance to have a simple, proper ceremony followed by a quiet reception. I am guessing you will get more acceptances with this idea, but maybe not. I hope so. Good luck to you.
I am so sorry. You have made so many huge etiquette mistakes, and without realizing it, you have probably offended most of your guests. They love you and won't want to tell you this, but it is the plain truth. Where did you get the idea to do these things?
I would advise you to apologize to all of your relatives for the trouble you caused them. Then plan a simple wedding ceremony and small reception. After 23 cruises, I can assure you that it is no small matter to block a week or two out of your busy schedule and then pay a large amount of money to attend a wedding. I'm glad they got their refunds, but I can really understand why they don't want to go through something like this again.
You can still have a lovely wedding. There are other brides on this board who have had worse experiences with weather that made their wedding day quite different than they had planned. It is being fixated on your cruise dream wedding that gives me pause. The important thing is that you get legally married to your FI, and that the two of you start living the rest of your life together. This is what is really important.
Go on your DW. Invite EVERYONE that you invited to your own-hosted shower. Move your date or go without your H's family.
Or skip the cruise and just fly to st Thomas for the weekend and get married so people don't have to take a week off.
Many people can't just take off work, or rearrange new vacations on short notice or close to the holidays. If they can't/won't attend in December you have to decide if you want to go then, or if you want to make other arrangements where they can attend. There's probably no right answer here, but recognizing that it's a crappy situation and focus on what's most important to the two of you.
Either go on the cruise in December without his family, or pick a new date. Those are their options.
No one can make this decision for you. Either have it in December without his family, or pick a new date that works for them.
I am not even going to touch on the 300 person shower. (Okay, just a little.) There is another option besides you asking them to fund it all again, you pay for it yourself.
b) Pay for it yourself.
The same rules apply to a Disney World wedding. You cannot expect your guests to pay for admission to the park so that they can attend your wedding. You pay.
There are plenty of good etiquette guides to planning weddings available in every public library. Why didn't you read one? It would have explained why some of your ideas were not acceptable, and prevented you from making these mistakes. We are also here to guide brides so that they can plan weddings that are etiquette approved and well planned.
We are not trying to insult you. We are trying to help you understand that your wedding plans were wrong in the first place. It is too late to do anything about the Bon Voyage/Shower party, but now you can plan a simple wedding that won't stress your family and will be beautiful and not expensive. We will help you plan this if you like. Go for it!
The thing that bothers me the most about your post is that you seem to be fixated on your wedding vision (ugh) instead of your guests convenience and comfort. You keep saying "I want". It should be "My guests want".
I just had a call from my travel agent. He warned me that my December cruise will probably not cover all the ports that we had planned because of the terrible damage to the islands. Those poor people! We are donating money to hurricane relief. We don't care about any change in itinerary due to this disaster. We will go and enjoy yet another cruise. My last one had to be cancelled because of my health issues.
Please rethink your priorities. The important thing is that you marry your FI, not a cruise wedding vision. You have made some mistakes, but you can still have a beautiful wedding. You can go on a cruise for your honeymoon.
Regarding the last sentence, the good part is that you should never, ever, like not ever do this! Asking people for money for a party is ridiculous. You're an adult. If you want a 300 person local wedding, pay for it yourself.
sorry
I suggest that you plan a small ceremony with immediate family only as soon as possible. This should be easy to arrange, and you already have a dress. Afterwards, you can take the parents out to lunch. This will be your wedding reception.
You should return the shower gifts immediately, since the wedding did not take place as planned. Some people may likely insist that you keep the gift. Unless you can invite everyone who came to the Bon Voyage/Shower party to your new wedding (and you say that you cannot afford this now), this is what you should do. Otherwise, you will appear as a greedy, gift grabby bride, and I don't think this is what you want, is it?
After you are married, you can send out marriage announcements to any friends and family. This is a personal way of telling them that you are now married.
There is always Las Vegas for an elopement, but you still need to return shower and wedding gifts..
These are the only solutions I can think of for you after everything. This is all quite a mess. I really wish you had asked us before going ahead with that pre-wedding party. This is what makes it so difficult to find a polite solution for you.
I am so sorry you are rejecting the good advice given to you by so many knowledgeable people who are trying to help you. Not ONE PERSON on this site has told you that what you did and are planning to do is OK. It is not. Check any standard wedding etiquette book.
I am sincerely sorry that your original wedding plans did not turn out as you had hoped. Everyone on this board tried to help you with suggestions of how to solve your dilemma. You won't listen. You reject everything we have told you which has been the absolute truth.
For what it's worth, I shared your story with my long time travel agent when he called this morning. His reaction was "What? They are expecting their guests to pay for their own cruise at a cruise wedding? Where did they get that idea?" This is from someone who has been in the travel business for more than 20 years.
There are plenty of websites (sponsored by the crui$e industry) that will tell you that you can do anything you want because you are "THE BRIDE". This is not true, but they will happily take your guests money, anyway. Do not expect your guests to be happy about it.
Weddings are about the GUESTS. This is the part about etiquette you don't seem to understand. But by all means, keep treating your guests poorly and demanding gifts from 300 people. That's totally cool and I'm sure no one thinks poorly of you for it.
It really sucks that your wedding was cancelled because of the weather. I'm sure there were tons of other people whose vacation plans had to be cancelled or changed, not to mention the lives that were destroyed. What's the reason your FI's family gave for not being able to attend in December? It can be hard for a lot of people to take extra time off close to the holidays; maybe they agreed to the date and then found out their work wouldn't allow it or something. I don't see if you mentioned it, but do your families live in the same state, or at least nearby? Could you just throw a wedding locally, on a date that works for both of your families? Then you guys could plan a family trip at a later date, if you all still want to travel together. If just you and your FI want to take the cruise, that would make planning easier.
And to the bolded sentence. You don't NEED guests at a wedding; all you need is an officiant, a license & the two of you. Once you invite guests (to anything, really), yes, the event should focus guests' comfort, etc. The same goes for dinner parties, etc etc.
As for number 3, in many traditional weddings, they begin with the words, "dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness..." or something of the like. It is a welcome to the guests, because the wedding ceremony is for THEM to watch and verify that you tied the knot. You might want to do some research as to what exactly a wedding is, and exactly what commitments you are making by getting married. Like others have voiced, wedding = for the guests and elopement = for the couple. (Hopefully your guests are genuine in their sentiments as expressed to you--I for one would absolutely pretend to be happy if I were in their shoes. There's no point in rocking your boat any more, since Irma already has). It's unfortunate that you didn't reach out to this forum or do research last year when you thought up this plan. Again, as others have said, hopefully things do pan out well and this is a learning experience. Hurricane season + tropical wedding = a very emotional, expensive gamble. (Another thing: you actually could have prevented your wedding being cancelled due to weather by **not having a tropical wedding during hurricane season.**)
REGARDLESS, every single response to your plight has offered valid, constructive advice. If you didn't want people to talk about past events, don't offer the details up for discussion! We're not a bunch of meanies here to rain on your parade (that was Irma). We're giving you outside perspectives. If you think we're haters, honey, I'm sorry in advance for what you're going to face from people outside this circle. Reality can be harsh. (As can relatives, once the dust settles and they feel comfortable enough to be honest.)
Glad you were able to reschedule and sort things out. Turns out you didn't need to ask for advice, after all! Have fun on your cruise, enjoy the wedding, and I hope your marriage gets off to a better start. Cheers to many years!