I'm Trying My Best from Over 10,000 Miles Away

charlotte989875

LondonLisa said:

eegonosenseidesu said:

Yeah, I'm still hearing varied opinions about vow renewals, but that's ok, I'll answer some of the questions I saw. As for my husband, we've sat and discussed what it is that we want and we both really want to hold this celebration because it gives us a chance to be with family that we haven't seen in a year or more. It is all the more important because as we have been living here we've each lost a grandparent, leaving me with my mom's parents and just one grandma for him. We both feel that we should enjoy an opportunity to see our relatives before any more disappear. As for our marriage in Japan, no one was there, no one was invited. We had discussed having a ceremony in Japan before we got married but my mother told me no one could attend if we did that, so we opted to just do the legal part. I took the documents to my 2 friends in Tokyo to sign as witnesses, mailed them to my husband to check with city hall, then in February I visited for the weekend to make it legal. Which brings me to vows. No vows were exchanged and that's something we both really want to do. He is a romantic and loves writing me beautiful letters for special occasions so he actually requested that we write our own vows for this, hence the ceremony bit. We wouldn't be repeating any vows because none were made in the first place. The officiant is a close friend that we want to help us, I'm personally nervous about being the center of attention so I felt that having a guide to tell me when to say things would help. My guests are aware of what we're doing and they're excited to have us back in the states and to be sharing this with them. My late grandparents made it to their 50th anniversary and they had a nice party, but it was about 15 years ago so I honestly don't remember what they did. My other grandparents had their 50th this past year, so I don't know what they did for it...

Honest question: why are you here? You want this party. Own it. 

You can't complain about it in one breath and then say why this completely unnecessary part is SO important in the next. 

Stop blaming this on your mother and grandparents. You want a PPD. You want to feel like a bride even though you are a married woman.  Just. Own. It! And also own the consequences and shame when your friends and  family side-eyes the shit out of it and gossips about it because its super AW-ish. 

I think this is a bit much; she's not lying about anything, her guests all know they were married, she is saying she wants to do this too (so she is owning it), they're not calling it a wedding. It's almost like you're not reading what she's updating and just saying everything she's doing is terrible; she's listening, taking advice, and asking question, which is im assuming why she's here. There is no hard and fast etiquette rule that says you can't have a vow renewal after a year (and yes I know many people side eye it), she's telling everyone what is going on, so why the strong push back?

ahoywedding

charlotte989875 said:

LondonLisa said:

eegonosenseidesu said:

Yeah, I'm still hearing varied opinions about vow renewals, but that's ok, I'll answer some of the questions I saw. As for my husband, we've sat and discussed what it is that we want and we both really want to hold this celebration because it gives us a chance to be with family that we haven't seen in a year or more. It is all the more important because as we have been living here we've each lost a grandparent, leaving me with my mom's parents and just one grandma for him. We both feel that we should enjoy an opportunity to see our relatives before any more disappear. As for our marriage in Japan, no one was there, no one was invited. We had discussed having a ceremony in Japan before we got married but my mother told me no one could attend if we did that, so we opted to just do the legal part. I took the documents to my 2 friends in Tokyo to sign as witnesses, mailed them to my husband to check with city hall, then in February I visited for the weekend to make it legal. Which brings me to vows. No vows were exchanged and that's something we both really want to do. He is a romantic and loves writing me beautiful letters for special occasions so he actually requested that we write our own vows for this, hence the ceremony bit. We wouldn't be repeating any vows because none were made in the first place. The officiant is a close friend that we want to help us, I'm personally nervous about being the center of attention so I felt that having a guide to tell me when to say things would help. My guests are aware of what we're doing and they're excited to have us back in the states and to be sharing this with them. My late grandparents made it to their 50th anniversary and they had a nice party, but it was about 15 years ago so I honestly don't remember what they did. My other grandparents had their 50th this past year, so I don't know what they did for it...

Honest question: why are you here? You want this party. Own it. 

You can't complain about it in one breath and then say why this completely unnecessary part is SO important in the next. 

Stop blaming this on your mother and grandparents. You want a PPD. You want to feel like a bride even though you are a married woman.  Just. Own. It! And also own the consequences and shame when your friends and  family side-eyes the shit out of it and gossips about it because its super AW-ish. 

I think this is a bit much; she's not lying about anything, her guests all know they were married, she is saying she wants to do this too (so she is owning it), they're not calling it a wedding. It's almost like you're not reading what she's updating and just saying everything she's doing is terrible; she's listening, taking advice, and asking question, which is im assuming why she's here. There is no hard and fast etiquette rule that says you can't have a vow renewal after a year (and yes I know many people side eye it), she's telling everyone what is going on, so why the strong push back?

I'm glad OP is coming back and listening. What made me salty was that she kept making it seem like all of these situations were out of her control; it was her mom wanting the ceremony re-do, the venue just included the ceremony so they had to have it, she promised her sister she would be MOH, etc etc instead of just being upfront and saying she wanted all of those things. And it does seem like a vow-renewal-because-I-didn't-get-the-wedding-I-wanted type thing, and like she's kind of just looking for justification of something she's going to do anyway. 

LondonLisa

ahoywedding said:

charlotte989875 said:

LondonLisa said:

eegonosenseidesu said:

Yeah, I'm still hearing varied opinions about vow renewals, but that's ok, I'll answer some of the questions I saw. As for my husband, we've sat and discussed what it is that we want and we both really want to hold this celebration because it gives us a chance to be with family that we haven't seen in a year or more. It is all the more important because as we have been living here we've each lost a grandparent, leaving me with my mom's parents and just one grandma for him. We both feel that we should enjoy an opportunity to see our relatives before any more disappear. As for our marriage in Japan, no one was there, no one was invited. We had discussed having a ceremony in Japan before we got married but my mother told me no one could attend if we did that, so we opted to just do the legal part. I took the documents to my 2 friends in Tokyo to sign as witnesses, mailed them to my husband to check with city hall, then in February I visited for the weekend to make it legal. Which brings me to vows. No vows were exchanged and that's something we both really want to do. He is a romantic and loves writing me beautiful letters for special occasions so he actually requested that we write our own vows for this, hence the ceremony bit. We wouldn't be repeating any vows because none were made in the first place. The officiant is a close friend that we want to help us, I'm personally nervous about being the center of attention so I felt that having a guide to tell me when to say things would help. My guests are aware of what we're doing and they're excited to have us back in the states and to be sharing this with them. My late grandparents made it to their 50th anniversary and they had a nice party, but it was about 15 years ago so I honestly don't remember what they did. My other grandparents had their 50th this past year, so I don't know what they did for it...

Honest question: why are you here? You want this party. Own it. 

You can't complain about it in one breath and then say why this completely unnecessary part is SO important in the next. 

Stop blaming this on your mother and grandparents. You want a PPD. You want to feel like a bride even though you are a married woman.  Just. Own. It! And also own the consequences and shame when your friends and  family side-eyes the shit out of it and gossips about it because its super AW-ish. 

I think this is a bit much; she's not lying about anything, her guests all know they were married, she is saying she wants to do this too (so she is owning it), they're not calling it a wedding. It's almost like you're not reading what she's updating and just saying everything she's doing is terrible; she's listening, taking advice, and asking question, which is im assuming why she's here. There is no hard and fast etiquette rule that says you can't have a vow renewal after a year (and yes I know many people side eye it), she's telling everyone what is going on, so why the strong push back?

I'm glad OP is coming back and listening. What made me salty was that she kept making it seem like all of these situations were out of her control; it was her mom wanting the ceremony re-do, the venue just included the ceremony so they had to have it, she promised her sister she would be MOH, etc etc instead of just being upfront and saying she wanted all of those things. And it does seem like a vow-renewal-because-I-didn't-get-the-wedding-I-wanted type thing, and like she's kind of just looking for justification of something she's going to do anyway. 

This.

I do appreciate that OP is not lying to her guests anymore and is starting to be much more straight forward that she is already married. 

I just think she needs to stop blaming everything around her. This is not being done to her. She is driving this. She could shut it down, but she doesn't want to. She wants a wedding ceremony and bridal gown. She wants an MoH and to feel 'bridal'.

It just feels very much like she is painting herself as a victim of trying to make everyone else happy, rather than the fact that she wants this. 

mrsjapan

I really didn't mean to paint the image of a victim. I do want the overall event, but there are parts that I want and parts that my family wants so I'm attempting to balance it out. Really the big thing is the fact that my parents are paying for the majority of the wedding celebration (which was something they agreed when we were engaged in 2016) and there's been a lot of back and forth on the planning of everything. I would love to pay for the whole thing, believe me, I do, but that's not financially responsible or possible with the current paychecks my husband and I bring in. That's really where all the stress and issues have been stemming from, and isn't that normal? Isn't money the root of all evil?
EDIT: sorry, my hands were faster than my brain. They agreed initially to pay for a wedding when I got engaged, but we are not having a wedding now, it's a celebration. Sorry bout that!

sparklepants41

eegonosenseidesu said:

I really didn't mean to paint the image of a victim. I do want the overall event, but there are parts that I want and parts that my family wants so I'm attempting to balance it out. Really the big thing is the fact that my parents are paying for the majority of the wedding (which was something they agreed when we were engaged in 2016) and there's been a lot of back and forth on the planning of everything. I would love to pay for the whole thing, believe me, I do, but that's not financially responsible or possible with the current paychecks my husband and I bring in. That's really where all the stress and issues have been stemming from, and isn't that normal? Isn't money the root of all evil?

It's not a wedding. You're already married.