I need to vent:
My fiance's family is very traditional, and they are NOT feeling the way we are approaching this wedding. Thats fine, but they are making it very clear that they don't agree, which is not fine.
We had so many ideas for our wedding that we were having trouble settling on any one "theme": backyard bbq at home? Ski vacation in Vermont? Whitewater adventures in Maine (rafting for guests, kayaking for us)? We kept changing our minds and we knew we would have a blast no matter what we did, so we rolled a dice and went with what we got: a whitewater trip to Maine in June. Awesome because this is very "us", the Maine northern woods is beautiful, and most of our guests are outdoorsy as well.
So he called his parents to tell them we had made a decision on when and where, and they were totally put out by the "hap-hazard way the decisions were made". Not only that, but he told them we put a guest list together (100 people, we are expecting only 60ish to come, but we had to leave out cousins etc that we aren't close to otherwise we would have been at 200). His mom didn't like that either. There was a lot of "your inviting HIM, but not HER?" or "THEY are coming but your cousin ISN'T?". Then to top it all off the only extended family member he did invite (his great aunt – the closest thing he has to a grandmother), she suggested he not invite so that she doesn’t have to take care of her!
GAH! There were also some grumblings in there about the fact that the person marrying us is the lead singer from a Van Halen cover band (and a Sammy Hagar look alike), and the fact that he chose his best friend over his brother as his best man…. that’s all old news now…