Family Spats not even a week into the engagement

amanda.johnson4

Hello to all; I have quite the situation and any help would be wonderful!
Fiance and I got engaged on Saturday. So excited, we started some intial bare minniumum planning and one of the things we wanted to smooth out was the bridal/groom and wedding party as a whole. We as a couple spend a lot of time with his family and we assigned tasks to most of his side and our close friends. I feel terrible leaving my family out of the blue but the plain fact is my family is not as close to eachother as his is. After annoucning our engagement we received immediate feedback from his family and we had to call on my family to see if they received the news. Either way...When we decided on ushers we were going to do two from his family and two from mine, which would have been my brother and cousin of mine that I THOUGHT I was close too. When I called this cousin he acted surprised by the big news and when asked to consider an usher posistion he said no. Surprised and disapointed I said thats fine(and within 5 minutes we got another member of my fiances family to take the posistion) and hung up the phone. I went on to text him how hurt I was that our family was not able to come together at times like this and it sound slike you just want to come for the free food...He apologized and said he really just wants to wait to be in any weddings until his own(which in the past year he has either been a groomsmen or usher in 3 other wedding)...I went on to say that I hope someday he will never have this feeling of utter shock and dissapointment. Either way I feel somewhat sorry for my quick backlash at this cousin and in another way I felt proud that I said something about how he hurt me. Well Christmas is going to be at this cousin's family's home this December and I know if I dont show up, whispers will start and I dont want it to get out of control and everyone see me as this terrible person...What do I do now?

TheDuckis

How exactly did you "announce" your engagement, facebook? Maybe if you actually communicated with your family using real words you wouldn't have to deal with the shock and confusion of realizing they don't stalk your page and therefore weren't privy to the news of the century.

DG1

First, use paragraphs.

Second, you got engaged on Saturday and the first thing you did was plan out your wedding party and "assign tasks?"  Seriously? 

My recommendation is to stop all of those shenanigans for a few days and just enjoy being engaged.  Consider a date and venue first, THEN plan out your schedule.  Your wedding might still be 2 years away - you don't need to pick ushers within 48 hours of getting a ring.

As for what to do now, apologize to cousin for putting him on the spot.  Then attend Christmas as you normally would.  I wouldn't bring up the wedding there unless someone asks, and even then just  say something like "we've barely been engaged a month - we're still in the early stages of planning."

Also, congratulations on your engagement.

DG1

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/special-topic-wedding-boards_wedding-woes_family-spats-not-even-week-engagement?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Special%20Topic%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:47Discussion:ea50c13c-d2b0-43f1-a1b8-1823b6286266Post:0c8a1f05-83f6-4a59-b15e-184355cfba17">Family Spats not even a week into the engagement</a>:
[QUOTE]Hello to all; I have quite the situation and any help would be wonderful! Fiance and I got engaged on Saturday. So excited, we started some intial bare minniumum planning and one of the things we wanted to smooth out was the bridal/groom and wedding party as a whole. We as a couple spend a lot of time with his family and we assigned tasks to most of his side and our close friends. I feel terrible leaving my family out of the blue but the plain fact is my family is not as close to eachother as his is. After annoucning our engagement we received immediate feedback from his family and we had to call on my family to see if they received the news. Either way...When we decided on ushers we were going to do two from his family and two from mine, which would have been my brother and cousin of mine that I THOUGHT I was close too. When I called this cousin he acted surprised by the big news and when asked to consider an usher posistion he said no. Surprised and disapointed I said thats fine(and within 5 minutes we got another member of my fiances family to take the posistion) and hung up the phone. I went on to text him how hurt I was that our family was not able to come together at times like this and it sound slike you just want to come for the free food...He apologized and said he really just wants to wait to be in any weddings until his own(which in the past year he has either been a groomsmen or usher in 3 other wedding)...I went on to say that I hope someday he will never have this feeling of utter shock and dissapointment. Either way I feel somewhat sorry for my quick backlash at this cousin and in another way I felt proud that I said something about how he hurt me. Well Christmas is going to be at this cousin's family's home this December and I know if I dont show up, whispers will start and I dont want it to get out of control and everyone see me as this terrible person...What do I do now?
Posted by amanda.johnson4[/QUOTE]

Enchanted616

Because he can't commit to being an usher he just wants to be there for the free food..?  What?

NatandIsaac

Step 1: cool your jets

Step 2: take a few days/weeks to brainstorm about your wedding, just you and your FI

Step 3: get a venue and date

Step 4: commence actual wedding planning

Step 5: ask people to be in your wedding party 6-9 months before the wedding date, sounds like this advice came too late though...

Step 6: don't assign "tasks" to your friends and family, your vendors are the only people who should have to do work for you

6fsn

I don't have much to add, but choosing a wedding party and assigning tasks falls under bare minimum?  Are you getting married in January?

How did you announce the engagement? 

Heffalump

I don't understand:  assigning tasks?

mrsconn23

I think the cart and the horse are in the wrong order.  I hate to recommend the knot tools, but seriously, take a glance at the 'checklist' for timing things.  I don't believe the first thing on the list is 'assign usher duties'.  Chillax. 

What happened to enjoying being engaged before throwing yourself full speed ahead into planning?

amanda.johnson4

Thanks for all the advice. It sounds like I am going a bit crazy over all this, it just bothered me. I made phone calls to relatives, and annouced via email and facebook. The reason why I felt compelled to ask now instead of later is the majority of my family is going to have to travel 6+ hours and I figured might as well get a heads up to see if they would want to be apart of it, instead of waiting to late, then make phone calls to see if people would want to be apart of the big day only to realize they cant even come because of the location. I think within all the excitiment I got way head of myself. And I KNOW people are able to decline, and I was prepared, its just a matter of tact considering its a cousin. But now I know, even blood/family, you get surprised and disapointed when things like this come up. And where I come from, and my budget, we don't pay for vendors to do everything all night so I was hoping to rely on family and friends to help us through the day and evening as all the other weddings in my family have been, which sounded bad when I said assigning tasks...Either way I know brides have done alot worse and I just learned my lesson about getting ahead of myself.