Hello all,
I logged in on my fiancées account because I've been having an immense amount of stress regarding our upcoming wedding recently, and I needed the best thoughts and advice I could get.
I'm hoping that I'm posting this in the correct forum. If not, I apologize.
The dilemma is this:
My fiancée and I have been engaged for 3 years, and we had originally planned an October 16th wedding date. We're both in school, and when she went to file for a temporary leave of absence, they were unable to grant her anytime in the month of October off (She's in a small trade school), leaving us with availability at the end of August, September, or November.
Our wedding is going to be on the beach, and where we live, its normally not the best weather in November. So that month was thown out. Next, my fiancee happens to have a terrible superstition with getting married in the month of September, because every failed marriage in her family happened in September. This left us with the end of August, which both worked out extremely well for her and I's schedules. Not to mention that we had planned for a small private ceremony, and some of our family members began telling other family members and inviting them, leading to an original guest list of about 15 blowing up to about 60. So its been an awful planning situation from the get-go.
The main issue is that we notified our family that we want in attendance as soon as we were able to reschedule everything. The majority of her family that she wants to come will be able to make it. Most of my family will not be able to.
My fiancee and her family were both encouraging an elopement, but I was against it because I have always felt like I need to do anything that my family wants me to do, and they want to be there. So we decided that we'd have a very small ceremony leaving an open invitation to close family if they were able to make it.
My grandmother, aunt, and uncle will be the only people from my family attending. My siblings and I have a big age gap, and they are still in school as well as active in sports. My parents focus primarily on them, and I tend to stay in the backdrop. My siblings have sports obligations right before, during, and after our wedding date, so my parents won't be able to drive to the beach to make it.
I fully understood that there were prior commitments, and I had no hard feelings towards it. Sorry for the huge backstory, but here is the overall problem.
My mother and I have an estranged relationship, I speak with her on occasion, but mostly she is notified about my life through my father. I have had a hard-time dealing with her, and she knows what to say to make me get upset.
I spoke with her yesterday regarding the wedding, and gave her the complete details. She proceeded to make me feel guilty about her not being able to make it. I told her that it was what worked out for our schedules, especially considering I start my next semester of school a few days afterward. She told me that I was self-centered and selfish to not think about the family with my wedding. She said that its stupid for me to get married without my immediate family, and that I screwed everything up (essentially) I tried to remain peaceful with her until she started screaming at me over the phone, and as soon as I tried to calm her down, she hung up the phone.
My question to the forum is: How should I feel about this? I am really excited about being able to marry my fiancee sooner, and being able to spend the time afterward on our honeymoon together, but I feel this immense pain and guilt that I really am wrong. I've always thought that your wedding day was about you and your partner, and basically screw what everyone else thinks. I have a very difficult time doing that with my family, as I was raised under immense pressure to be perfect, do everything right, and do everything the way your family wants it done. I am not very close with my family outside of my grandmother these days, I usually speak with them over the telephone weekly, but thats about it. So it's not like I haven't left the compounds of my family. On the surface, it doesn't phase me that they are mad at me, and have basically written me off. But deep down, its really getting to me.
I'm not one to post my problems on the internet, but with this one, I'm completely confused. Is it okay for me to only think of myself and my partner for at least one day? I mean, it sucks that my family won't be able to attend, but I have accepted it, well at least until my mother proceeded with her relentless rant. Now I just feel like I'm going to fuel the fire for being the blacksheep of the family. The one thing that I do like about not having those members of my family is this: The people who are going to be there for me are the ones who have NEVER turned their back on me, and I feel that they are the ones who deserve to be there the most.
The planning of this wedding has been awful, but after 3 years, my fiancee and I are ready to make the jump, even with the little money that we have to make it happen.
As a perfectionist, but also one with bad anxiety, I feel that everything must go perfectly, and that it should be the epitome of what a true wedding should be. I am just worried about the negativity from my family impacting my emotions on that day.
Any advice, thoughts, anything would be helpful. I apologize for this horrendously long post, but I thank the forum for allowing me to vent the frustrations that have been plaguing me.
-G.