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Help!! Muslim/Christian Wedding

[Deleted User][Deleted User] member
in Interfaith Weddings

My fiancé and I have been engaged a week and have already started fighting about our wedding.  I am a Caucasian woman that comes from a Christian background, however, I am not currently very religious.  My fiancé is a Muslim Indian man, the eldest of this siblings. He is not religious either, but his parents are quite devout and they have the impression that he is.   My fiancé's family didn't know about me until about 4 months ago and we have been dating for 3 years. They are open to us being together and haven't pressured me to convert.

I am in my mid 30s and have been waiting for this all my life and have dreamed of what my wedding would look like since I was a little girl.  I love this man dearly and am by no means a princess type woman who expects to get what I want, but the recent discussions of our wedding have left me not very excited and feeling a little deflated.  His family wants the wedding to happen in the next few months as does my fiancé.  He is also not the type that is going to sit back and let me plan whatever I want.  He seems to not understand on the American side how important and exciting the wedding / planning is to a bride or why it takes so long to plan.    I am not quite sure how to go about even starting this planning process and don't want to ruin our relationship, but feel like he needs to see my side of how important it is.  We are planning to have 2 ceremonies, both a Muslim ceremony and a somewhat Christian ceremony.  I have offered to do whatever his family wants on his end, but am not feeling that he will be as flexible on the Christian ceremony side.  I almost feel that because my family has been more accepting of the relationship that myself and them are going to have to be the flexible type.  Also my father will be fitting the bill.  If anyone has ANY advice on showing someone from another culture the importance of the celebration, how in-depth the pre planning is or how to make an interfaith wedding work, Please, please, please share as I want be excited again about this, not dread how tough pleasing my fiancée's parents and family will be.  I appreciate you reading my venting and providing any advice. 



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Re: Help!! Muslim/Christian Wedding

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    Knottie1450651724Knottie1450651724 member
    Name Dropper First Comment
    It sounds like you just need to sit down and have a conversation with your fiance, just the two of you, leave his parents out of it.  Are you sure your fiance thinks your father is paying?  While that is a tradition in the U.S., Indian and Muslim practices are different, so you should check in on that. 

    If you want two ceremonies, you need to decide which will be the legal one and which will be the religious one.  From what I know, Muslim ceremonies are simple and occur with only the minimum amount of witnesses with a large reception occurring a few days later.  In that case, you could do your Muslims ceremony (purely religious, not legal) then have a legal and Christian ceremony a few days later with the traditional reception.  You can try to blend both cultures into the ceremony with an Indian food option, Indian music.  You could wear a white wedding dress for the ceremony and change into a traditional Indian dress for the reception. 

    If planning your wedding is important to you, you have to communicate that to your fiance.  If you are marrying him, this should be easy enough.  You will both have to make compromises.  A good place to start would be learning everything you can from him about Indian Muslim weddings, telling him about the wedding you've been dreaming of, and work together to combine the two.  Also, understand that while wedding planning is exciting and important to many brides, grooms also take an interest which you need to consider in your plans.  Are you getting married in the States?  Planning a wedding in 3 months is difficult, but not impossible.  You need to balance how important getting married in three months is versus how important having ample time to plan is.  While three months may seem short, ask why it is so important.  It may be a cultural reason, which you should try to be sensitive to. 

    Sorry for the long and scattered reply.  I hope it helped.  Let me know if you have any more questions/vents/updates.
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