ok before i go further, we are not yet engaged. trust me i would have alerted ya'll like seconds after it happened. but we're close and while he has not told me when he's gonna pop the question, we do have an idea of when and where we'd like to get married. and since that date will roll around in about a year, i told him we need to start planning anyhow.
so...the deets: summerish 2010, somewhere tropical, probably on a carribbean island at an all inclusive resort. we've set a budget of $20,000 since we'll be paying for this ourselves.
what we can't agree on is the number of people we will invite.
the core, bare bones is at 20. my parents and his. my 2 brothers and 2 sisters in law and nephew. my maid of honor and her mom. my matron of honor and her husband. his best friend. another of his close friends and his wife, her mom, and their daughter.
smallest wedding, ever right? but we thought, we'll have two receptions in the states, one in california and one in alabama to invite all the people who don't come to the real deal. sounds reasonable and i guess i can live with this but...
i would love to have my cousins there. and my aunts and uncles. and i KNOW i will get shit form them if they aren't invited. and i KNOW they'll even offer to pay their share to make it. and for me, it's hard to argue for them not to be invited. hell, i want them there!
but. patrick doesn't feel it's fair. his extended family (who he doesn't even see but once a year) can't afford to come and/or is physically incapable of making the trip. so if they can't come, i guess he feels my extra peeps can't come either. even if it isn't going to cost us any more money.
i find this absolutely ridiculous. and i feel like just because life has "punished" him, he feels i need to be equally "punished" as well. i don't understand how in this instance the more the merrier isn't a good thing. he's an only child. who grew up on the other side of alabama as the rest of his family. so he doesn't get that my cousins feel like brothers and sisters to me because we all grew up together. it pains me just as much to NOT invite them as it pains him to know even if we did invite the rest of his family they couldn't come for whatever reason.
the alternative is to have the wedding in alabama (BARF!) where everyone can be invited. which even then, i couldn't invite everyone because my family far outnumbers his and i know for a FACT that he'll be up in arms about my side being bigger. but i can't help it! we're catholic! we're filipino! we make big families! and even then, paying for a wedding of that size is not possible.
i guess in the end, we are going to have to stick to our original plan of just 20 people. even though i think it is ridiulous to exclude people who are willing to pay their own way to attend. am i totally off the mark in thinking this?
4 comments:
I don't think you're off the mark. I have experience with this as I live in Canada now after being born in California. Apparently 2 years ago my cousin got married....I found out about it this past Xmas/! I'm not sure if I would have been able to attend but it would have been nice to have the option.
Good luck with the planning.
When we first got married, Roy insisted on 'equality' on certain things (very similar to yours) that I know he now regrets. Please give your man some time to reconsider. A marrige is once. A lifetime. You don't get a second chance to do things over. Family is forever. I'm Asian, so I don't believe the husband comes first at all costs. You do what feels right in your gut, and if these people have been there for you from day one, you shouldn't have to defend or convince to get them invited to your wedding. I see both sides of the issue, but this is one situation in which I think you're being very reasonable and that overly compromising will likely leave you feeling somewhat resentful, and your family with a less than favorable impression of your future husband. If anything, could you do a simple, larger wedding in CA and have a smaller, more lavish reception in Arkansas/Alabama (I forget which) to sorta level the playing field? You can always honeymoon in the Caribbean alone so its cheaper...or you know, Hawaii. Since it's closer. And cheaper. And nice people live there. ;-)
Either way, congrats on finding the man you're gonna marry! You will work things though, for sure!
I'm a first time commenter on your blog (though I've been lurking for awhile), but I couldn't let this one go by. My husband and I were married in a "destination" ceremony. We had 14 attendees, and they all paid for themselves. 2 were for me (my parents), 3 were our best friends and their child, and the remaining 9 were his family.
I couldn't help it that I'm an only child and my grandparents are no longer with me, and I couldn't hold it against him that his "broken home" yeilded two sets of parents instead of one, plus his grandparents were still around! I didn't feel under-represented, I felt lucky that I was getting such a large new set of people to love.
I know it can be different when money is involved, but to me, for a wedding, if they are paying their way, the more the merrier! You only get to do this once, and you want to have all of the joy and love and support that you can. If someone is willing to pay actual money to share in your happiness, LET THEM.
This is the beginning of what real marriage is like: comprimise. You need to let him know how important this is to you and to your family. He isn't just marrying you, he is marrying into your family, and you love them.
Good luck!
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