Could you at least pretend to care about the guy's WEDDING?

The BBQ Pit
1

Man, my emotions are so mixed right now. My husband and I are having a formal wedding next month, since the first one was a bit rushed. It’s been a bit of a pain, since we live in the mid-west and the ceremony is going to be in Nova Scotia, but things are working out, for the most part.

Then yesterday he gets a call from my mother–“Have you heard from any of your family about if they’re coming?”

Now, the RSVPs were to go to her, since she’s organising things on that end. We haven’t heard a thing except from his mother and sisters (and of the three, it may wind up being only my MIL who can make it–one SIL jsut started a new job and may not be able to take the time off, the other has the time off but may not have the money).

For me, my reaction was one of anger, disappointment and embarrassment. Anger because they’ve known for a while about the wedding, disappointment because I know that’s how Owls feels, and embarrassment because my family is a lot larger to begin with, and I already know the majority of them are coming. Even trying to keep things small, things were going to be unbalanced to begin with. Now it looks like he may have almost no one showing up for his side.

I have to wonder if his father is having any effect on the situation. We don’t talk to my MILs family really, so most of the people he invited were from his father’s side. They’re all great people, but…my FIL isn’t. Owls hasn’t talked to him any more than necessary for a couple years now (for an example of why, he got arrested on a DUI on Christmas Eve, and blamed it on my SIL not inviting him out to lunch with us after her graduation.) Even though we still talk to Owls’ aunt, uncle and cousins on occassion, I know that his grandmother is a bit in denial about the whole thing, not wanting to believe that the problem lies entirely with her son, and I can’t help but think that there’s some guilt among that side of the family about the notion of coming or not.

I can’t speak to Owls’ feelings for certain, but personally I would like them to come–we don’t get to see each other that much, and it is our wedding fer chrissakes. The idea of them not making it just makes me feel a little…confused.

2

Is your husband’s family in the Midwest too, or are they in Nova Scotia?

I gotta tell ya, if I was invited first wedding more than a few hundred miles away, I’d have to think long and hard about attending.

You’re waiting to hear from aunts, uncles, and cousins? Has the deadline for RSVP’ing passed?

3

They’re also in the Mid-West. I took that into consideration before choosing the place though–they’re generally better off financially than my family, as well as there being far fewer of them, so I figured travel would be easier for them. I know several of my aunts and uncles (the ones I’m closer to, of course, not the ones I wouldn’t mind not being there) wouldn’t have been able to come down here.

I’m starting to think this whole thing was a big mistake…

4

Am I understanding this correctly: you’re already married, and you’re having a second, formal ceremony?

If so, then I wouln’t feel too personally miffed if his family isn’t interested in attending a ceremony that is even more ceremonial than a wedding ceremony normally is, since it’s not an actual tying-of-a-knot, but only a sort of reinforcement of a knot that was already tied.

If my nephew who eloped was having a second, formal ceremony for some reason, I wouldn’t be too terribly interested in attending, so sorry, but there it is. Like, “You decided to sneak off and get married without us, so, fine, you made your choice…” And we’re not terribly close in the first place, so…

…and I would also cynically wonder whether my niece-in-law needed to have a second, official, wedding so as to double her swag.

Okay, but, didn’t you already have a wedding? I’m not hatin’ on ya, just sayin’…

So maybe this is along the lines of what your hubby’s family is thinking, too.

5

Probably not a mistake. :slight_smile:

These people who aren’t responding – did they attend the first wedding? Where was the first wedding? Were they invited? Did they send cards and gifts? Did they call with congratulations and good wishes?

If so, maybe they’re a bit befuddled at being asked to do it again.

6

No on all counts but the last. The first one was a civil ceremony in our apartment that was done for purely legal purposes. We always planned to have a church wedding later on, and made no secret of it.

7

Well, the thing about travel these days is that travel is not easy, and not just for financial reasons. It’s not just the cost of the plane ticket but the sheer hassle of air travel. And if these are working folks, they’ll have to use vacation time that they might have wanted to use for doing something else.

I wouldn’t take it as a bad sign that family doesn’t want to take a long trip for a social obligation. Go ahead and enjoy your wedding, and don’t fret that the sides will be unbalanced.

8

Was anyone at all there besides you two and a witness? If so, there was already a wedding they weren’t invited to.

What you are doing is restating your vows, not getting married. It’s a great idea, it’ll be a good time, no worries, but you can’t do things in a non-traditional fashion and still have traditional expectations of everyone else.

9

I have such a disconnect with these destination weddings.

“Well, I was planning on taking a trip to Colorado this year, but since you want to take a trip to Nova Scotia, I guess I’ll do that instead even though I have no interest in seeing Nova Scotia EVER.”

Bad enough if it’s for a first wedding.

10

Your thread title is misleading since “he” is already wed. So its not his wedding that they don’t care about its a secondary ceremony miles away.

You’re in the midwest and already married and you want your hubby’s family to go to a ceremony in Nova Scotia.

I can understand why you might be disappointed that they aren’t attending, but I wouldn’t rate this as pit worthy.

When you got married “in a rush” was it in the area that his family lived? If so, they may not be responding because they feel slighted that a wedding in their location was done like YOU didn’t care. So now they don’t care about the wedding in your home region.

I don’t mean this to be harsh to you. I’m just think that there may be more involved than callous disregard for your husband’s feelings

11

It would be easier if I at least knew his sisters would be there, which at this point we don’t. So far the only people I know for sure who are coming for him are his mother, his best friend/man and the BM’s wife :confused: It’s not going to be easy to enjoy it when I know that almost everyone is there for me.

And honestly, I just want to see them again. They live a couple hours from here so we don’t talk to them much, but they’re great people.

I’m probably making too much of this, I know.

Manda, we did things as we did out of necessity, not preference. It was this, or spend who knows how many more months in different countries. Left to ourselves, we would have waited and just done one ceremony, but USCIS isn’t exactly amenable to that kind of situation.

12

It’s not a destination wedding if her family is primarily in Nova Scotia. If you have two distinct family clusters, you have to chose, and where the bride grew up is certainly understandable.

13

What is in Nova Scotia? A relative that can’t travel? :confused:

14

It would be one thing if we got a ‘no’, I could handle that. I think it’s more that there’s been no response at all that bothers me.

15

Does this bother HIM, or are you projecting? My husband isn’t close to his family. Our marriage got 100% better when I quit trying to “fix” that.

So invite them over for a weekend?

I totally understand that, but it means you don’t get a big fancy wedding. I got married in the courthouse in an old skirt, partially because I’m not showy, but mostly because we couldn’t have afforded anything else. That sucks. You are making the best of it by having a party honoring your marriage, but you can’t expect other people to treat it with the same urgency as a real wedding. It’s like all those poor Christmas babies having half-year birthday parties in the summer. It’s a valiant effort but it’s not the same. I don’t even know why it’s not the same, but it isn’t.

16

I think I have to side with Jayn on this one; if my sister married an American guy and had to have a quickie wedding for La Migra, my first question to her (which she would probably volunteer before I asked) would be, “When’s the real wedding (read: Party) that we’re all invited to?” That’s what Jayn and Owl are putting on, and as a close family member, I would be attending.

If doubling up on gifts were an issue, I’d have put clearly in my invitations, “This is an invitation to celebrate our marriage; no gifts, please.”

I dunno; maybe it’s a Canadian thing; I have no problem with the idea of people getting hitched while on vacation or something and coming back and throwing a big party for themselves. It’s actually kind of expected, if someone gets married like Jayn did.

17

Probably more me projecting. But he’s had a lot of tension surrounding his family, and he made a comment about being ‘the black sheep’ when he shared the news with me. Holidays are a drag because it’s visit them (with his FIL present) or with my MIL. This would’ve been our first time not having to make that choice. I just want him to have something.

Yeah, I realised how stupid that sounded after I posted.

18

Except this is the opposite situation, isn’t it? The actual wedding was at home and they are having the big party as the vacation. They’re inviting people to go to where they don’t live to party with them.

19

There is a wide (a WIDE) assumption out there that “RSVP” means, “Let us know if you’re coming”, not, “Let us know whether or not you’re coming”. Thus one generally interprets silence as a “no, we’re not coming”.

So I think you’ve gotten, not a “We’re not speaking to you”, but rather a simple, “We’re not coming”.

20

I might need to elaborate a bit more–not only is my family primarily in NS (though I have relatives coming from Europe and possibly Japan) but to say it’s the larger one is an understatement. I have more cousins on one side of my family than he has family he talks to. It’s not a ‘destination’ wedding in any real sense, or we’d have gone to Venice or something. It was more 'okay, which family will this be less of a strain for?"