Feuds and Fighting!

“What??” I hear you cry “you mean planning your wedding caused you problems?? How can that be?!”

I’m going to be totally honest. Planning our wedding wasn’t the most wonderful process. It was stressful, we argued constantly, fell out with family-you name it, it happened. Unless you’re in a situation where you have a massive budget and a wedding planner to take care of everything, it just won’t always be a bed of roses. You’re going to disagree on a lot of things and suddenly the issue of money becomes a really touchy subject.

From the moment we tried to set a date, I’d managed to upset my mother. Initially we wanted a June wedding so that our honeymoon wouldn’t cost a fortune at peak time in summer. However, as mum is a teacher, she has six weeks off from the end of July through August and she felt this would be a better time. To an extent it would be, but for us we would be fronting more money just to marry during summer (it gets very expensive in the UK). She wouldn’t talk to me for a week and refused to listen to my reasoning…and so we ended up booking for August.

My parents are divorced and haven’t spoken for the best part of 14 years, so it was a massive stress on my part to decide whether or not to invite my father. Initially I’d had long talks with my dad and we’d both decided it was best that he wasn’t there. There were too many people to try and keep happy-I didn’t want mum to feel uncomfortable with his being there, I wanted my dad to see me married and I wanted him to feel comfortable being amongst mum’s family too. After agonizing for months, having talked it through with mum and my siblings, I decided to ask him. He was very happy to be able to go, but then…

three months before the wedding he called to tell me he wouldn’t be coming because I hadn’t asked him to give me away. He seemed more concerned about what the guests would be thinking rather than what I wanted. In actual fact, I had asked my baby brother instead as he was a constant in my life, whereas my father was only a father when he decided to be, in which case I felt that he didn’t deserve the honour of giving me away. Instead of respecting my wishes and being happy just to spend the day with me, he decided not to speak to me…and I haven’t heard from him for a good three months now. It’s a shame, he missed out on his daughter’s wedding.

Then there’s the budget. We really struggled. My husband is self employed and often had to support me during the months when I was out of work. We’d decided to apply for a loan (which we eventually got) but it put a great deal of pressure on our relationship and wondered what on earth we’d do if we were refused. Suddenly everything became about money and the wedding.

Not to be all doom and gloom though-when the wedding day actually came, it was just incredible. An amazing experience. Anything which had gone before just didn’t matter anymore-we were vowing to spend the rest of our lives together and the people that really loved us were there to witness and celebrate our love. Never lose sight of what’s important. Is it virtually IMPOSSIBLE to keep everybody happy. Everyone will want to give you advice and their opinion and think it’s the right thing to do, but at best you just have to find that happy medium and find what’s right for you. Yes, there will be times when you argue over the cost of a sponge cake or the colour of your napkins, but when the day comes the only thing that matters is each other.

* all professional photos credit to Matt Faber