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At a certain point in your life you will come to realize you have zero control over what people will do. Zero, zip, zilch. The sooner you get there, the happier you will be.
If you are set on having "the family", you are going to have to emotionally remove yourself from whatever they might do. Every family has someone(s) who will put on a show for the nice folks. Do not think you are alone in that. One way to deal with this is to have lots of your friends as guests to dilute their impact.
If you can not handle the idea of what may happen to spoil your moment, slip down & have a private marriage ceremony weeks in advance. Then just have the reception with no expectations of Norman Rockwell. Maybe you can write a movie script afterwards.
Then on the scheduled date just throw a BBQ or something rather than canceling entirely on those who actually want to come celebrate your marriage with you. And anyone who wants to be a turd about the change of plans is welcome to bow out.
I have a weird idea. What if you get married ahead of time, just you 2, don't tell anyone. Then when the day comes, it won't be your "Wedding day." It will just be a party. Do everything you were going to do, but maybe it won't seem like as big of a deal. ?? Other than that, positive self talk is my only advice.
It can't be that weird, because I had the same idea.
I really have no advice, because my advice at the outset would have been not to plan this type of wedding at all and not to invite people -- family or otherwise -- who are going to use your wedding to settle old scores or advance their own agendas.
We have nowhere near this level of dysfunction in our families, but we still didn't invite my husband's family, because we knew it would interfere with having the kind of day we wanted. We had 7 guests at our wedding (all members of my family) and no anxiety. My husband called his family a few hours after the wedding to let them know we had gotten married. We skipped the "engagement," so almost no one knew we were planning to get married.
At a certain point in your life you will come to realize you have zero control over what people will do. Zero, zip, zilch. The sooner you get there, the happier you will be.
If you are set on having "the family", you are going to have to emotionally remove yourself from whatever they might do. Every family has someone(s) who will put on a show for the nice folks. Do not think you are alone in that. One way to deal with this is to have lots of your friends as guests to dilute their impact.
If you can not handle the idea of what may happen to spoil your moment, slip down & have a private marriage ceremony weeks in advance. Then just have the reception with no expectations of Norman Rockwell. Maybe you can write a movie script afterwards.
Congratulations.
This is the truth. I've been to several weddings & rehearsal dinners with crazy exes & the new partners, it hasn't been as bad as we all expected. We've all had to learn to get along or at the very least, tolerate each other's presence.
It is what it is. If the parents divorced because one was dumb, crazy or mean, guess what, they're going to be even worse when they're divorced. The dad will bring the girlfriend and the ex-wife needs to get used to this sort of behavior, it's her new normal. It's everyone's new normal! Grandparents, nephews, nieces, cousins, from now on at family gatherings it will be different after a divorce.
As historyfan said above, you can't control other people. And you can't really tell one parent that they can't bring their "date" just because the other parent isn't bringing one. Don't try to micromanage them.
I am getting married soon. We are having the smallest, least traditional wedding you can imagine and paying for it all ourselves. Yet every time I think about it, I feel like I start to have a panic attack-- my heart beats faster, my palms sweat and I feel like all of my air supply has been cut off. I am dreading it if I am honest.
Its not the getting married part itself, its all of the family stuff. There will be drama. There has been drama leading up to this and there is no end in sight. And its not just my family, it is my fiancee's family as well. Imagining both of these groups in a small space together is enough to make me physically sick. There are too many issues to list-- for example, this week, fiancee's dad has chosen this occasion to bring his new girlfriend, who fiancee's mom has never met (they have not been divorced long). Dad's girlfriend was not invited but dad mentioned his guest a few days ago-- fiancee and I had no idea she existed. Fiancee's mom is not reacting well. Both are traveling from far out of state. Mom wants dad to come solo and dad is determined to rub mom's face in the fact that he has moved on. Both are threatening not to attend if we don't do what they want.
I wanted to elope but its too late now. I am getting depressed over the sheer number of stupid things that are happening because of this wedding. I keep a low profile with my family but there was no way around inviting certain members but not others. I just want to grit my teeth and get through it but as it gets closer I find myself fantasizing about calling it all off. Not because I have doubts about getting married, but because I don't want to deal with these people. And most of the time I can live in my bubble and avoid them. Sartre was indeed correct-- hell is other people-- and there are only a handful of them among our 40 guests that will behave themselves and actually contribute to an enjoyable day.
I was going to say just go to Vegas but you already have all of the arrangements made.
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