I've only been wedding planning for a month and already it's thrown up issues and dilemmas which normally I'd just tell to get stuffed but, because it's a wedding, I have to be all nice and tactful about. For example, I don't want a large wedding. The thought of walking into a room full of people I don't know and have them stare at me makes me want to throw up, and this is without considering the cost of feeding all these randoms. I thought Mike was on the same page, until he promptly announced that his uncle, aunt, and all 4 of his cousins from Wales absolutely *had* to be invited. When I asked why, he said 'just because'. This is the sort of illogical 'wedding goggles' nonsense I've always dreaded. He's not seen these people since he was a kid, and his cousins (who are in their late teens/ early 20s) are not going to want to enjure the 6 hour drive to Cornwall to be forced through a wedding of someone they barely know. I mean the whole point of choosing Cornwall in the first place was so we avoided all the wider-family-hangers-on as they'd be put off by the distance. I said maybe we could compromise and invite just uncle and his wife, but I got a 'hmpf'. I could understand if, at the same time, I was waving an ever-growing list of 'must have guests' in his face, but I don't even want most of my own family there. Hopefully he'll have forgotten all of this by the time we order invites, and I just write one for the uncle and that'll be the end of it.
Secondly I have to decide wether or not my dad will walk me down the aisle. Well it's not really an aisle, just a bit of the hotel dining room in between some chairs, but you know what I mean. My dad and I have never seen eye to eye and my gut instinct is that, as it was my mum who really shaped me into the person I am today, it should be her that I walk in with. And then there's a part of me that thinks the whole 'being given away' thing is a horribly patriarchal tradition, stemming from when marriage was actually a property transaction between the bride's father and her future husband, with the bride being the property. I'd rather sit in a bath full of leeches than start my wedding with something that says "this woman can't look after herself so I'm transferring responsibility for her to you". So perhaps I'll walk in with just my bridesmaid. Then there's this little niggling voice that says maybe my dad is all excited about giving me away (although he's not spoken to me once about the wedding since I got engaged), how do I let him down gently without hurting his feelings or, more importantly, avoid setting him into one of his rages.
Lastly, I've been really clever and managed to pick a bridesmaid with an attitude problem. My plan had always been to have two bridesmaids - my best friend Kirsty, and my fiance's sister - but the sister is showing signs of being a bad choice. I thought that being a bridesmaid would be something exciting for her to do, as well as being a nice way to be involved with her brother's wedding, but she seems to have decided that it's her job to dictate what she will wear and do, and damned if I actually had a particular look I wanted for my own wedding! Apparently the bridesmaid dress is too short (it falls just below the knee), she doesn't like that it's strapless, she wants to wear fur (eeeeewwww), she'll be wearing trousers underneath any dress (!?), she doesn't want to walk down the aisle with me, and don't expect her to stay for the meal after. This is not helped by my fiance's mother agreeing with her and saying 'you don't have to do that if you don't want to''. Actually, the point of being a bridesmaid is that there are certain things you *have* to do, but you do them to help the bride make her wedding special. It's not like I'm asking her to wear a horrible gold, slutty dress, and forcing her to organise a hen night or something. All I'd like is for her to walk down the aisle with me in the nice dress I've picked out, holding a tiny bunch of flowers. But no, this is too much. So how exactly do you tell a bridesmaid that she's fired? Seriously the whole thing is driving me mad.
No comments:
Post a Comment