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Dear Weddingbee:
I just got engaged 2 weeks ago. We told my parents that weekend and they are ecstatic. My mom and I already started planning for a wedding we said would occur late next summer.
The FI’s parents are a slightly different story. As immigrants that aren’t fully assimilated into the American culture, they were never ecstatic that he was dating a girl that wasn’t the same ethnicity as him (even though we are both East Asian.) The FI has been dropping hints that he’s getting married, as he hasn’t been able to tell them fully yet, but the vibe he got back was “not now.” After suggesting that he was thinking of getting married next summer, his mother stated that it was too soon and she would prefer that we delay it until 2009 so that she can “get to know me” better; even though there hasn’t been much of an attempt the last few years and she’s grown accustomed to her only son dating someone outside of their ethnicity.
Now the FI asked if we should just go make it legal. I fought him on it, saying that it doesn’t seem right to just go get married in a civil ceremony and still have the full on wedding later (and possibly 2 years later). He said I don’t understand, and I can’t get it across to him that I take the vows that are recited very seriously and I don’t want to have to be thinking when the officiant says “do you take this man” the words “again” shouldn’t be running through my head. My other fear is that the FI hates parties and any kind of pomp and circumstance, which hurts my wedding planning heart, and if we just go “make it legal” like he would prefer, I’ll never get the wedding I’ve dreamed about or have the moments with my mom and friends that make wedding planning fun.
I will consider moving the wedding back to 2009, but my family (who outnumbers his roughly 10-1) was already amped up to have the wedding next year, and I’d hate to disappoint them. In the end I just want to marry this man… but not necessarily down at the courthouse. I feel like I’m being selfish but I’ve always wanted that picture perfect wedding day. What do I do? Has anyone else married in a civil ceremony first and then had a full blown wedding years later? Or did you wind up never having the wedding, like I fear? 2008 is the perfect year for us to get married, but any delay I fear will keep the wedding from happening in the first place because of his aversion to public parties, but I also don’t want to upset my future MIL.
I am very lost. I’m keeping a happy face but it’s hurting me badly inside that all my dreams seem to be slipping away.
anonymous
My coworker’s daughter did the civil service marriage last year because her (now) husband is in the military and was deployed. He is back, and they are doing the bigger celebration thing at the end of this summer. I’m not sure if they are “renewing their vows” in the church as well, or just having the reception part. But I have heard of people doing this!
I don’t see how having the civil service (and actually marrying your fiance) now will not upset your MIL — just because you’d be putting off the big celebration for 2 years. I feel like it’s not the big hoopla that she wants to put off, but the actual marriage.
Not that I agree with her, or that you should be doing things strictly to please your MIL, but you and your fiance will have to figure out what you want to do, agree on it, and tell everyone what you have decided you want to do. This is you and your fiance’s wedding, not your family’s wedding, and not his mother’s wedding.
i’m a bit confused…if his mom wants to delay the wedding to 2009, why does he want a civil ceremony soon? won’t that make his mom really angry because she wanted to get to know you better first?
if it were me, i’d get married next year as i planned. there’s no way of pleasing everyone, and it’s not as if his mother really has a choice in the matter. i assume you’ll get married whether or not she decides she likes you? she can get to know you better when you’re her daughter in law!
Have you guys told the FIL’s that you are engaged, or just that you are thinking about getting married?
Hi there, I’m not sure if you’ve read my post about “Hard Love” yet, but I went through a very similar thing, although it was my parents and not my FI’s.
My FI and I talked about it a lot, and considered our options–delaying the wedding to please my parents, having a civil ceremony first, etc…but in the end, you two have to compromise on what is best, and then tell your parents your decisions. You don’t want to regret your choices.
I’ve known people who DID have a civil ceremony first and had a “real” wedding celebration later. Though their decision was based on lack of money (they wanted to get married right away, but didn’t have the money to go all out) they were happy with their decision.
The FMIL sounds like someone who you will never be able to please. I’m guessing even if you postpone the wedding like she wants there will be other things that she says/does that will cause problems along the way. I would just do what you want and get married in 2008. One thing I’ve learned planning my wedding no matter how hard you try you can never please everyone!
I’d have to say that I agree with sloe-eyed. In the end, once FI marries you, the new family unit that you will build together in your household will be his priority, not his relationship with his mother. Your FMIL needs to realize that right now. FI needs to respectfully draw boundaries between his decisions and his mother’s involvement or it could possibly translate into even more problems later.
Make it a united front with whatever decision you make. By this I mean decide together and then approach each set of the parents together. This will show as a couple you have established boundaries to outside influence and are not going to let either family “split” your decisions or your alliances. It will send a strong message to the MIL that her son has made his choice for life and her interference or disagreement will only cause her to be isolated from her son and his new wife.
That’s a tough one. I agree with the previous posts that it’ll probably anger her more to have a civil ceremony without her knowledge. And when she does find out (and she will eventually) she will most likely blame you for the deception. From what you stated, she has had years to get to know you but hasn’t made the effort. In which case, I would announce your wedding plans for next summer and when she says that she needs to get to know you better, you can tell her that you’ll be able to bond and get to know each other better over the actual wedding planning process. She may never come around but in the end, you can’t please everyone so just make decisions that are most comfortable to you and your FI.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It sure puts a damper on the new engagement! Thankfully you have a great, supportive family on one side. Don’t lose sight of that.
It sounds to me like you both have different visions/ideas and reasons for wanting things the way you are describing. Wedding planning brings up a lot of emotions, hopes, fears, and stress in addition to happiness and you are now experiencing that. A lot of people will give you their opinions and it won’t necessarily jive with what you had in mind. I think what is important now is that you and your fiance BOTH need to compromise, and make sure that the heart of your decisions are about your marriage to each other (not about what other people will think, such as your family or his family). When you choose to marry someone, you choose to make that person your most important family member so make sure that your fiance is putting you ahead of his parents and standing up for you. That doens’t mean to ignore everyone else’s wishes, but make sure that the wedding is still reflective of you and your fiance’s wishes, at least on the aspects that matter the most to you both.
It sounds to me like the celebration part of the wedding is very important to you and probably not something you should give up. But your fiance doesn’t like big parties and celebrations. Maybe a good idea would be to keep it small (maybe 50 guests instead of 200) and he won’t feel so on-display. Perhaps a morning ceremony with a lunch reception will feel less like a party to him than an evening reception with dancing. Consider ways to keep your dream but also make your fiance comfortable at this event.
You could maybe compromise on the date.
I also don’t understand why your fiance wants to get married so soon though, if his parents are pushing for a LATER wedding. Is it to prove to them that they need to accept you because he’s serious about marrying you? I don’t think you need to do a courthouse wedding to prove that. Time will prove that. The actual wedding, no matter when it takes place, will prove that - I don’t understand how rushing to do it and compromising all your dreams in the process will achieve anything. You might want to find out if he’s just using his parents’ stance on the marriage as an excuse to do a simple courthouse wedding, but maybe that’s what he really wants deep down. Find out what’s at the heart of why he’s pushing for it and deal with the real issue.
You and he need to be able to both give a bit because really, compromise is what you’ll need to do effectively for the rest of your lives for a healthy marriage. So don’t be a doormat but don’t insist on everything your way either. Best of luck 
I agree w/ sloe-eyed, if it’s the marriage your FI’s mom is opposed to, an early civil ceremony wouldn’t help anything.
I wouldn’t give up hope that FMIL will never come around to you either. My mom was hesitant about us getting married so quickly but after sitting down w/ her and talking about how well suited we are for each other and prepared to take the next step, she came around. And now she keeps asking me if I’ve handled this wedding task and that!
Talk w/ your fiance and figure out what YOU GUYS want to do. You may have to compromise and have a wedding in winter 2008-09 instead of summer 2008 but a few months won’t kill you. After all, a wedding isn’t a dream wedding w/o that dream guy standing and smiling next to you 
So does your FI just want to get a marriage license behind his parents’ back? Just do it first and then tell them that you guys are already married so there is nothing they can really do about it? If so, doing a civil ceremony first isn’t really solving the real problem. Your FI needs to talk to have a heart to heart talk with his parents and be candid about what he wants… esp. if you are going to be a part of his family.
I do know a couple that had a civil ceremony first but only immediate family members were aware of it and they kept it hush hush. They had a big wedding about a year later.
All the comments above are great! Listen to them and take them to heart. It’s true, you can’t please everyone. But it’s also true that it is your wedding, not your future MIL’s. If you do your best to get to know her and be the great person you obviously are (you actually care about them…) you shouldn’t feel bad if she isn’t happy. You’ve giving an honest effort, and that’s the best (and sometimes the hardest) thing to do.
Good luck!
It is not anathema to have a civil ceremony first and the “real” wedding sometime later. That is exactly what my betrothed and I are doing: we already went to City Hall and are legally wed, because he is in the Army and we want me to have the legal privileges of a spouse. Only his mother and his uncle were present, and there was no special celebration. We are holding our church wedding next spring.
With that said, you need to sort out your reasons, as a couple. I agree with earlier posters that rushing to have a civil ceremony will not solve the problem with your mother-in-law and might even make your relationship with her worse. Why does your fiance want the civil wedding?
First, congrats on the engagement! Don’t let this deflate the excitement that you should be feeling right now!
Now, I suspect your FI wants to “just make it legal” because he really does want to be your husband, but is dreading the firestorm that could come with it. You are on opposite ends of the wedding day spectrum, so you need to have a long talk about what you both are willing to compromise on so the marriage begins with equal footing (no resentment from either of you).
As for FI’s parents: don’t take it personally! Put yourself in their proverbial shoes– it must be scary to emigrate to another country and then witness your son assimilating somewhat quickly to that very different culture and then announce he intends to marry into another culture. Hate to say it, but *you* should make the effort to get to know his parents; it won’t happen the other way around (as you’ve already seen). Show them they are important to you because they are your future-husband’s parents, and because you respect the position they are in. It is likely that they will accept the choice you both have made to marry. But not without some accommodations from you and FI first.
Don’t give up what you really want, or you’ll likely regret it for a long time.
This is your life!! Get married in 2008 as you and your new fiancee planned. His mother will accept it–and if not, it is not her life!!
There are a lot of good comments already– in our case, we struggled with a somewhat similar issue. We decided what we wanted to do and then FI (after having dropped a couple of hints of our intentions) broke our intended wedding plans (date, place, etc.) to one of his parents as fact. That parent asked for time to convey the information, slowly, to the other parent– and so we had to be patient and let that process occur.
Having emigrated, it is very common that parents will fear that their children will abandon traditions that in some cases they didn’t even fully grow up with. I know my FI and his parents have different cultural experiences, to some extent, based on that. In working through this, it has taken some patience and time to learn which issues are issues between my FI and his family that he needs to be concerned with, and which ones are ones that involve me as well. I have made efforts, however awkward and fumbling, to communicate my interest in learning more about my in-laws, and in their own very restrained fashion, they have just recently started being more communicative in return.
My advice– try not to take it personally, even if it is a very personal subject. Be patient. Find a good confidant to vent to (other than your FI), particularly one with similar cross-cultural experiences or issues. And focus on baby steps.
Your FI has shown a willingness to make a committment to you, but also understand that he may not always know how to deal with the issues in his own family and that they are likely to be equally stressful to him as well (even if he doesn’t always admit it).
Love and relationships don’t come with a guidebook to these issues — Best of luck to both of you!
I think you’re very right, that if you get married in a civil ceremony now, the big wedding in a year or two will not feel like it should, or it may never happen at all. I just got married two weeks ago, it wasn’t a big wedding, but my family and close friends were there, and it was the best day of my life–not the party, although that was great, the special part was joining my life to my husband’s, and doing it with everyone I care about to witness it. If you’re already married, you’re really renewing your vows, and it’s not the same thing.
If you do the civil ceremony, is this to be a secret from your families? Because I think that’s a BIG mistake. If they find out, and it’s very possible that they will, they will feel betrayed and lied to. For good reason, because you did. Don’t do it.
I think you should go ahead with the 2008 wedding you want. It sounds likely that his family want to push the wedding back as far as possible in the hopes that it will never happen. Ultimately, this wedding is about you and your fiance, not his family. Do what you want. His family will deal with it.
Congratulations! And good luck.
Wow, great comments! I empathize. Just went through this. (See comments under Miss Tomato’s recent “Hard Love” entry.) When we dealt with this, “wait” was Asian code for “over my dead body, or I disown you” so don’t presume they will come around; if not, then what do you want? The decision belongs to you and your fiance only. It’s important you two make decisions you can live with and not regret.
RE how you are feeling: Watch FI closely re how he handles this, because it is VERY important whether he views himself primarily as a son or a husband. It’s best for him to make decisions on his own without being twisted, so you know how he really feels and how he really is when pressured by family. This sets the tone for interfamily relationships in the marriage. Trust your own gut about what feels right, and don’t be bullied (as an individual or as a couple) into anything you are not comfortable with, whether that means more or less time until the wedding.
Good luck! Definitely read Miss Tomato’s “Hard Love” post!
Is it because your fi thinks his mom will object that he wants to get married in a civil ceremony asap? He’s only dropped hints and hasn’t told his mom that you two are in fact engaged and getting married? I think it’s time to tell her. She’s saying wait wait and not taking it seriously (and maybe thinking it will sizzle out). After he/both of you have told her, I think then can you really revaluate the situation. Mothers are often protective and never feel their children “are ready”. Let her know, give her some time, then jointly talk wedding plans so she feels included and that their culture is being recognized as well as yours.
As for fi not liking big parties. That is something that you two must talk about. You may regret it if the big wedding never happens. You should tell fi how you feel because I don’t think he would want to ever see you so unhappy.
Best of luck.
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