Weddingbee

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.

Have you guys told the FIL’s that you are engaged, or just that you are thinking about getting married?

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!

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.

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

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.

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?

Don’t give up what you really want, or you’ll likely regret it for a long time.

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!

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!

Iris is right about the hidden meaning behind “wait.” It could also be his parents way of finding time to introduce him to the girls they approve of. My parents tried this move on me when I started dating my BF and he’s not even remotely Asian. I’m also an only child so I can relate to your FI’s position. He needs to stand up to his parents (with or without you by his side) so that they understand it’s HIS decision. My parents (esp. Mom) kept asking me why I was doing this, what’s so special about him, and kept saying that I was brainwashed by him. Accusations like that really upset me and he wanted to go stand up to them with me, but I told him to keep being courteous to them and to let me speak to them. It was difficult but my parents had to know that I wasn’t going to change MY mind.

I don’t think getting married in a civil service is the best idea. Maybe your FI wants to do this quickly so that once it’s done - it’s DONE. 1-2 years is a long time to plan and he may be scared something could happen during that time. See what his thoughts really are and have your FI talk to his family and go on from there. Good luck!

My husband and I actually got married in a civil ceremony 2 years ago and we are planning our actual wedding ceremony in September. It’s always hard to explain to people that I am married and we will be having a wedding, but that’s been the only difficult part. I was the best decision I ever made. I get butterflies thinking about our wedding day even though we have been married for two years. He is also from a diffrent ethnic and religious backround so we went straight to “well they are married now, might as well embrace them”. I don’t have any wedding jitters either for the ceremony, and that makes it a lot less stressful than most other brides I have seen. Now we have more money to put towards the wedding as well, I could have never afforded all this wedding stuff two years ago. From personal experience I made a great decision to be married civil then wedding later. If you have ANY reservations I wouldn’t do it though.

Hey Miss Anonymous

Given the additional info in your reply, here is my take:

1. I wouldn’t worry about his job and how busy he will be with work in two years’ time. For one, it’s so out of your control that you can’t waste stress on it. And second, I don’t know his line of work, but generally accommodations are made for something as important as a wedding. If it’s seasonal work, try to book the wedding during the slowest time of year and just give the employer adequate warning. Personally if I had given my employer a year or two of warning and then it got so busy they told me I couldn’t take the time off even for my own wedding, I’d quit. But I can’t imagine a boss being so ridiculous.

2. I think if your FMIL thinks it will take an additional year to butter up your FFIL to the idea of marriage, then he’s probably not going to come around no matter how much time you give him. Besides, isn’t the hardest part really breaking the news to them up front? After he’s already known that you’re getting married for a year, how will an ADDITIONAL year of waiting help him get used to the idea?

3. If you’re still unsure of the date and having relatives clear their calendars to help you plan, then just don’t have them clear their calendars until you’ve made a firm decision. And really you’ll probably find they don’t need to clear their calendars exactly except for the wedding date itself (and a save-the-date should take care of that problem). The rest you can work around their schedules for the most part except for perhaps your mother and maid of honour, and even then it depends on how much you want to do yourself and how much you want to delegate to others.

4. If you feel guilty not having replied to venues/vendors you’ve emailed who have responded to you, just send them a quick email saying thank you, confirming you received their information and that now your date may be postponed so you will get back to them when you have decided on a date. Then they won’t be left wondering and you don’t need to feel bad for keeping them waiting.

It sounds like most of your stress is actually coming from having so many variables undecided and not knowing how people will handle it. So take deep breaths, have a heart-to-heart with your fiance about all the issues and hopefully you can make some decisions. Then you can stop wondering

I think you guys need to have a long talk because issues like this can carry over into a marriage. A quick courthouse wedding is a great way for him to get out of having to deal with his mother - and that is NOT a good thing! You are going to be his wife - and you needs, feelings and dreams need to come first before anyone else in his life. If you start of your marriage by giving up your wedding so that he doesn’t have to deal with his mother - what hap.pens the next time she is not happy with a decision you two make?

It sounds like you guys love each other a lot - he just needs to step up. If you are both ready to get married - then he needs to be ready to stand up for you and your relationship which includes telling his mother asap that you are engaged and will be getting marred in 2008

When I started dating my fiance, my parents were concerned because he was not my race and told me to “just be friends”. But I decided to date anyways because I knew that I loved him more than just a friend. So 6 months into it, he proposed and I was ecstatic. But I was also scared to tell my parents because I didn’t know how they would react. It was a very nerve-wrecking time. My fiance and I talked about it and he gathered up enough guts to come over and ask them for my hand in marriage. And of course they were shocked. My mom especially. But after talking over some issues, my dad (not my mom) agreed to give him a chance and let us be engaged (but with the condition that he finishes school and gets a job).

In the beginning, it was difficult and there was a lot of tension. But being honest with them and having respect for them is very important, since they are my parents and when it comes down to it, they really do love me and want the best for me and want me to be happy. In the next months, he’s made the effort to hang around my family more so they can get to know him better.

We originally wanted the wedding to be around March, but my mom tried telling me to push the wedding back and to wait and wait. I felt that she was making excuses for me to move the wedding back. But I made one compromise to push it back to summer ‘08 so he can be done with school. And that’s all the compromise I’m making in regards to postponing the wedding.

So in your case, it’s important to respect his parents and give them a chance to get to know you better. I’m sure once they get to know you, they’ll be more open to the idea of their son being with you. It’s only human nature to be protective of your kids (especially he’s the only son). So be understanding and help them transition to that idea.
But at the same time, also know what you want and stand your ground when you need to. It is the life that you and your fiance will be sharing, so make it what you two want it to be. Have courage and best of luck! It’ll all work out.

So if you have the civil ceremony now and a big wedding later how does that work? Do you apply for another marriage liscense? Can you still have a judge or priest perform the ceremony?