To be unhappy and please, or dis-please and be happy-ish?

That is the question - The giant 10 million $$ question.

Multiple choice question…
Will having some weirdo relatives at my wedding
a) Annoy me greatly.
b) Upset me, as up until this point in my life they have never taken part in anything significant whatsoever.
c) Make me feel like I have to have them there just because I was told to?
d) Save me from going to hell?

The rock and the hard place.

I initially had ideals of a really nice wedding, or at least one where we are surrounded by people family and friends that we care about and ones who care and support us etc etc.
How wrong was I??

Weddings it seems are no more than an excuse for relatives you never see to get together, to stand around looking uncomfortable, whine about everything, give you a crappy present, try and bible bash a few unsuspecting by-standers and drink all your beer, or if they don’t drink your beer, scowl at those who are drinking because they must obviously be alcoholics and need redemption!

I have this issue, and it appears that only I have the issue, although my sister was forced and guilted into submission to.

I do not want to share my special day with 2 particular relatives, one who condemned me to hell, and the other who power shakes mine and everyone else’s hand with the dominant body language, and thinks that god has blessed him just because he has 3 houses.
I made my intentions clear from the very start. Rob says, strange but your choice. Yes it is.
Or so I thought it was.
I sought permission from my father, as they are his relatives, he was non-committal either way. Initially, so was my mother, she insisted I ask dad.
Now, however, it seems that she really wants me to ask them because I should, and Dad would be offended if I did not.

However, having nothing to do with them so far in my life, and definitely not likely to have anything to do with them from this point forward in my life, I see little point in it. One of them makes my skin crawl and the other one is just a little too odd for me, I’d rather take odd than creepy any day.

Seeing you obviously can’t ask some and not others, I am now torn between the happy or unhappy issue. Turns out my sister got the standover tactics from one Aunty about it all when they got married!

If I don’t ask them, I am happy that I don’t have to see them. If I have them there I am un-happy, but then this pleases every one else. Including now it seems my husband to be, who it appears clearly does not understand why I don’t want them there, says I should and that is that. He seems to think it will only be 5 mins out of my life, I don’t think he quite gets it.

I was under the impression that your fiancé was meant to support you!

I had an idea, but this also went misunderstood this morning. Why can’t I just ask them to the ceremony and not the reception? If that is the important bit they want to share then fine, come to that and I won’t even ask them to give us a gift. Rob however says “that is the important bit” and why not just ask them to the reception, which was COMPLETELY missing the point. I would rather not have them at the fun bit!

He also said the day was meant to be about us… when I retorted with “well it bloody well isn’t going to be” he also did not understand.

I am not sure if it is me, or do I not make myself clear, or if this is not really an issue and I should just put up and shut up but it seems that every married person I talk to had the same problem, forced to have people there they didn’t want to, why doesn’t someone break the mould, stand up for themselves?????!!!

So, maybe I am shallow. Maybe I couldn’t care less. Maybe I can live with my decision. Maybe me crying over it won’t change anyone’s minds.

It is quite clear that I am not going to get the chance to make that decision, it has already been made. So I guess I get to be un-happy and everyone else gets to be happy.

So I now reserve the right to never have to attend another extended family event ever again if I choose not to. I will also NOT organise any type of "cousin" reunion EVER. (excepting those I like)