Parents just don't understand!

This is such a struggle for me too! My mom didn’t have a wedding, her and my dad eloped and had maybe 4 guests. She keeps trying to get me to do the same and I’m having a hard time explaining to her that we want a venue, a dinner, a party, a photographer, a dress. She doesn’t understand why I can’t just buy a white prom dress from Dillard’s and doesn’t get the concept of having a fun party with drinks and dancing after the ceremony.. she wants the whole thing to be over within 3 hours from start to finish so she can go home and do yard work. So frustrating!!!

Our families as a whole are being pretty hands off about it all. The only thing so far that has caused a couple of screeching halts is that we aren't inviting every person we are related to. We aren't inviting all our aunts/uncles, and are inviting literally only 2 cousins.

If they want a family reunion, they can pay for and plan one! But if they're embracing the era of the bride and groom paying for the wedding and everything themselves, they aren't getting what they want.

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I couldn't agree more! ^

My mom wants to invite people that I legit have only met once, FH has never met, and she hasn't seen in years! Like why, mom?

My mom's "retirement job" is running the front office for a wedding photographer, so she's seen a LOT of weddings and wedding photos over the last few years, and honestly I think what threw her for a loop the most was how non-non-traditional I wanted our wedding to be. It blew her mind a little bit that in this day and age my dream wedding would be at a country club, with formal attire, a white(ish) dress with a veil, plated meals, and my dad walking me down the aisle. Aside from a few science-y touches here and there, our wedding was Basic AF.

We are the parents of the bride. Overall, I think daughter & FSIL would say we've been very easy going. We're paying for 3/4 of the wedding and FFIL is paying the other 1/4. My parents paid for our wedding 30+ yrs ago, with a budget of $5000 for a very nice, 100-person church wedding & evening reception (sit down dinner, open bar, etc.). At first, my husband/bride's dad was thinking if we doubled -- or maybe tripled -- our budget for D's wedding, we'd be good! LOL! $10 - 15,000, in SoCal, for 100 people? Yeah, we had to convince him that wasn't going to work out. We're currently right around $30 total.... So, "wedding inflation" was the biggest change he had to adjust to!

I feel lucky because I’m having such a small intimate wedding that I get to skip a lot of the planning process, including people making comments about my decisions lol

FH's mom doesn't understand that its not her wedding. She wants to invite a bunch of her friends and we told her no. She's very opinionated and her opinions are rude.

She wants us to have a bunch of godparents - we said no.

My parents are a lot more laid back. Their letting us enjoy the planning and don't intervene unless we ask for opinions.

Where to begin with my mother.

That I don't have to have a full Catholic wedding or get married in a church for God to still be there.

That I don't have to invite everyone from the church.

That the bridesmaids don't have to wear the same dress.

That I have a Bridesman and he will stand on my side.

That I don't want a father/daughter dance because my father and I aren't close (you would think she of all people would understand this)

She finally agreed to walk me down the aisle with my father.

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Just wanted to say I was in a wedding that did the party bus thing and it was SO fun. I was actually disappointed when it was time to go to the reception.

View Quoted Comment Thanks! We considered a masquerade , too!! There are just so many awesome ideas out there!! I hooe it's all you dream of 💙

My mom couldn't get over me wanting a second dress for the reception, and even once she saw I wasn't changing my mind, she then kept saying it shouldn't be formal then. What? If I'm having a formal ceremony and reception why wouldn't I wear a formal dress for both?

View Quoted Comment Yea my mom was like your not supposed to do this, or that's not traditional, and she didn't have anything more to say about it when I told her, well traditionally, the parents of the bride also paid for majority of the wedding 🤷🏽‍♀️

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Greek mother here too and she thought we should be inviting every neighbor we had in Brooklyn 35 years ago before we moved to Jersey! I had to reel her in real quick!

Not getting married in a church.... the ceremony is all going to be in English lol, Priest and church have too many strict rules

My parents have been pretty cool about the whole thing, but two things stand out:
(a) We're allowing kids at the ceremony/reception. Her famous line is "well, kids just weren't allowed when we were young." Yes mom, I understand that. But we have family coming from out of the state and country. I'm not making them find a babysitter. We can accommodate the TWO children that will be at the wedding!
(b) Having an unplugged ceremony. You would think that we told her she couldn't come. She LOVES to take pictures on her cell phone/camera. LOVES. But it was one of those things that FH and I agreed on. She has been focusing on that the whole time - which has been good because she's not freaking out about anything else on the day. She'll live and she will get the opportunity to have every.single.picture that the photographers take.

My parents have been really accepting and loving my plans. They've always been "rebels" to traditions and whatnot anyway. My grandfather got giddy when he heard shoes were optional for the ceremony (on the beach) and joked he's solely coming just because of that.

FH's mom specifically has been having the hardest time accepting it all. She was fine with a casual, mostly non-traditional wedding until she realized we are literally having a casual, mostly nontraditional wedding! She's had a few fits over things, mainly about "matching" outfits and whatnot. She's the type to throw tantrums and guilt trip if things don't go her way and she's already hurt FH pretty badly once, so we had to cut wedding talk completely out and change topics if she brings it up. Very difficult, she's a pushy woman. Just one more month and this will be over 🤣

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I had no idea your mom is Greek! You know the struggle haha

View Quoted Comment Same here! It’s not a shock to my parents more of a shock to me. Before I got engaged I never really thought I’d care about all the traditional wedding stuff. But once we got engaged I totally changed my mind and now we are getting married in a church and having a 150 personal formal reception with all the typical wedding things and I can’t wait.

My mom just doesn't understand that I have complete opposite taste from her lol. I don't share pretty much any details of the wedding with her because I'm sure she'll be judgy about any of it so I'm just letting her come and have fun

Grandparents don't need flowers. My mother says it's out of respect, but since my favorite grandmother won't be able to attend I'm doing away with it. I'm not wasting the money.