Updates: “Trying not to be a Bridezilla” Responds
It’s time again for “Dear Wendy Updates,” a feature where people I’ve given advice to in the past let us know whether they followed the advice and how they’re doing now. Today, we hear from “Trying not to be a Bridezilla” who was upset when her recently engaged brother set his wedding for six weeks before hers. Keep reading to see how it all turned out and whether her wedding was, indeed, ruined as she feared it would be.
Generally, I am a very logical person, and I did agree with the advice that such a situation is not the end of the world and that it doesn’t matter in the long run. I guess I needed someone from outside of the drama to be the calm voice of reason in the middle of an emotional storm. Things were very stressful at the time; we had just bought a house and had two weeks to move out of our apartment in the dead of winter. Also, the Wedding Industrial Complex is very insidious and can get to you even when you are actively trying to ignore it.
As for the two weddings, my brother’s was very elegant and lovely. My wedding was more fun and relaxed — so they were very different kinds of weddings. And the out-of-state relatives whom I really wanted to come managed to make it to my wedding after all (and some even made it to my brother’s as well). Was it stressful on my parents? Yes, of course. Have people come up to my parents and be shocked that both of their kids got married within weeks of each other? Many times. (Luckily, I managed to hide my smile whenever that happened). Does it matter in the long run? Nope. Everyone still loves each other and now we only argue over who is cheating at cribbage.
Thanks for the advice, I needed it.
Thanks for the update!
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If you’re someone I’ve given advice to in the past, I’d love to hear from you, too. Email me at [email protected] with a link to the original post, and let me know whether you followed the advice and how you’re doing now.
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I loved Wendy’s advice to the original question – so compassionate and smart – and I’m glad to hear that everything turned out well!
I love reading updates from brides AFTER the wedding – in the end all the things they had stressed about were fine, and everyone had a great time. Hurray!
*But* I just thought of one shitty consequence of your brother sneaking in his wedding weeks before yours: Now, he will forever and always be married longer than you. I mean, if you want to try to find *something* to be upset about, there’s always that. Imagine how annoying it will be when you’re celebrating your 50th wedding anniversary, and he is all “oh big deal, I’ve been married for 50 years and a month – boom!” Dun dun dun!
Oh you know what would be fun? To hear from LW’s whose worst nightmares came true at their wedding. Like I’d love to hear from someone who, for example, was freaking out because the bridesmaids’ shoes were supposed to be pewter but a rogue bridesmaid insisted on wearing her charcoal gray shoes – I want to hear how the wedding was RUINED because of that. …
This isn’t as fun as the bridezillas who obsessed over a lack of teeth or ugly shoes, but my friend was considering booting a bridesmaid out of her wedding because she found her kind of annoying. She decided not to, and in the end, her BIL cheated on his wife with the bridesmaid at the wedding.
Well, my wedding was pretty much a crapfest. We just kept telling ourselves it’s the marriage that’s important, not the wedding. And we celebrated our 18th anniversary yesterday so I guess that philosophy worked out.
Tell all!
Oh gosh, where to start! Basically my mom was just a total pain about it. I was really young and having felt like she got married too young herself, really REALLY did not want me getting married yet.
I had moved many states away when I started college which is where I met my husband. We had a place in mind where we wanted to get married – for clarification purposes, we are LDS (Mormon). Marriages are also known as sealings and if you are not able to get married in the Temple (if the bride or groom is not a member of the church or you live too far from a Temple or don’t quality for a Temple recommend for whatever reason…), you can go there later and be “sealed.” So, the Temple we had chosen, not only was it where my in-laws were married, but my own grandparents had been sealed there. So it was meaningful to both of us. But my parents pitched a fit that it was too far away and they didn’t know if they could come. So we moved the wedding to the one and only Temple in my home state even though it meant none of my husband’s siblings would be able to attend. His parents and grandmother came is all and I know that was sad for him.
Then there were a lot of little things like planning a wedding in a state where you no longer live with a mother who was against the whole thing. For example, for the centerpieces at the reception, I wanted white baskets with a mix of spring flowers. My mother bought bud vases in which she put a single flower. She ordered my bouquet. I said I wanted mostly pink roses with a few white. I got the exact opposite. She decided to buy shoes for me without me there to try them on. My feet were bleeding by the end of the ceremony (she’s the type that would have taken it very personally had I not worn them and having danced en pointe for several years, I was plenty familiar with foot pain and just sucked it up).
She also refused to speak to my in-laws on the wedding day and actually got really mad at my dad for being civil to them. She would not smile for any of the pictures except one where the photographer simply refused to take it until she smiled. So I have an album full of wedding pictures with my mother scowling – that’s lovely.
But the biggest thing was the morning of the wedding. My husband (still fiancé at the time), my mother and I rode together to the Temple. He dropped us off and went to park the car. Here I am, on my wedding day, standing at the Temple doors when my mother turns to me and says in almost a growl, “If he’s smart he’ll keep on driving.”
That was my wedding. It took years to even be able to think about it without crying. I’m now to the point where I can laugh about parts of it (like the bud vases) but some things I think will always hurt. It will never be one of those that morphs into a good memory over time. It sucked in every possible way except for the fact that we did somehow manage to end up married. We should have eloped.
*qualify, not quality (2nd paragraph)
Wow! Thanks for sharing. …. Hopefully by now your mom is on board with the marriage, ha.
Yeah, that was kind of bizarre as well. So, the Temple in my home state is still several hours from my home town. So we had the wedding, stayed in the area for the honeymoon, then the reception the following weekend. By the time we got back to my hometown for the reception, my mother had done a total 180. Once it was all said and done and we were actually married, he was suddenly the son she’d never had!!! It was seriously mind boggling.
For the most part, as we all settled into life over the years, I still wouldn’t say my husband and my parents are close but they get along. It helps that my husband is really laid back and my mom has mellowed a lot as she’s aged.
Ughhh. I got married last fall and I personally didn’t care about the bridesmaid’s shoes.My mom was REALLY CONCERNED ABOUT THIS. I told them all to get something beige and dressy in whatever style they wanted as kind of a compromise. Out of the four girls I had stand up, my sister and two of my friends are all around 5 foot nothing, while the third friend is just under 6 feet tall. Tall Friend got a cute pair of dressy peep toe beige flats – she’s a little self conscious about her height and prefers flats. My sister already had a pair of closed toe beige pumps and the other two bridesmaids found a basic pair of cheap beige pumps at Payless, so they each got a pair. My mom was so worried that Tall Friend’s shoes not matching would distract people at the wedding and take away from me. By the time the wedding was over she had totally forgotten it.
My husband’s ex-wife got married the weekend before she did. We planned our wedding for 18 months and she got accidentally knocked up and decided to “do it right this time” by getting married before the baby was born (the first time it was get pregnant, have baby, get married) and picked a date less than 2 months out that happened to be the weekend before ours. I know it’s petty and it certainly didn’t affect my amazingly beautiful wedding, but it has always annoyed me.
actually, my sister, who just got engaged about a month ago, has mentioned something about getting married this summer BEFORE my big shindig at the end of the year. We already have one cousin’s wedding at the end of June and mine beginning of September. My mother is trying to convince her to push it to fall or spring since this is pretty rushed, and she’s my maid of honor (and honestly, my summer is already packed, although if she does get married i would of course drop whatever else to be there). Not to mention her fiancee’s sister is getting married a week after me.
anyway, at the end of the day, i will be happy for her and glad to come, it just really irritates me and comes across as thoughtless
Plus, my friends and I want to plan a day trip this summer to celebrate YOU – even though they aren’t invited to the wedding. So you gotta pencil in a hiking trip to the Dunes or to Utica where we will hike by day and eat and drink by night! So, best tell your sister she really must postpone her wedding. 😉
oo that sounds awesome! I would love that! (of course, i will be wearing lots of sunscreen).
ugh weddings are so hard to pick whose invited! man oh man. i have too many family members. i wish i could invite all the lovely people i’ve met through you
meh, save the $$ – we’re happy to celebrate with you later! plus, you could save the $ and … oh oh oh, buy a boat! and then you can invite us to go boating on lake michigan! win-win!
that reminds me, i am on the hunt for friends with boats. we should make some friends with boats.
i agree. you’re more likely to find those though in your line of work. start schmoozing
I love cribbage!
what’s cribbage? going to google it now…
It’s awesome. My family is weirdly competitive about games and that and monopoly are family favorites.
Sounds like a made up game from Harry Potter.
Totes
+1 for agreeing with me
-1 for saying totes.
You’ve just negated your whole comment grilled cheese! 🙂
As stressful as it may have been for the parents, at least it’s all over with (depending on how many siblings there are, I guess).
True story: My 5th grade teacher taught us cribbage and let us play for like a week straight (maybe longer) and then probably once a week for the rest of the school year instead of teaching.
My siblings did this this year/last year. My sister got engaged Dec ’11 and was planning a wedding for June ’13. Then my brother got engaged July ’12 and married Dec ’12. So my brother “one-upped” my sister. Then we thought my sister’s fiance was going to get deployed during their planned wedding, so they had a quicky service around thanksgiving with just immediate family. So there were a lot of jokes going around about how my sister “one-upped” my brother after he did it to her. Now my sister’s reception is back on for June as a vow renewal/large reception. However, some of our far away family won’t be able to come to hers now even though they came to my brother’s. Though one is “my baby is due within weeks of your wedding” which probably would have happened anyway. As for myself, I just want the weddings to stop!
And now, I’m off to google what the french “cribbage” is. Your family sounds fancier than mine.
Hmm, so it’s nothing like cricket. I had it all wrong.