Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?
Or: How my mummy ruled my day despite my best efforts.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my mum, but she can be a little overbearing at odd times. And when you’re planning a wedding, an overbearing mummy is the last thing you need. Fear not, wedding planners, you are not alone if you feel that at some point, you may wish to strangle either your mummy, your mummy in law, or even your H2B for being the only person involved in your wedding who ISN’T interfering in the slightest, except possibly to ask the world’s most stupid questions, such as: What time is it we’re getting married next week (I thank God he didn’t ask where……)

Part of my problem stemmed from being the youngest one, and the daughter of the house. My brother had been married a few years previous to me and quite frankly, his wedding was crap. It was all planned by his lovely now-wife and my poor mum was determined not to interfere. Fat chance, She was sent an invite. I still don’t think she’s got over it – every now and again, six years on, you can still hear her wandering the house muttering “An INVITE to my OWN son’s wedding, an INVITE………”

So, crap wedding, and an invite. And the immortal words, “When you get married, I’m not having a do like that!” Stemming from that, the question: Whose wedding is it anyway?

Of course it’s yours – everybody will tell you that – it’s your day, you must have what you want. But be warned, when your mum says that, it’s in a particular tone of voice that means there is an unspoken added “but if you don’t do what I want, I shall sniff and get sad”.

It’s a mum’s right to be excited when her daughter gets married. And the advice they will give you in a magazine is to hand out certain jobs to your mum that will keep her occupied and therefore allow you to get on with the important stuff. This will only work if your mum is Robot Mum, programmed to do exactly what the magazines tell her to do. A mum like mine will say “Oh, no, I’m not getting involved, what if I do it wrong, what will Nick say?” and then get involved in all the stuff you didn’t want her to get involved in!

Part of the problem for me was the fact that my mum lives so far away from me, I had to do a lot without her, so that when she did get involved, she was already in a snitty about not being involved earlier. Advice: Get Mummy involved from the word go if you can!

My mum came out with some great comments which in retrospect make me howl but at the time just made me want to rage. Example: When I said I wanted a civil wedding, not having ever been to church in my life, she said “Oh, I think a church wedding is nice for your first one”. When it came to the actual planning, I took her to the venue for a day to see what she thought. Disastrously, the bar served us the wrong sandwich – we asked for ham, we got beef. Cue a huge flap from mother and my outburst of “Oh MUM! I hardly think we’re all going to be sitting there in our finery and have them come out with 60 plates of salmon and then say ‘Oh bugger, did you want beef?’” And later that day “I’m worried about you and this wedding. You’re not worrying enough”.

When I chose my dress she got a bee in her bonnet about me going down the aisle to Lady In Red by Chris de Burgh… no offence Karen E but HURL HURL HURL!!!!!!! Still, the need to compromise….. and so I found myself, at midnight on my wedding day, circling an empty dance floor to this vile number with my stepdad to make everyone happy. There were bets on from most guests about what time the bloody song would get played as soon as they saw my frock.

But my mum’s crowning glory: A week before the wedding she called me, sounding sheepish for the first time and said “I’ve done something……………… I’ve told your cousin Libby she can be bridesmaid”. It is a measure of how far I’d given in by then when I say that I merely sighed and gave instructions of which bit of Debenhams to pick up a dress from.

On the day she was great ….. she fussed and stressed and harrassed the hotel staff until they assured her that there was nothing for her to stress about at all… she wandered off halfway through doing my makeup and never came back, next being seen greeting guests regally in the bar, and her first words to me after the ceremony were “You came down that aisle way too quickly (she had a point, I practically galloped)”

I know not what the point of this article was. I just wanted to write it. And to assure anyone who feels that their families are interfering a lot in their wedding that it happens to us all. And to those of you whose families aren’t that involved: GET THEM INVOLVED!!! It’ll give you hours of fun when you look back on it later!

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Nikki and Nick married 14/12/02 - well, still true but let's hope for an end date too, shall we?
George Nicholas Smith born 23.9.03
Leo Philip Smith born 20.3.05

"Help!" said Eddy
"I'm scared already.
I want my bed
I want my teddy"



http://www.myspace.com/nikki_i_like_shoes

That was really good Nikki, gave me something to think about and I thoroughly enjoyed it!!!

You have a talent at writing Groovy Articles!!!

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What do you mean 'no offence' and 'hurl, hurl, hurl'??????!!!!


It was my 2nd dance I'll have you know - with my dad

We were very lucky no one interfered, but I'd have really loved to have had my mum still alive - interfering or not!

Regardless of some of the stuff our mums and families do to irritate us, try to remain calm over it if you can - some day they may not be around any more; treat them the way you treat other people in your life - listen to them politely, THEN ignore them!!




Incidentally Nikki, wasn't Libby the well behaved child at your wedding??

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The IVF worked!!! William Robert born 21st Dec06www.picturetrail.com/jonathansel

Reading that made me realise why I was very glad that we were left to organise our wedding without very little interference!!!

(although the MIL did make a good few comments afterwards.......
"Photo's weren't great because of the light, a church would have made a better backdrop"
"I wanted to get married in green but I wasn't allowed" etc etc

Families, can't plan a wedding with them, can't really have one without them!!

H

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