Hi

I am emigrating and getting married in the USA. Although my family agreed to attend, they have dropped out one by one.

I am now in a situation where I will be there with no-one from my family in attendance and I have never met any of my fiance's family.

With the emigration, house sale, leaving everyone behind and moving to a new country I am feeling very low and don't want to get married with no-one I know there as a guest.

My fiance is happy for us to get married on our own and have everyone along for a party afterwards as he can understand that having none of my family there and a group of people I don't know is daunting and making me feel even worse that my family aren't there.

His mother is very understaning but his brother and sister in law are being awful about it. When they got married they basically eloped and had a party 3 months later but they are really causing problems at this suggestion and say they don't want to spend $700 just to see us at a party and would rather have a "proper vacation".

I don't know what to do because this makes me feel even worse. Do I let them bully me into doing what they say or do what will make my fiance and I happy?

I have also fallen out with my sister because of her terrible timing and approach when telling me she was no longer coming. I feel like everything is falling apart and I'm getting the blame for it all.

:-(

You poor girl. It's not fun to have all this fall on your shoulders. Do what makes you and your fiance happy. You two are the ones that have to be happy with the wedding, not your brother-in-law-to-be and his wife.

Thanks LittleRedCera, it has been very stressful because I am having to go through the immigration process, sell my house, give my little cat away, leave my family (including my son) and give up a whole life here in the UK.

I am more than happy to do it for my husband to be who I love very much but this added stress is really starting to get to me a lot.

I think it hurts more because his SIL was emailing me and saying things which made her sound really reasonable and fair minded .... then this!

Anyway, I am going to focus on "us" and everyone else will have to do what is right for them too. I can't take on their issues as well as everything going on here too.

Thanks again..... you are a star and I am grateful for your reply.

xx

I agree, you need to do what makes you happy. You're leaving your life in the UK behind for him, so you should get the kind of wedding you want. If I were you, I would pretty much elope-- I would go to a church with a pastor and have no guests. (but that's just what I would do)

No matter what you do, you need to have wedding that you can remember with a smile.

You could ask for your FH to spend a week in your country, have a small ceremony there for your family, and then if you want to also celebrate with his family you could have another small one with them, by keeping both small and intimate with just family it would not be that much more expensive than one large elaborate ceremony and having all of your family traveling to it.