dealing with both families in an international wedding/frustration!!

in general, how did you decide where to have the wedding? did both families make it to the wedding?  did you have two separate celebrations? 

i know a lot of people mostly decided on the US due to visa situations, but i'm really struggling with this decision.  i will be moving over to the UK in august on a Tier 1 visa and we're planning a wedding for next summer.  initially, we decided we'd just have a wedding in the UK since his family is larger than mine and since my friends in the US are so spread out that it would be hard to get them to my hometown for a wedding, anyways. 

this seemed like a good enough solution, only after approaching my mother (who is not at all happy about my move), she claims she can't afford to come over for the wedding so we'll have to have it without her.  i get the feeling it's less about money and more about being upset over my move, but she has recently retired and has had some huge house repairs lately, so perhaps it isn't feasible for her to come.  it really doesn't make sense to have a US wedding, and she does seem to recognize this, but i know deep down she is disappointed that i'm not having the hometown wedding that all of her southern friends' daughters are having. 

part of me is really frustrated and just wants to go on and plan it without her and not let it affect my plans....but another part of me is devastated that she won't be there (i cried for hours after she told me) and can't imagine planning a wedding in a country that is not my own where, let's face it, i'll hardly know anyone!  i don't know if any of my friends would be able to make it, and i'm sure my dad would, but other than that... i can't imagine investing money into a wedding that will not even feel like my own. 

i've moved on to the idea of eloping and having an extended honeymoon and taking both families out of the equation entirely.  i suppose we could follow this up with a small party in both places to celebrate after the fact or somewhere down the line.  i worry that my fiance's family will be really hurt if we don't have a wedding at all...

has anyone else found themselves in similar situations?  how did you navigate all of this?  on top of figuring out how to satisfy both families, i'm also getting scared of the cost of even a small wedding... i'm ready to throw in the towel before the planning has even begun! 

We had a small ceremony in the US... We really weren't planning to get married for another 2 years (even though we had already been engaged for 2). But I was unable to get a work visa, b/c my sponsorship fell through. So it was either be apart or get married sooner! And we were anxious to be husband and wife anyway. So that was settled.

We were originally going to get married in the UK, because I was already over here doing my Student Teaching. I was very upset because my mother wouldn't be able to come to the wedding. I cried about the prospect of it many times, but HIS mum was going "Well, you just have to do what's easiest." Until we found out that it was actually impossible to marry on my Student Visit Visa! And after consulting UKY, discovered it would be easier, and less expensive to get married in the US! Oh his mum was singing a different tune then...

His family decided they couldn't take the time off to come to our wedding. We asked them to come for just a few days, and they said it would be too much travelling in a short amount of time. And I am pretty positive they resent me for it... Though we do plan to have a second ceremony over here. We got married at the Courthouse with a little reception and 9 of my closest family and friends. It was beautiful and perfect. Over here we will have a Blessing ceremony with a minister and a reception with HIS family and friends. I wanted to do a bigger reception at home, as there were so many people that I couldn't invite, but now it's looking less and less likely...

Good luck. These decisions are tough.  

Oh, and you said you were concerned about the costs of a small wedding. How small are you thinking? Because my wedding dress/veil/shoes/bolero all came to a grand total of... $125... It's true. It was a vintage look, and I ended up loving how it turned out. The rest of the wedding was ridiculously inexpensive. My mother did our cakes (wedding cheesecakes, one new york style, one chocolate, topped with chocolate dipped strawberries!) and on the top tier were the cake toppers I made. Little bride and groom computers with pictures of us as kids on them... It made it so much more special and was soooooo much cheaper!

Back in the olden days when we married, it was just traditional to have it at the bride's home or church, so we did it in the US.  But DH really had only his two parents to attend (and there was no keeping them away!) whereas I had a number of uncles, aunts, friends, etc.  We kept it pretty small anyway so my in-laws didn't stand out that much.  We were disappointed that his friend who had introduced us and was asked to be best man was not able to afford the trip.  Fortunately DH had an American colleague who was in the US that summer to stand in.  I probably would have gone with a home wedding -- ideally in the garden -- but knew his parents wouldn't consider it "legal" if it wasn't in a church.  So we had it in the chapel of the family church.  We would never have filled the main sanctuary anyway!
We had the in-laws billeted with my parents -- in a two bedroom house!  DH and the best man stayed with a friend of my mother's.  That was all pretty awkward but we did it to save money.

thanks for the replies--it helps to hear that others struggled with these issues just as much.

princesslemons: wow, that does sound very affordable!  i am not even sure how small we would want to keep things--i guess it depends on how many people we know in the area and if anyone is willing to travel to attend, etc.  but i'm having a tough time finding venues in cambridge that either don't have a huge fee or don't require the use of their caterers or have an expensive corkage charge for outside wine, etc. 

bostondiner: ahh you brought up a point i haven't even gotten around to considering yet, wherever we have the ceremony, one of us would have trouble rounding up bridesmaids/groomsmen.  no good solution there except to not have them...the more i think about all the complications with this, the less reason i see to have a ceremony at all! 

We were having a hard time deciding where to get married as well and my mom was really supportive, but his... not so much. We finally decided that it was our day and rather than stressing out about trying to please everyone, we decided to just go do it ourselves on the beach in Jamaica with parties afterwards on both sides of the Atlantic. Obviously, this option isn't for everyone but I was so glad we were able to just focus on the importance of the day and not the petty issues that could have clouded it.

Best of luck with whatever you choose!

I know this addresses only a tiny portion of your post, but would it be possible to just factor in the cost of your mom's plane ticket into your wedding?  Not to say that just handing her a ticket would magically make things better (esp if, as you say, the real issue is her concern over your move and not necessarily the cost), but it seems like if her main verbal objection is the cost, that's an easy enough thing to overcome.  (Since you're a year away from the day it ought to be pretty simple to wait for some good prices.)

Good luck with the rest of it...I had a brief/aborted stint at wedding planning and even that little bit was stressful...not really looking forward to doing it again! (Though I suppose I have to find a future spouse first anyway, and that's providing to be tough enough )

We finally decided that it was our day and rather than stressing out about trying to please everyone, we decided to just go do it ourselves on the beach in Jamaica with parties afterwards on both sides of the Atlantic.

i'm strongly, strongly leaning this way after pondering this all day.  i've already started googling places in croatia and hawaii to see how feasible/easy it would be for us.  might i ask you, did you wear a wedding dress for the beach ceremony?  and did you wear the dress again for the parties or were the parties more casual?  one friend has suggested i do this and i'm not sure how i feel about it. 

I know this addresses only a tiny portion of your post, but would it be possible to just factor in the cost of your mom's plane ticket into your wedding?

this was my fiance's first suggestion when i told him.  it's definitely a thought, though my gut tells me she wouldn't let us do that and would insist on paying her own way...also, she went on about other reasons why she doesn't want to come like not knowing anyone there, it will all be his parent's friends and family, she will only know my dad (who she is divorced from), etc. 

i've also toyed with the option of eloping and inviting only our parents to attend.  my gut tells me she really can afford the trip and it's not really about money...i've just looked and prices from england to hawaii are exactly the same as prices from my hometown to hawaii.  it would be a big expense for both parents but would level the playing field, so to speak.  hmm. 

i'm strongly, strongly leaning this way after pondering this all day.  i've already started googling places in croatia and hawaii to see how feasible/easy it would be for us.  might i ask you, did you wear a wedding dress for the beach ceremony?  and did you wear the dress again for the parties or were the parties more casual?  one friend has suggested i do this and i'm not sure how i feel about it. 

Yup, I wore a big white, puffy wedding dress for the wedding (even tho we were straight into our swim gear and drinking cocktails in the ocean within an hour!). At the parties afterwards I just wore a really pretty white sun dress beceause they were in the summer and the one in the US was just a big BBQ so it would have seemed odd to be the only one dressed formally.

My DH and I were married last October in Las Vegas.  We had a nice but simple ceremony with me in my wedding dress and him in a morning suit.  No one was there except my best friend, but the ceremony was broadcast on the internet as part of our wedding package, so both our families and all our friends from around the world were able to watch.  Then, on Sunday (21 June) we had a champagne tea at a local country house hotel followed by a wedding cake cutting and gift-opening.  My family flew over for the occasion and spent a week here getting to know DH and his family.  I wore my wedding dress a second time, but DH just wore a suit.  It was really a great time for everyone, and I got to have two wedding days and two chances to wear my dress!.  I'm so glad we chose to do it this way.  Of course, I'm fortunate in that my family was really eager to come to England and really supportive of my decision to live here.  Maybe you could try to get your mom excited about visiting a new country and seeing how you live.  There's time yet for her to change her mind. 

Oh boy, oh boy, I know this all too well

I live in Scotland,  after living here for a while, met my BF here, I proposed to him, decided to have the wedding here, as this is our home and this is where we want it.

99% of my family and friends think getting married in Scotland is the best idea ever and are saving their pennies to get here for it.  My parents are beyond excited, in fact once we started hemming and hawing about wedding planning they said, "Make sure you get married in Scotland!"  My older sister has been dragging her feet and causing a big fuss- I posted about it in the IA thread and lots of people have been in the same situation.  My thoughts are though, its our wedding to celebrate, I want no pressure for anyone to make it or not.  If they can, awesome. If not, that's ok, I completely, 100% understand.  We're having a party back in the states for those who can't/won't make it here. All is well though- its about celebrating our love and if we need to celebrate it twice, three times, 8 times, who cares, all good fun!!! 

No matter where you choose, someone is going to kick up a fuss.  Its not easy.  Especially as so many parents feel that a wedding is the next thing in their lives, they look forward to it as much as we do.  You do have to remember your mom is probably dealing with lots of emotions for the move, as well as not being able to have "the wedding of her dreams for you" so its a bit tough.  All you can try and do is try and ease her fears the best way- pay for tickets, have 2 weddings, do whatever you can do, within your budget, and time and will to do, to ease it for her.

Hang in there 

thanks for the replies--it helps to hear that others struggled with these issues just as much.

princesslemons: wow, that does sound very affordable!  i am not even sure how small we would want to keep things--i guess it depends on how many people we know in the area and if anyone is willing to travel to attend, etc.  but i'm having a tough time finding venues in cambridge that either don't have a huge fee or don't require the use of their caterers or have an expensive corkage charge for outside wine, etc. 

Know anyone with a big back garden?

Then, on Sunday (21 June) we had a champagne tea at a local country house hotel followed by a wedding cake cutting and gift-opening.  My family flew over for the occasion and spent a week here getting to know DH and his family.  I wore my wedding dress a second time, but DH just wore a suit.

this sounds lovely!

thanks everyone for your responses...feeling a bit more hopeful that we can figure something out.  truth be told, i'm not a big 'wedding' kind of girl and hate how the planning tends to consume brides, so i think several smaller celebrations coupled with a private ceremony for just the two of us may be better suited for us anyways. 

thanks everyone for your responses...feeling a bit more hopeful that we can figure something out.  truth be told, i'm not a big 'wedding' kind of girl and hate how the planning tends to consume brides, so i think several smaller celebrations coupled with a private ceremony for just the two of us may be better suited for us anyways.

That's basically what we did.  We say we had 2 weddings, but really we had 3- one (a handfasting) for our friends in the UK because the official wedding was originally scheduled to be in the US, one was a private ceremony- just us, witnesses and a couple of other close friends- in the UK where we got legally married (also the date of our official wedding anniversary), and the last was our family wedding and reception in the States.  It kind of happened that way organically (ideally I would have had a small family/close friends wedding in the UK and then a reception only in the States, but family drama prevented that) but in the end it worked out really well.

We were married in Idaho as I had more friends and family in the States that would come to the wedding.  Then we had a big reception that night.  After the honeymoon and going for our visas, we moved to the UK and had a small reception the next week at a nice venue in the UK.  I wore my dress for that again, but not my veil, just a nice headpiece I'd worn with the veil in the States.

We were going to do a blessing ceremony in the UK to satisfy his C of E mum, but she ended up communicating that she was very happy with what steps we had taken to include them in the US side and they didn't feel we needed the extra steps and expense if it didn't have meaning to us. 

His parents travelled to the US reception, but none of his siblings did.  Best of luck in making decisions--it's not easy balancing everyone's emotions, but you'll get there in the end.  Maybe your mom just needs some time to see that you are going to still be close with her and communicate with her.  My parents were worried about that, but between Skype, MSN Messenger, and Facebook, I think we actually talk a lot more now than we did in the States!

this sounds lovely!

thanks everyone for your responses...feeling a bit more hopeful that we can figure something out.  truth be told, i'm not a big 'wedding' kind of girl and hate how the planning tends to consume brides, so i think several smaller celebrations coupled with a private ceremony for just the two of us may be better suited for us anyways. 

That sounds nice! I don't blame you. Planning our small ceremony and reception was still a nightmare. (Though I think that partly had to do with the fact that my husband was in another country!)

It's all down to what's going to make you happy. It's a day for you and your husband. Everyone else is just there to share in your joy!