i feel ashamed, guilty, alone w my wedding

I was your FH in this. I decided that his happiness was my happiness and went along with the whole extravagant affair (6/22). I wish it was smaller and less work/expense. But he is happy so I am happy. Hopefully your fh will come around. I’d try to compromise on things so he feels better.

It's all about compromise especially when it comes to financial matters. Housing and debt certainly should be a priority but that doesn't mean you can't have a decent, practical, affordable wedding. Decide on a reasonable budget. Look into buildings in parks and recreation in local and surrounding areas. They are affordable and have a lot of natural surrounding beauty. Search and book early. You dont need to have an expensive wedding. Pricing out and doing a lot of small DIY tasks will save you thousands of dollars.

Your FH is pretty much right about debt and a house. However talk about what you would like for your wedding. With careful planning and creative network of close people you could have a very nice wedding on a small budget. We are planning ours for around $8-9k for 130ish guests and everything else

I think making you feel ashamed for wanting to have a good time and having dreams is a very low life thing to do! Especially from your future spouse, that's very selfish of him.
You don't need to have a big or extravagant wedding, pick some things that are important to you, is it the dress? A church? Certain people? And see about having a smaller intimate wedding with only the things and people that matter to you. I didn't want a wedding at first, I also wanted to pay off debts and invest in our home but my fiance wanted a wedding, I would never have made him feel bad about it. It grew on me and we're having a small quick wedding for about 10k. It's very feasible to meet your financial goals and plan a wedding, there shouldn't be any problem adjusting the timeline and expectations to do all of it.

Can you tell your fiancé this? You may have some stuff to work on emotionally on it but helps to have a good support group to guide you through so you can feel happy. A wedding is a lot of people’s dreams but the happiness is taken away because your fiancé doesn’t want to spend the money on it. Can you compromise and do a small inexpensive wedding with just family? It could be very casual 😊

I'm so sorry to read this. I think a lot of girls/women dream of the day they get married. I think it'd be a good idea to talk to your fiance about this. We also want to buy a house and do all that, I'm sure my fiance could deal without some of the smaller details that I'm spending money on, but we are hoping we get back at least half of what we put into this. NO ONE should ever make you feel ashamed for wanting happiness.

I am the one who wanted to elope and not do any of this wedding stuff. This is for a variety of reasons: not into it in general, money and life-goal priorities, and feeling that it should be about us privately and intimately and not about pleasing 100 others at a party.

Anyway, we are having a wedding. We had to compromise. We set a budget that is reasonable. He had to give up an insane guest list of literally everyone in creation and tone it down to closest friends and family cut off at 1st cousins. Etcetera, etcetera...

I'm playing along and I'll have a good day when it comes. Compromise is one of those cornerstones to a happy marriage/relationship - and you will both just need to do some on this one.

Hey Bonnie!
Let's get real here. As women, we all know that a man will absolutely never do anything that he doesn't want to.

He may not see eye to eye with you on a wedding, and he may not understand the longing in your heart for one...but, he would shut it down completely if he wasn't somewhat on board.

Dreams aren't silly and you should not feel ashamed. I'm sure you are very cost conscious and staying on point with your budget.

It will be a wonderful day and celebration of your love for both of you. He will see that, don't worry! ❤
Hugs to you!

I don’t think there is a reason for you to feel ashamed for what you want & that’s also a very negative feeling, so try to stay away from it as much as you can.

Few points here:
- Having a dream wedding will not make you any happier or make your dream of finding a man to spend your life with. You already found that man! The goal should be getting married & wedding is just an added bonus! Many brides here plan beautiful weddings on very low budget of just few thousands! Cut guest list to an absolute minimum, have a beautiful ceremony for almost free in a public garden/park, have a backyard BBQ reception, DIY all decorations, don’t serve alcohol, etc.
- If you are in debt & would acquire more debt with wedding, I’d too be like your FH & not want to plan a wedding you can’t afford. More importantly, for a successful marriage it is crucially important for spouses to have same financial goals, spending habits, agree on budgets etc. So I’d focus on discussing this with your FH & coming with a plan together that makes both of you happy & comfortable.

Is there a way you can have a wedding but affordable? For instance you can totally skip the reception and just have a ceremony. your money for weddings usually goes to the reception anyway.
I know what you feel though. When I planned mine I felt so ugh about spending so much money that could be directed for better use elsewhere. But at the end of the day I would have so regretted not having a wedding too.
I want you to be happy and if having a wedding will make you happy then so be it, it can be done in budget friendly ways.

View Quoted Comment Whoa, I'm not sure OP was saying her FH is making her feel ashamed, I think she's saying SHE feels that way b/c she knows FH would prefer to spend $ on debt and a house. At least I HOPE that's the situation.

I agree, they can compromise! There's always the option of a small intimate ceremony (even JOP) and small intimate reception (restaurant dinner). Or even the option to buy a house, and have a backyard wedding.

OP, talk to FH and see what you can come up with. Maybe a destination wedding would be beautiful and intimate? Or something like others have suggested. You shouldn't feel foolish or ashamed, MANY people want weddings, whether they're the bride or the groom!

You deserve a beautiful wedding! Please share your feelings with your fiancé so he can support you.

For a wedding on a budget, you have a few options: 1) larger guest list with a “cake & punch” reception at a church, temple or community center hall during a non meal-time. Or 2) a small guest list—fewer than 20–and ask about “private ceremony packages” at a beautiful winery, resort or other luxury venue (often only a few thousand for a weekday wedding & will include an officiant, bridal bouquet & photographer) then treat guests to a lunch or dinner at a restaurant. Or 3) elope or have immediately family only at an amazing destination for your wedding/honeymoon.

My FH would rather go to the court house and then a small dinner at a restaurant, but he is putting up with the wedding ceremony and reception for me because he loves me and knows its what I really want and gave me a budget to work with. So you should not feel ashamed for having a wedding if its something you guys can afford so I would suggest figure out what you guys can afford set a budget and try to work with that. I am also making my FH do the first dance because its the only time ill ever get him to dance with me (he hates dancing)

Talk to FH. Either his verbally/non verbal actions are leading to you feeling this way or this is something that you are feeling and it's not as a result of his actions either way you need to talk about it with him. Neither of you are wrong so it's about how you deal with both of these wants/needs in a way that doesn't leave you feeling ashamed or guilty or him possibly feeling the same because you feel that way. I urge you to sit down and talk.

I feel you! First we were going to elope, and I just felt funny that we would get all dressed up (I still wanted wedding photos) and what, walk to some stranger, say a bunch of stupid vows, then have a meal in our uncomfortable clothes, and that's it. It felt too flat for me, so the next step was having a small outdoor thing at his parent's backyard, but then I got carried away with that and we settled on a destination wedding. Loving that, 23 people coming, it's perfect, and not too expensive for us (feel bad for the guests having to pay a lot to attend, but hopefully will be a nice vacation for them). But... since we had already sent out save the dates for the thing at his paretn's house, we still decided to have a casual reception. Well, now it's all adding up to so much. A casual reception - is just not my style, we have a taco truck coming, but I'm freaking out becasue . 1) what if it rains (tents for 100 people are like 3-4K), 2) where are people going to sit (need to rent a bunch of tables and chairs) 3) we still need a DJ, 4) still need food, 5) still need some favors. It was a seemingly good idea at the time, but now that we have 100 people coming to this stupid thing, I'll be mortified if it's a rainy mosquito filled standing in grass eating tacos with no music type thing... I'm applying for credit cards so I can cover these type things, but I wish I stuck with the eloping idea to begin with. Or just sucked it up and told the people we sent the save the dates to that we changed our mind and decided to do a destination.