What I Wish I Knew Before Getting Engaged
Is “happily-ever-after” really worth the stress of pleasing two different families?
“Will you marry me?”
The words I’d been longing to hear finally left my boyfriend’s mouth on our fifth anniversary. Of course, he put his own spin on it. He overemphasised the word “marry”, making the question sound like the audio embodiment of a ransom letter made from newspaper clippings, and he accidentally revealed that he was going to propose a week before he did. But that made it even more charming, even more him. We are both slightly awkward, it’s what makes us such a good match, which is why we decided that the wedding should probably not be a large event. What could be worse than two very inappropriate people hosting a massive party and reading out wedding vows in front of an entire family? Only 23% of couples had a religious wedding ceremony in 2017, and the number is on a steady decline, so we truly thought elopement at a registry office sounded like the best idea.
His family disagreed.
Soon enough our “small wedding” began increasing in size and cost. Even now, with over a year left until we finally reap the tax benefits of being legally bound to one another, I can feel the stress creeping up on me. And sometimes I find myself wondering:
“If I knew it would be like this before getting engaged, would I have agreed to it?”
The answer is, of course, yes. I’m marrying my school sweetheart, my best friend since I was eleven. He’s been there through terrible hairstyles, plenty of weight gain, and my infamous emo phase. And I love him. But I still wish I knew how stressful marrying him would end up being, not because of him but because of everyone else.
Everyone has an opinion.
And they all think the bride-to-be wants to hear it.
According to a 2020 survey, 42% of married couples say that one of the most stressful parts of wedding planning is trying to please all their family members and manage family politics, and I see why. My father nearly cried when I said he won’t be walking me down the aisle and my mother grimaced at the wedding dresses I showed her. But I have a small family with small opinions. My fiancé’s family are very different.
It soon dawned on me that I’m not just marrying my partner, I’m marrying his family too.
And that comes with its own responsibilities. My tiny family of ageing hippies completely contradicts his family’s traditional views.
My parents, who are a bit too progressive even for me, got married as a break from hitchhiking across Europe and had a large cannabis edible as their wedding cake. My fiancé’s parents had a traditional church wedding, with expensive transport and bridesmaids in beautiful dresses. As I soon found out, these contrasting ideas do not marry together well.
Although my family may be a bit eccentric, their laid-back attitude towards life has always made it easier for me to make my own decisions. My in-laws, with their blinkered views on my fiancé’s future, have left me open to judgement. I have been offered unsolicited dietary advice (it is, apparently, inappropriate to be fat on your wedding day), told that my future children will be catholic (despite neither my fiancé nor myself being religious), and been pushed towards increasingly expensive decisions.
In 2019, the average wedding cost nearly £32,000.
And I’m starting to see why. I never thought I needed an extravagant dress or an over-priced venue to prove my love for my partner, but certain family members seem to disagree. I wish I knew how easily weddings could increase in expense, even when the couple don’t want anything grand.
In the aim of appeasing family, we all have to cave in for some decisions. After all, I’ll do anything to avoid his UKIP-voting mother and my Marxist father from arguing on “my” big day.
Although, it isn’t “my big day”, not really. It is everyone else’s big day. And if I knew that from the start, I wouldn’t have been so excited. But, despite all the moaning family members and impending financial ruin, I’d still have said yes. Because there’s no one I’d rather laugh through the stress with than him.
