Wedding Help

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I guess this all goes deeper than my wedding, but now that it’s coming up, I’m not sure what to do. We are a blended family of his, mine and ours. We’ve been together 4 years. I have my kids full time, his older two each have a child of their own and live on their own. His teenagers are with us every weekend. I love each one of them and do my best to be there for them, reach out on occasion etc without making them feel like I’m trying to be their mom. The teenagers are easier - we get along great... the older two were raised strictly by their dad (both daddy’s girls) with the help of his ex-wife (teenager’s mom) for some of that time. The two older girls are very hot and cold. They reach out only when they need something, just ask for their dad when I answer the phone without a hello, how are you etc. I get the feeling they want their dad’s sole attention and understand that and even try to envy him to go do things with just them. Trying to schedule family photos ends up usually in disappointment because one or both don’t show up or want to be in them. Fine, but sad. One of them just got married earlier this year which he/we paid for. Not once was I asked to help with the wedding, shop for wedding gowns nor was the wedding really discussed with me. I felt really left out and hurt. I arrived at the wedding and was shocked to see that his daughter the bride had invited his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend. Understood the ex-wife, but thought inviting the ex-girlfriend was a little rude, but never said a word. I try to go with the flow, keep a smile my face, but I am a more emotional person and feel things deeply. Now it’s our turn to get married. The people pleaser / mother in me wants all of the kids to be in included, but don’t even know if that’s what the older ones want. I get overwhelmed thinking of awkwardly picking out bridesmaids dresses with them, or them not even showing up. I only have my sister close, so I want her to come with me to find a dress, but don’t want the backlash for not including them. Then the thought of the day of the wedding... I fear drama, I fear seeing on their faces that they don’t want to be there and feeling hurt... I’ve almost considered not even having a wedding. Future hubby doesn’t want to hear. He’s a great dad, but has spoiled them rotten and they could never do wrong. Talking with him about it just starts things between us. He doesn’t see any of it. Help!!!

Destination wedding

Destination wedding or elope combo with honeymoon? You can still have a lovely dress and a lot of the resorts do wonderful packages where you choose everything and literally just show up. Easy-peasy. As far as anyone but your sister coming with you for your dress, if you did not go with them, why would they come with you? But if you have no attendants then that solves the bridesmaid issue. Surely you can sell him on a combination of how romantic and how cost saving it will be. Does he seriously want to spend the money for a big wedding?

This is the perfect answer.

This is the perfect answer. The resorts take care of everything, very little for you to have to do, which is a total blessing. With destination weddings, there is so much to do and so much going on, it would help take the pressure off you.

This also limits the amount of people that come. Also, with having to take time off of work, the older SD's may not be able to make it. That would eliminate them being an issue. If they can, they can just be guests. Only have your sister as a brides made and if you have any littles- they can be ring bearer/ flower girl, but leave the teens out of it as well. Keep it simple is always the best policy!

Neither of us want a big

Neither of us want a big wedding. We want friends and family to be there to celebrate our vows and special day. More like a nontraditional ceremony and after party. It’s very important to me that my children are part of it. They are so excited! However, I can’t fathom having my kids and his younger two be part of it and leaving the older two out. But... I can’t imagine things going smoothly with the older two included. Hence my problem. Maybe I just need to get creative.

Please stop this! You are

Please stop this! You are still worrying more about pleasing others than abouit pleasing yourself. Look, you want a nontraditional wedding so have one. Nobody has to be IN the wedding other than the bride and groom. Nobody. Invite everybody but youi don't have to do the usual hoopla with bridesmaids and groomsmen and ring bearers and flower girls and all the rest of the useless stuff that is just "dressing up", "scenery and props" for the really important part, your vows. Not only that, but as you don't want a big showy wedding, if you did go down the bridesmaids etc. route, you'll have more people in the wedding party than not!

Yoiu do you and to hell with the rest of them. Plan your wedding with your husband and forget about a wedding party. That way nobody will be offended. The chances are that the ones who were getting all excited about the wedding were more interested in the dress they'd be getting for it than in their participation. So buy them the posh frocks of their dreams! Problem solved.

It sounds fairly clear that

It sounds fairly clear that these kids don't really see you in a parental role. You are their father's fiancee/girlfriend. Now, that's fine. I would not have expected his daughter to involve you in dress hunting and the like.. that is definitely more something she would do with her own mother.. or her bridesmaids friends.

Now, If I were YOU.. I wouldn't have personally had any of my money go towards the girl's wedding. It's clear they don't really view you as "family".. they also seem to have more allegiance to mom.

In any case.. if you can't get your DH to agree to a wedding out of town.. you do NOT need to include any of the kids IN the wedding. I would invite them.. that would be the extent of it.

In the end, it's not either of your first weddings right? with older kids etc.. it really doesn't mean you have to have a formal affair.. why not just go to your favorite vacation spot and tie the knot. don't invite ANY of the kids (even yours lol).. enjoy each other.

Yes, exactly. Stop expecting

Yes, exactly. Stop expecting to be seen as anything other than Dad’s wife, and stop seeing them as anything other than your husband’s kids. At least they are not rude to you, but they owe you nothing more than that, and you don’t owe them anything more either.

Just invite them to the wedding and stop caring if they want to be there or not. Do your wedding as you want, they need be no part of it at all.

Personally, I don't think

Personally, I don't think most SKs even see their SMs as dad's wife. Many appear to have little to no recognition much less respect for the husband-wife relationship between SM and dad. But, I get what you are saying. . . don't expect huggy, kissy, touchy, feely.

We’ve both been married twice

We’ve both been married twice, but he had never proposed until me (first got pregnant, second gave an ultimatum) and never had an actual wedding. Since he’s blind or oblivious to anything his kids do wrong, he doesn’t see any issues and he wants a wedding. I respect that - of course he does - my kids love him, he doesn’t have to deal with what I do. He made sure all our kids were present when he proposed - which I also really respect, but if I try to talk about my feelings, potential drama etc - it’s like I’m saying I hate your kids and that I’m the asshole. Ugh. I am extremely close with my family. It’s been really difficult being with someone whose family I feel are so distant or unenvolved. Part of my problem is that I’m always worried about making everyone else happy. Here I am trying to do it again. Our son is 2. My kids are 5 and 12 . I have no problem with them and his twins (14) being in it, but when I think of the older two I just get overwhelmed and worried. Blending families is no joke!

You are an adult and there by

You are an adult and there by get to make all the decisions. Don't let your people pleasing ways get in the way of your day. Hopefully this will be the last one ever.

Just start doing things, choosing things and let the chips fall where they may. If the kids don't like what you choose, too bad, this is YOUR wedding, not theirs. If FDH starts asking you to compromise to kiss skid butt, then you better slow down and take another look at marrying him. You don't want the rest of YOUR life to be in service to any dysfunction on his side of the family.

Drop any Brady Bunch blended fantasy and work or don't work with the people in your situation. You can't do much more.

Thank you. I get so caught up

Thank you. I get so caught up in trying to make sure that everyone’s included in everything that I don’t know if I really remember how to just do things for just myself. We will never be the Brady Bunch, I get it... but a little kindness goes a long way.

Since this is a third wedding

Since this is a third wedding for both of you (not that there's anything wrong with that) you do not have to be bound by "tradition". Many people when they are older or it is not a big "first" wedding have a scaled down affair. It can still be a HUGE big event if that is important to your fiance. But you don't need 9 bridesmaids. A maid of honor and a best man are sufficient. Give all the steps or bios corsages or boutonierres but they don't have to have a special outfit, etc.

Two friends of mine had "second" or "third" marriages where they had many, many friends. They had a huge table of flowers that could be pinned and every woman who was her friend could choose to wear one. Same for the men.

My very, very favorite weddings and celebrations were on the more casual side. They were still BIG celebrations but the wedding "rules" were tossed aside.

Agreed! When I say wedding-

Agreed! When I say wedding- my vision is more of a somewhat non traditional ceremony with a party after to celebrate with family and friends on our farm. While a destination wedding sounds great - I have young kids that so want to be included and that are so excited about us getting married. I want the day to be for all of us. I’d be ecstatic if the older two wanted to be part of it. But I’d be wearing rose colored glasses if I said that was true.

I used to love weddings,

I used to love weddings, until I got my head slammed at SD’s wedding. Now I tend to look at all weddings for what they really are nowadays—an excuse to have a big “look at me” party. At one time weddings were seen much more so as uniting two families than the bride and groom’s special day. Formalizing the union religiously was equally important as well (a/k/a giving permission to have sex and children). Generational differences can be huge regarding expectations for weddings.

Many baby boomers, and anyone older, still look at weddings as mainly family unifiers. Gen-Xers were the first to start to look at weddings more as unifying husband and wife foremost vs. unifying families, and started adding the concept of a wedding being about a big party vs. having to fit some type of mold, religious or otherwise. Millennials carried the thought of weddings being foremost about the bride (and groom) to a whole ‘nother level, and added the concept of a wedding being largely a great excuse to have a big party to impress all of your friends and a few family members. Screw anyone who dares to try to intrude on their big day with genuine thoughts of etiquette, conventional ethics, politeness, and so on.

This is why your SD had no problem inviting one of dad’s ex-girlfriends to her wedding, which was completely rude, by the way. But, to her, she wanted her there, for whatever reason, and that is all that mattered to SD.

AND, this is why you are having so much debate over how to handle your wedding—you want to do the right thing. You want to unify families. You want to adhere to etiquette in some form and be polite. I always say a SM has to do what works for her, and as someone else said above, let the chips fall where they may. I find no matter what a SM does, there is someone there every time (mostly non-steps) telling her it is wrong. So, do what works for you and your DH. Ignore the rest. It’ll drive you nuts, otherwise. Non-steps just don’t get it. They just think that the more the SM kisses so-and-so’s pinky ring, the more likely they are to get along. Doesn’t work that way nowadays. Nowadays, unfortunately, kids are being raised to take whatever they can get, and if someone gives them something for free (no boundaries or low expectations for behavior), all the better.

Me, I’m pretty much done with weddings now and other potential high-conflict family events, such as baby baptisms. No one gets it. I prefer to stay away and enjoy a spa day rather than jump in and get involved in another family’s divorce/ split drama that, quite frankly, will continue on until the day my DH dies. He and his family can all deal with it; they can all jump in or stand on the sidelines of the familial viper den they created any way they choose. Me, I don’t have to. P.S. I’m sold on the destination wedding idea too!

You hit it on the nail. More

You hit it on the nail. More than anything I want a united family. I always want to do the right thing. I always want to make sure everyone is included. Sadly, I feel like it bites me it the ass. That’s my battle... doing the right thing, but at my expense. I’m the one that always gets hurt by it. Example, making sure everyone gets invited for family photos... never would I schedule them for just my kids. I just don’t think that’s right, regardless of how they treat me. I’m the adult right? Yet, it’s really hard to keep a smile on my face when one doesn’t want to be there or the others sit there and take cell phone photos of just their siblings and post and share those. I understand they were a family first, I’ve wven offered to let them take their own family photos so they have them...

But what is the right thing?

But what is the right thing? Right for whom? Is it what your fiance wants? Your young bios? The older steps??

In steplife, it's easy to lose yourself trying to please everyone. But the truth is, everyone has a different agenda and doesn't necessarily care about you. The truth is, you have to deal with what you yourself know to be true and not indulge the delusions of others. The truth is, not grounding yourself in reality (no matter how unpalatable it may be) will lead to you suffering.

You need to get really, really, brutally REAL about your fiance's eldest daughters. Wishing and hoping won't help at all, but pragmatic practicality will. Stop twisting yourself up trying to please and accommodate them. Accept that they don't like you, wish you well, or approve of you marrying their father. Once you squarely face and accept how things are, you'll achieve clarity and be able to make informed, logical decisions.

Your fiance may never fully accept or acknowledge his daughters' antipathy towards you. What has he done about it? If he's asking you to suck it up or be the bigger person, this is code for "Avoid the issue and rugsweep so I don't have to deal with it". He should have shut down their mistreatment of you long ago. Have you brought this up in counseling? Shared that you feel there's a probability that these women will cast a pall on the wedding he wants so badly?

Work this poo out completely and thoroughly in counseling, and don't marry unless your fiance deals. with. his. brats. I'm dead serious. The divorce stats on second and third marriages are staggering, so you're already up against a stacked deck and these women WILL ramp up after the wedding.

No kids!

I didn't want my step daughter anywhere near mine. She actually got upset that I didn't include her in any thing. She wanted to know what color dress i was wearing and what colors i was doing so she could match.

she just had her wedding in December. In her narcissistic world, she got me back by making sure I was not invited to the two showers she had and she had her mom and the MIL in a totally different color than every one else and told me I could wear whatever i wanted to. Not that I cared about any of that, but she totally ditched her dad and wouldn't let him walk her down the aisle.

She is such a narcissist that she didn't want to share walking down the aisle with her dad, because all of the attention wouldn't be on her.

My second wedding I just

My second wedding I just invited oeople for a get together and sprung the wedding on them.

I don't think what the rest of us

I don't think what the rest of us would do is going to help. I seem to be in the majority - we (second marriage for both, all kids adults) booked a lodge at the park for a day, invited about 50 relatives and friends, and bought assorted alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages and pans of barbecue. A judge friend married us and that was that. No gifts per our request.

So it's hard to relate. I don't do weddings and I'd rather have a root canal than go dress shopping, even for my own kid lol. Fortunately my daughter planned her own destination wedding and all we had to do was show up. (I gave them a nice cash gift though - I'm not completely heartless!). I wouldn't expect SD to want to be included in dress shopping. For her wedding, her own mom, future MIL, or girlfriends.

But this is about what you and your DH want. I think we're all concerned about your expectations not being realistic or aligning with his. The fact that you cannot communicate with him about this is a big red flag.

My wedding totally got

My wedding totally got hijacked by SS.

We were planning a beach wedding where we live. His family was flying in, it was during the summer and we were supposed to have SS. My family and kids were all going to be there. It was going to be fairly small. Less than 50, but perfect.

Then BM filed another petition to keep SS in his state so he could play baseball with the rec league. DH was up for orders and we couldn't wait any longer than our date to get married.

On the way to my other SS's graduation in the same general area as SS14, I had an idea. We planned our whole wedding from the car, booked the tiny chapel off of MIL's church, had DH's uncle marry us, I amazon primed a dress. DH wore his uniform. We planned the whole thing for 4 days out. It worked, we had our kids there. BM tried to keep him away but she ran out of reasons.

I am so bitter at this point about my wedding. While what mattered to us at the time (having our kids there) was important, I wish I would known then what I know now. I would have kept my dream beach wedding and not done what we did. My SS doesn't give a flying F about me or DH.

Moral of the story- Don't worry about the SD's. Don't worry about including them. They can be guests. Blame it on the fact that they have their own kids to look after, just include the twins and your bios. Don't let your wedding be about anyone other than you and DH.

How does your FDH envision

How does your FDH envision the wedding?

Did I read that this is a 3rd wedding for both of you? If so, let's hope third times a charm! For DH and I it was his second marriage and my third so I'm right there with you sister. We both had the traditional 1st wedding that resulted in a marriage going up in flames so this time opted for something small and cozy. His mother has a nice yard so we got married there. We invited a few friends and family who got 24 hours notice specifically so there wouldn't be long drawn out drama and opposition. Drama queen ss33 actually got same day notice *ROFL* DH's idea. My dress was from a thrift shop, it was white but not an actual wedding dress.

It was tolerable, I would have preferred going to Vegas but DH wanted his mother to be part of. Predictably ss33 got drunk, I have no idea where the booze even came from since we didn't supply any. He started getting loud and beligerent. Of course DH had to attend to him to try to keep things calm. ss was our witness (DH's grand idea) and his signature is one giant black scribble that about tore through the wedding certificate.

I agree with others that a very toned down wedding or specifically an elopement would be ideal for your situation. Whatever you choose to do is going to p*ss off someone, by now you should know that you're never going to be able to please everyone.

ELOPE!

Go do a destination wedding, no need to take a chance that daddys little girls cry "dont do it daddy" when you are about to say i do. Seriously, this is your day, you know darn well that his daughters will be a black cloud on your wedding day (and the day after and so on...)

I made that choice to elope, and it was the best thing we did...when we came back we had a family dinner. Where not once did the precious SD ask about our wedding, comment on our photos, or even acknowledge our marriage. But then again no surprise, she didnt acknowledge our engagement either.

Dont take any chances...have your special day without potential damage from them.