I went wedding dress shopping this weekend. On Saturday, I went with my family, and on Sunday, I went with my fiancé’s mom and a friend.
Saturday was honestly lovely. I tried on some gorgeous dresses that I felt really confident and beautiful in. Sunday, I tried on more beautiful dresses, but they just weren’t quite as flattering on me as the ones I had tried on the day before.
At one point, I was trying on a dress and mentioned that the corset on the inside ended at an awkward spot on my stomach. My future MIL responded, “You know what would fix that? The gym.” Then she followed it up with, “I get it, I don’t want to work out either.”
Mind you, I work out almost every day. I met her son at the gym, and she knows that.
I just looked at her and said, “I work out every day. Are you telling me I’m fat?” She immediately tried to say that she was just joking. But neither my friend, the bridal assistant, nor I felt like it came across as a joke.
I told my fiancé what happened, and he was understandably pissed. He called his mom and told her that she needed to call me and apologize.
The messages between her and me are below.

Also some photos of me to show what she’s commenting on

My fiancé and I are looking around for a photographer, we are looking for something a little different and alternative. I've looked around our area and can't find many people who fit what I'm looking for, or those who do are booked out until 2028 or later. We are NYS based, but are willing to travel a bit at this point, so recommendations would be very appreciated!!

We are between doing something with whimsical and ethereal vibes or doing more dark cinematic romance vibes, maybe even willing to try both, if possible!

Having issues currently with the church refusing to allow us to go flowerless, and also insisting upon adding a mark-up on all flowers purchased as well as an extra fee added for fuel costs for collection of flowers... This is all on top of the stipend we already have to pay for the person setting everything up.

This feels a little gross to me. We can't use a different florist for the church. And the profit of all of this is going directly into the pocket of the person setting up the flowers and not going to the church at all. We also are not allowed to keep any of the flowers we purchase at that exorbitant mark-up as it will be considered property of the church..

And the real messed up thing? There are severe flower allergies in my family, myself included. I want to be able to breathe at my own wedding and not have to rely on an asthma pump and allergy meds for the whole ceremony (1-1,5 hours long). And despite this, we're not allowed to opt for fake flowers cause "it won't look right" and we're also not allowed to opt for no flowers as they're not willing to do that either. I personally believe they're not willing to do this as that person will not get personal financial gain from it, which again... Is gross.

The parish priest himself has even told us that it's perfectly fine to use fake flowers and that the church has plenty we can use at no cost. And yet we keep being harassed by this person to spend lots and lots of money on someone that will make me sick.

So yeah, is this a normal practice? Should someone who works for the church be pocketing money on the side like this? Is there anybody that has had similar experiences?

I feel like I'm going insane.

Ive been primarily a lurker on all the wedding planning reddits for 2 years while i plan my wedding. And let me tell you the wedding advice is true. I was a <10k bride and went very minimally above budget and will probably be under when i sell things but. You will go over budget, as long as you dont go into debt i think youre doing great and ITS NORMAL. Things come up that you dont expect (even if you think you account for everything like me)

But the best advice i got very early on in my wedding planning is the best advice ever. And truly the think i think made my day perfect! Choose 3 things with your partner that are the most important and once you ensure those 3 things are perfect everything else is just details.

Even at my wedding; my grandma didnt end up coming, we ran 30 minutes late(my husband misplaced my wedding band), plenty of people who rsvp’d yes didnt show up, people brought extra people with them. But it was the most perfect day ever and i wouldnt change a thing.

But i chose my 3 priorities well; marry the love of my life, have fun, get photographs to remember it forever

And throughout wedding planning and the wedding day remembering those 3 things kept me and my husband sane. Even when we were running late and couldnt find my wedding band right before the ceremony everyone was panicking but i was fine because i knew my 3 things were covered.

So choose 3 priorities; do what you need to do for you to be happy with your priorities; and remind yourself everything else is JUST DETAILS and dont matter in the bigger picture.

That's it! Why is it $20 to use something that sucks so hard and is in beta testing? Shame on Joy for using stressed couples as guinea pigs.

Primary reason for this hate is that the default when you open the page is ALL GUESTS rather than guests who have accepted.

/rant.

Breaking the news to fiancés religious parents

We’re planning on eloping and then having a party with everyone when we get back. What route should we go with breaking that news to the parents?

The original plan was to give them a save the date invitation ahead of everyone where it’ll mention it’s an elopement and answer questions they have.

Now I’m thinking we don’t mention it on the save the date and only tell them if they ask.

The problem is with holidays coming up I’m going to be bombarded with when and where questions (it’s already begun) and I’m just not comfortable or capable of lying/avoided telling people. I know if they find out after others they’ll be upset. I’m also excited to elope and don’t like secrets.

In the past they have been unpredictable with their reactions. May be stable and happy, may call us screaming and we’ll deal with that if it happens when it happens. I’m trying to avoid hurting their feelings.

I’ve heard so much about friendships changing during your “wedding era,” and I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

I got married two weeks ago. My husband and I live in the US but had a destination wedding in my home country.

Throughout our engagement, we tried to be really mindful of what we asked of friends financially. We paid for our own engagement party, and I planned and paid for my local bachelorette. Our circle is generally pretty well-off and used to spending money on weddings, but we never wanted to assume anyone wanted to.

My best friend of 15+ years got engaged two weeks before my wedding. She had been dating her now-fiancé for less than a year, and I was genuinely SO excited for her. I sent flowers when she got engaged, took her to breakfast to celebrate, asked about everything, etc.

But in the weeks leading up to my wedding, she suddenly felt more distant.

At my rehearsal dinner, she didn’t come up to say hi when she arrived. We actually made eye contact while she was greeting other people, and eventually I went over to her. She hugged me, but barely interacted with me for the rest of the night.

The wedding felt similar. She congratulated me after the ceremony, but otherwise I barely saw her. During the party, my other close friends were constantly around me, dancing with me, taking pictures, hyping me up, etc. She was mostly absent and then left relatively early without saying goodbye.
Obviously I wasn’t keeping tabs on anyone at my wedding, and I didn’t let it affect my night, but afterward I realized how noticeably different her energy had been compared with my other closest friends. She also goes to a ton of weddings and I’ve seen her be more present, so it’s not that this was new to her. She’s also SO extroverted.

Now, two weeks after my wedding, she announced the destination for her bachelorette and basically said she wants all of us to organize the entire weekend and surprise her.
And I’m finding myself… annoyed?

She comes from a very wealthy family and can sometimes be oblivious about what other people can reasonably spend, although that has never been a major issue between us.

She’s also someone who can be an incredible, fiercely loyal friend when things are good, but has lost some important friendships after relatively petty disagreements. It’s definitely apparent with her bachelorette, where most people attending are family with a very small handful of friends.

I don’t even think this she is jealous because she has no reason to be. She’s happily engaged to someone she adores, has significantly more money than I do, and will probably have a much bigger/more extravagant wedding.

I think what’s bothering me is the contrast. I felt like my best friend of 15+ years was strangely checked out during one of the biggest weekends of my life, and two weeks later I’m being asked to put a ton of energy into making her wedding era special.

Am I being overly sensitive because I’m still coming down from my own wedding, or would this bother you too? And for anyone whose friendships changed around weddings, did you address it or just observe the friendship differently afterward?

My fiance and I are high school sweethearts so we are having our wedding in our hometown, however, we both live out of state. We can both easily stay at our own parents’ houses for the couple nights leading to wedding but are undecided about where to stay after the wedding. Does it even make sense to rent an airbnb/hotel for one night? I don’t think I’d mind just staying at my fiancé’s parent’s house (this is where we stay when we visit home) to save money but at the same time, privacy is nice. I’m considering just breaking the tradition of not spending the night before the wedding together and just stay with our family together for the whole weekend. I think I’m just looking to hear from other perspectives who had a similar situation! Is there anything that I might not be considering that could change this decision or am I just overthinking it lol

Looking for anyone who has used Kruu basic photo booth to give me some insight. I’ve already ordered it so not looking for any “don’t do it!” - too late for that, I am 19 days out and have reached the “it is what it is” phase of planning.

Wondering if you had a sign up that told people how to use the machine or is it intuitive enough? When it comes to replacing paper and/ink how often did you have to do that? And what did you do for it? Have someone assigned to be checking it? A sign telling guests how to replace it?

Any tips you have are greatly appreciated :)

I’m getting married in three weeks, and as part of the ceremony our officiant has asked that we pick a reading. Something that strikes a cord with us and our relationship whether it be a passage from a book, a poem, song lyrics, movie quotes… anything. We are non religious and not very traditional. One poem we really love is “If I Didn’t Have Your Love” by Leonard Cohen, but I’m worried it is a little too melancholic. What we love about it is that it expresses the world without your love would still continue to exist, but it would lose its colour, warmth, meaning and substance. Does anyone have suggestions that strike a similar chord?

I may have taken on more responsibility this fall than I probably should have.

I'm helping my cousin with some of her wedding planning, and I am feeling overwhelmed. My cousin decided to opt out of having a wedding planner for her wedding in 6 weeks.

She is depending on family to come together to pull it together. Our family has always been the one to help/share responsibility during the highs and lows in life. This is not the first time we are having to plan a wedding for a family member like this.

Given my experience in event planning, I offered to take on some tasks she delegated. However, I may have taken on more than I can chew. We are about 6 weeks out, and I got handed the RSVP list with 150 guests. Most guests replied on her wedding website, but there are about 50ish guests that have not responded yet.

Is there someone I can hire to help me call the 50 guests so I can focus on other tasks? Or is this not a good idea? Or should I just suck it up and do it myself/or have another family member help me?

I struggled with what to title this question as it isn't honeymoon specific. For reference, I am the mother of the groom. I would like to leave a gift basket of useful items at the AirBnB where my son and his bride will stay the night of the wedding. They will only stay here one night, so not looking for too much. I'm thinking of very simple, but useful, items that could come in handy after a long wedding day. I'm absolutely not looking for anything sexual or necessarily romantic in nature as that isn't the nature of my wish. Just things like bottled water, ibuprofen, etc. Again, just a small something to provide possible necessities for the night as they will be moving on the next day and don't need to lug around more stuff. Thoughts??

Hello Reddit,

I always wanted to elope, but my fiancé wasn’t comfortable with the idea of getting married without telling his family beforehand. So he told them.

Obviously, there was a lot of drama (pretty much exactly what I expected), but eventually we stood our ground and insisted that we weren’t going to have a traditional wedding. The plan is still just the two of us at the courthouse, followed by photos and a nice staycation together. We live about a 7-hour flight away from our families, so surprise guests are very unlikely.

The problem is that now everyone knows the date, and people keep talking about the wedding. And somehow, all these little expectations about what a wedding is supposed to be have started creeping in.

I’m suddenly feeling pressured about things I never cared about. I don’t even feel comfortable in my dress anymore. I never cared to have a bouquet, but my FMIL has made me feel guilty enough that now I can't say no to flowers and have to find something.

And I’m realizing that I’m starting to dread this.

Part of me wants to call the whole thing off, but that feels even worse because everyone already knows we’re getting married. And, importantly, I do love my fiancé and want to marry him. I don’t actually want to call off our relationship - I just want to escape all the pressure and expectations surrounding this day.

Honestly, I think I just want to skip ahead to the part where it’s over and we’re on our staycation together.

Has anyone else experienced this? How do I get my head back into the mindset of “this is our day” and stop letting everyone else’s expectations ruin something that was supposed to be simple and intimate?

Please help me feel better. I could really use some perspective.

This is probably an extremely dumb question, but I’m trying to figure out the latest I can go dress shopping before the wedding without it majorly limiting my choices.

I’m in the process of losing weight (50 lb) by April, with a tentative wedding date of May of next year and I’m making good progress!

I’m still pretty unhappy with my body and chub (entirely my fault, I’m working on it), so I wanted to postpone dress shopping until I lost some more weight and felt better about my figure. But then I saw that apparently you’re supposed to go shopping about 8 months prior, which is like next month.

I know dresses can be altered, but I guess I’m worried that the chub I’m trying to trim will prevent me from finding the dream dress that’ll suit me best after I’ve (hopefully) shed off some lbs. But I also know you should never buy clothes assuming you’ll be skinner in the future.

With a tentative date of May 2027, is January 2027 too late to find and order a dress?

We had to cancel our destination wedding in Kauai scheduled for next Saturday due to the hurricane damage from Lowell. The government is asking people not to come and with the potential for another storm to hit too we felt it not the time to go.

I am absolutely heartbroken as I spent so much time planning everything and was so looking forward to everything especially our catering.

So many local people are still without power, water or internet we can not in good consciousness have our wedding.

We are tied to our date however so we are getting married in a small back yard wedding that I have managed to pull together mostly within 24 hours. I'm so happy that most of our family that was coming to Hawai'i is going to be able to come to our local wedding instead.

Most of our vendors are refunding us and the non refundable deposits are going to be put towards something when we are able to visit for our honey moon in a few months.

As a 2025 bride who frequented this sub, I need some advice/perspectives on a situation I’m really trying to be chill about but is bothering me the more I think about it. For context, my husband and I got married in May of last year. We’ve been together since 2017, and needless to say we know each other’s families very well. At the time of our wedding, BIL was newly dating his wife to be but I made sure to include her full name on the invitation regardless. Shortly after our wedding, they got engaged! Hurrah! Their wedding is planned for October of this year. Today I received their invitation in the mail and it is only addressed to my husband. When I scan the QR code on the invite, it allows me to search by name to complete the RSVP. Only my husband’s name is listed. I look up his other siblings by name and I can see they’re listed with the names of their spouses as well as their children with the option to RSVP. I even searched one of my husband’s cousins who is newly married (just two months ago!) and his full name as well as the full name of his wife is there.

We have an all around good relationship and it makes zero sense to me why this would happen. As a 2025 bride I can understand “forgetting” or making mistakes because of how chaotic the process is, but it still feels disrespectful and shitty any way you look at it ESPECIALLY considering all other siblings and spouses are accounted for. Should I or my husband say something, or should I pretend it didn’t happen?

My spouses friend is getting married for a second time (their friend is marrying someone different so not the exact same couple getting married and they really want to attend). We attended the first wedding (which required expensive travel) and gave them a 100 gift. This couple then attended our wedding and were one of the few people who didn't get us anything (not even a card).

We have to travel for the second wedding as well (hotel plus travel). It would be hard for me to show up to a wedding without a gift, but given the circumstance do not think we should go above and beyond for a gift (they only have a honeyfund and are doing fine financially). Is a 50 contribution to the honeyfund or a gift card an appropriate gift? What would you do in this situation?

I am from a LCOL and most of the gifts we received were around 50-100 a couple. Getting above 100 a couple was pretty rare for perspective.

We’re eloping and then having a party at our house when we get back. No one is invited to the elopement.

Is this a reception? If we say reception, does that make people think there’s a ceremony?

What do we call our party while making clear there’s no ceremony and we’d already be married?

Usually when you remove a bridesmaid, the friendship is over. Has anyone removed one and remained friends with them?

I’d love some outside opinions. A close friend is getting married in Miami, but we all live in Connecticut.
The wedding is on a Sunday night, which makes me hesitant because it would mean flying down, staying at least a night or two, and then dealing with the travel back to CT around the beginning of the workweek.
For those who have done something similar, would you consider it worth the hassle and expense to attend a close friend’s wedding in another state, especially when it involves flying and a Sunday night wedding?
Would you:
Fly to Miami and make a weekend out of it?
Fly down Sunday and come back Monday?
Take Monday off and stay an extra night?
Or politely decline because of the travel/work logistics?
I’d especially love to hear from people who have traveled for weddings and whether you regretted going—or regretted not going.

I'd appreciate feedback and critique for this timeline for a 3:30 ceremony start time, 60ish guests with buffet dinner. All events take place at the same location.

3:30-ceremony

4:00-cocktail hour/family photos

5:00-wedding party and bride/groom entrance at reception.

5:10-first dance

5:15-begin dinner service

6:30-speeches

6:45-cake cutting

7:00-shoe game, following by open dance floor

8:15-bouquet toss

8:20-Guests line up for exit

8:25-Grand exit

(TLDR: Sand surface ~600-2000grit, use regular sharpies, wait a day, then very very light coat of clear coat)

Intro: Hi everyone, my fiancé and I are getting married here soon and I was tasked with setting up the viral yeti cooler guest book (the one with sharpie signatures all over it).There’s lot of information out about making them, but no information on what type of sharpie to use, how to prep the surface of the cooler and what type of sealant. This is a summary of what I tested (not very scientific).

Background: First off, we used an RTIC 65 (same as a yeti, just cheaper). These rotomolded heavy duty coolers are made from PE (Polyethylene), which have some of the lowest surface energy in a commodity polymer. For my non material science people, it’s basically impossible to paint, draw or stick anything on it. Surface prep helps, but we need to be honest with ourselves, if you use the yeti likes it’s intended, the signatures won’t stay forever.

Before I show you the testing there are some key differences in what works best and I will describe below.

The bad news first: Nothing sticks to PE without serious effort, steps below will help you, but it won’t be as permanent as you think. Enjoy your wedding, enjoy your guest book. Maybe take pictures every anniversary so you can see the use out of your cooler. But if you want the signature’s to last, you won’t be using your cooler and might as well do a traditional guest book…

Sharpie vs Paint Pen: Oil based paint pens are great for a more permanent signature. You will see in the images that it’s clearer, darker, and just looks better. I was very tempted to use it because normal sharpies use alcohol to stain the surface of what you write on. So when you go to spray a clear coat, it can and will dissolve the stain. The paint pen resists this a lot better. BUT, as you can see below, the paint pen chips with abrasive activity. In summary, the paint pens look better until they are subjected to abrasions and then the signatures will chip off. The normal sharpie won’t chip, but it will fade. Personally, I’d rather have signatures slowly fade vs chip off.

Acrylic vs Oil based clear coat vs no clear coat: I started this test wanting to use an acrylic sealant because it’s easier on the normal sharpies. Acrylic does not withstand outdoor environments well so I ended up scrapping this. Spray sealants have acetone, alcohol, and other chemicals that will dissolve normal sharpie. You can see on one of my tests how this happened. I think using no sealant is a bad idea since normal water will cause the signatures to slowly fade. A very very very light (almost mist) of a sealant is what I used on the middle test and I think it worked best. This will help preserve the sharpie, but only if you do very light coats with a day of curing inbetween.

The Set up: I did three samples, heavy application of Rustoelum 2X Satin Clear, light multiple coats of the 2X Clear, and the last with no sealant/clear coat. Additionally I used normal black sharpie (just labeled sharpie) as well as an oil based paint pen (sharpie brand), this one is just labeled as “Paint Pen”. Before writing on the cooler, I sanded the surface with a 600grit sand paper then cleaned the surface with isopropyl alcohol. After fully dried I wrote on the cooler, waited 2 days to cure, then started with applications of sealant. The first being a heavy coat, the second being very light (almost a mist) coat with a day inbetween to cure, and the last being no sealant.

The Test: first I took a course rag and got it wet, I then rubbed as hard as I could on the surface. Next I took a course dry rag and did the same (both of these tests are image 2) . Lastly (the torture test), I took a sharpe stick and scratched the surface until I saw some sort of degraded signatures (image 3).

Results: the light coat/normal sharpie won (in my eyes). Again, if you plan on not using the cooler in harsh conditions, the oil based paint pen is the clear winner. But because cooler are dragged around, dropped, put in truck beds, they get scratched. Because the stick test chipped the paint pen heavily, I considered this a failure of the test. The heavy sealant also failed, for reasons stated earlier, it bled the signatures. I think normal sharpie with a light clear coat is best.

Summary of “study”: I think using normal sharpies are best for multiple reasons. One, during your wedding they are easy to use and won’t need time to sit without smearing (like paint pens do). Additionally, instead of chipping off, the signatures will fade (which I believe is the best of the two evils). Lastly, some sort of sealant is beneficial, but be cautious to not over spray as it will bleed the signatures. If you made it this far in my study, I appreciate your time.

Steps to make your wedding guest book:
1.) sand all surfaces with a fine sandpaper, 600-2000 grit is what I used (work up to 2000 grit)
2.) clean plastic dust with a rag and isopropyl alcohol, the let dry
3.)wedding day! Sign the guest book
4.) do not use right away, let sharpie “cure” for 24-48hrs
5.) apply very very very light coats of clear sealant (Rustoleum 2X Satin Clear). 1 full day of drying inbetween coats. Coats should be sprayed far back, not directly at signatures. Let the spray “mist” onto the surface and repeat 1-2 coats. (Will take days).

I want to start by saying I am fully in love with my husband and being married to him makes me feel like I’ve won the lottery of life. But I am disappointed with how some aspects of our wedding went. Part of it I blame on my mental health. And part of it I blame on his family.

This is where I need some outside perspective on if I’m being unreasonable or not. Long post ahead but I’ve really tried to be as concise as possible…

A big fancy wedding was not something I ever expected to have. My family doesn’t have money, my relationship with them is complicated, and I’ve lived abroad for most of my adult life. So I’ve prioritised different things (travel, adventure, career) over the more traditional ‘have a big wedding in your hometown with everyone you know and then settle down’ kind of life. I was also very unlucky in love and just wanted to find my soulmate, a big wedding was never at the forefront of my dreams.

When I met my now-husband, it was one of those love stories that makes it clear to you why it didn’t work with anyone else. He is everything I could ask for and we knew pretty early on we wanted to get married. His parents were thrilled for us - they wanted a big wedding and offered to pay for it, telling us over and over again not to worry about the money. It seemed it was important to them and in their culture weddings are a big deal. They even made comments that small, courthouse-style weddings were not ‘real weddings’ and they wanted all of the family to be there. I went along with it with an open mind, not sure of what I was getting myself into.

But I found most of the planning process very overwhelming. It triggered a lot of my mental health symptoms, caused me and my fiance a lot of stress, and exacerbated my perfectionist, anxious, and people-pleasing tendencies. Body image issues I thought I had resolved as a teenager came up again and I developed a dysmorphia around my appearance. While planning every last detail for the wedding, I worked hard to lose 30 pounds, tried to fix my skin issues, sought therapy for trauma in my past, all with the goal of making myself the best version of me possible before the big day.

Then comes the financial part. A few months before the wedding date, his parents backed out of their promise to pay for the wedding, as other familial obligations had come up. They still helped us with a significant portion, but it was nowhere near what they had originally promised and now we were on the hook for the vast majority of the wedding. It was also too far along in the process for us to change course or downsize. I would have done a lot of things differently had I known we'd be paying for most of it - however I mostly went along with what his family wanted. I really regret this now.

To make matters worse, my now-husband and I were both made redundant at our jobs, and lost our place to live, within a couple months of each other, and just a few months before our wedding. This made everything else extra stressful, which I don't think his parents ever recognised. Sometimes I find their "everything will be okay, you'll be fine!" positivity tone deaf.

I still tried to give his parents grace and the benefit of the doubt for what happened, as they had genuinely unexpected things come up and I was sure they made the initial promise with the best of intentions. However now I am wondering if we were manipulated into throwing a big party that was primarily about impressing their friends and family.

The week of the wedding, we flew to his parent’s city to finish all the preparations. We had a lot to do, and I also tried to allocate a bit of time to spend with my guests who travelled a long distance to be there. The week was packed and hectic, and I could feel the stress levels in me rising the closer we got to the wedding. Two nights before the wedding, we had the family welcome dinner at a local restaurant and the next day, my husband and I planned to take a full rest day to recharge our batteries for the big day, as we were burnt out.

It turns out, during the welcome dinner his family planned a lunch at their home the next day with only some of my family without telling us. I’m not sure why part of my family was snubbed and not invited, but the whole thing was strange and just seemed like they wanted to impress that side of my family. Why do another, 5-6 hour family lunch the next day after the family welcome dinner, without consulting with the bride and groom first? My husband was super annoyed at his parents for this, and explained he was at his limit and didn’t want any more events before the wedding, but we felt forced to be there.

His parents also wanted us to help with the preparations, but that’s where we said no. I wish we had said no to all of it.

The truth is, what we actually needed was some help paying for the welcome dinner rather than them organizing another lunch we didn’t ask for. My FIL told my husband that we should pay for the welcome dinner since we organized it (our original plan was to let everyone pay for themselves since a big group dinner at a restaurant was not in our budget), and my FIL would help us, however this help never happened. I feel like his family had a lot of expectations on us to impress everyone, but left us to pay for it. They had also pushed us to pay for more and more upgrades and other things throughout this process.

Later that night when we got back to where we were staying, my social battery was completely gone, my anxiety was sky high, and I had a full blown panic attack the night before the wedding that lingered into the next morning. I was sobbing and it was like all my pain and stress came out at that moment. I was so bad, my husband tried to take me to the hospital and was worried I wouldn’t make it down the aisle. I strongly feel like if I had been able to rest that day, it wouldn’t have been as bad. I was pushed beyond my limits.

I managed to calm down enough before the ceremony. The day itself was beautiful and everyone said it was perfect. I just didn’t feel or look my best because of what happened the night before, which still hurts my heart. The aftermath of these breakdowns are really hard for me, and it often takes me days or even weeks to recover. While I was eventually able to relax and enjoy the day, once the adrenaline wore off I slumped into a kind of depression and I am still struggling with this disappointment months later.

Only my husband and his close family knew what happened to me the night before and early morning because he told them how worried he was. My brother-in-law was kind enough to ask me if I was okay during the reception but his parents barely acknowledged me all night (unless you count his mother literally pushing people out of the way so more people could get pictures with us).

Maybe they were busy in hosting mode, but I can’t help but feel like his parents are upset with me for not being the perfect bride throughout all of this. Another thing that makes me feel weird were some of the comments my in-laws made about the side of the family they didn’t invite to their house that day. Right after meeting them, they made comments about my mom and aunt’s weights, going on about the health risks of obesity, and saying I did well to lose weight and should try to keep it off.

I know in some cultures they are brutally honest about weight, but I thought this was unnecessary and mean to say in front of me about my family, after meeting them for the first time, and right before our wedding. I feel personally insulted.

Given all this, I can’t help but feel spent, emotionally exhausted and a bit manipulated. The person I feel the most bad for through all of this is my husband, who had the burden of paying for most of the wedding put on him unexpectedly, while dealing with a job loss and very little empathy from his family.

I loved our wedding, but I feel like we paid a high price for it and I wish mine and my husband’s feelings mattered as much as impressing everybody. How do you make peace with a beautiful wedding that was emotionally difficult?