Growing up, I was never the kind of girl who fantasised about her wedding day. I never understood how people could complain about one of the most important days of their lives either. But even I couldn’t have imagined just how wrong it could go – or how much I’d end up learning from the experience.

My own wedding was so disastrous that my husband and I changed what was supposed to be our honeymoon into a second wedding in an effort to have the day I wanted.

Looking back, the warning signs were there early on. My in-laws, Anita* and Chris*, kindly offered to pay for the majority of the wedding, and for that, I’m still grateful. The wedding cost £30,000 and they paid a massive £25,000 towards it, but what I didn’t realise at the time was that their generosity came with invisible strings. I wish I’d known what my fiancé and I were agreeing to when Anita and Chris first made their generous offer.

At first, everything seemed perfect. They joined us for venue visits, sat in on meetings with our wedding planner and Anita even offered to help with admin – including sending out our invitations. It felt like they genuinely wanted to make life easier for us. But gradually, that ‘helpfulness’ turned into control.

Taking over

Anita had strong opinions on everything, and these weren’t quiet suggestions either. She made her preferences known loudly and often in front of others, which made pushing back feel difficult and, frankly, ungrateful.

During a conversation with the wedding planner about flower arrangements, she cut me off and declared her dislike for hydrangeas (one of my favourite flowers) while reminding us all who was footing the bill. It was humiliating.

The invitations should have been the first clue that something was wrong. Anita and Chris insisted they’d handle mailing them out.

Weeks later, while following up on RSVPs, I noticed a few people I’d expected to hear from hadn’t replied. When I checked in with them, I was stunned to learn they’d never received an invitation at all. Some assumed they hadn’t made the guest list and made other plans. I was heartbroken they wouldn’t be there for the big day.

Eventually, I discovered that a dozen of our friends and extended family members had been left out entirely. And because our guest numbers were so tight, we only had a handful of extra invitations to offer. Anita had either ‘forgotten’ to send their invitations or swapped them for her own friends – people we barely knew. I wish I had done it all myself.

The chaos didn’t stop there. When it came time for my dress fitting, I had planned a special, intimate day with Anita, my sister and three bridesmaids. But Anita turned up with two of her own friends in tow.

“You’ll definitely want to lose a bit before the big day,” she said as I stood there in front of the mirror. When I tried on a gown I loved – a long, strapless dress with a sweetheart neckline – she wrinkled her nose and said, “With shoulders that broad, you might want to rethink wearing a strapless.”

I was mortified. But I said nothing and asked my sister not to say anything either. Instead, I stayed silent to keep the peace.

I did wear the dress in the end. And I loved it. But I never told Anita how deeply her comments had hurt me.

Disastrous speeches

The wedding itself was beautiful – at least on the surface. After months of stress, I was just relieved it was happening. But then came the speeches.

Anita, already tipsy, stood up with a glass of champagne in hand. She slurred her way through a speech that barely mentioned me at all. Instead, she used it to praise my husband’s brother – who wasn’t even part of the wedding party. And then came the moment I’ll never forget – she looked me dead in the eye and called me by my husband’s ex-girlfriend’s name.

There was a split second of stunned silence, followed by uncomfortable laughter as she carried on talking like nothing had happened. I sat there, red-faced in front of my guests, trying not to cry. I assumed she would apologise later, but she never did.

Months later, when she saw the edited wedding video and noticed her speech had been shortened, she asked me why. I told her. She just laughed, “Oh, I must’ve had too much wine! I don’t even remember that! Oops!”

That moment told me everything I needed to know.

Creating new memories

In the days after our wedding, my husband and I re-evaluated everything. The day hadn’t felt like a celebration of us. It had felt like something we were performing for other people, including people we didn’t even really want there.

So, we made a spontaneous decision. We decided to stop planning our honeymoon and plan a second wedding instead – this one completely our own. Our original honeymoon plans hadn’t been solidified yet, but one thing we knew for sure was that we wanted it to be in Italy.

We invited 20 of our closest friends and 10 chosen family members to join us in Tuscany six weeks later, where we threw a huge party in a gorgeous villa. There was no ceremony of course, but I still viewed it as a second wedding. Only this time no guest list politics, no judgmental commentary and no speeches from people who couldn’t even get my name right. I wore my strapless gown again – the one Anita had told me I couldn’t pull off – and felt beautiful.

We danced under fairy lights, drank local wine and didn’t have a worry in the world. Of course, not everyone could make it with such short notice. But that second wedding was everything the first one wasn’t: intimate, joyful, meaningful – and above all, ours.

Lessons learned

Looking back, I wish I’d set clearer boundaries from the start. I wish I’d said no to the “help” when it started to feel like control. I wish I’d spoken up when I felt hurt, instead of staying quiet to keep the peace.

So, to any brides-to-be reading this, here’s my advice:

• If your in-laws or parents are pitching in financially, make sure you’re okay with their input. If not, it’s okay to say no – money doesn’t mean control

• Set boundaries early, even if it makes things a bit tense – it’s better to say what you’d like to happen from the start, rather than letting resentment build up

• If anyone does start taking over the wedding planning, tell them how you feel

My relationship with Anita and Chris never fully recovered. We’re civil to each other, but the closeness has gone. We used to have weekly Sunday dinners together, but now I can barely stand to be in the room with them. I’m not sure they realise how much damage was done – or that even now, six years later, a genuine apology would still mean something.

I’m thankful that ultimately I was able to celebrate my wedding the way I imagined it. What I learned through all of it is that weddings don’t define a marriage – they’re only one day of a lifetime together. And if the wedding taught me anything, it’s that you can’t control how people behave, but you can choose how you move on from it.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

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