There are some days you just shouldn’t plan a wedding on. A Christmas Day wedding, for example, will likely have abysmally low attendance.
One couple accidentally planned their big day on a holiday they weren’t aware of until the mother of the groom brought it to their attention, claiming it was a major problem.
The bride and groom refused to change their holiday wedding date, even though some of her husband’s family refused to come.
The anonymous bride posted on Reddit seeking advice after her fiancé’s family shocked the couple by telling them they would not attend their wedding.
She shared that her fiancé proposed over the weekend, and she was excited to begin wedding planning as soon as possible. She added that, for an array of reasons, it was important to her and her fiancé that they get married in the month of April.
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“After searching about 10 venues, we [found] the one we love. We knew it was going to be our venue [because] when we both walked into the venue, we got emotional,” she wrote, adding that they quickly set a date.
Unfortunately, her excitement was not shared by everyone in the family.
“I reached out to his mom to let her know we have a set date, and she immediately [called] me to say we set the date on a very important religious holiday for her and her parents,” the bride said.
“I asked her if this is a big deal,” she continued. “Neither [I] nor my fiancé [is] religious, and to be honest, I didn’t even know they were that religious. Just as an example, my fiancé isn’t even baptized, and as a family, they celebrate all the generic holidays but don’t even go to church or pray.”
While many Reddit commenters guessed that the holiday was Easter because of the bride’s mention of the month of April, that’s not necessarily the case. As her mother-in-law uses Reddit, the woman clarified that she included some “incorrect details,” so she wouldn’t be able to find the post.
She later admitted in a comment that April wasn’t even the month they were actually looking at. “It may or may not be Easter, Ramadan, Yom Kippur, or Diwali,” she wrote.
Her fiancé’s mom claimed it was ‘the most important holiday in her religion.’
“Due to this, she will not be able to be in attendance at our wedding, nor will her parents, as they are even more religious than her,” the bride wrote of her soon-to-be mother-in-law. “[My fiancé’s] dad will come because they are divorced, and he is putting his son over the religious date.”
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Ultimately, she felt the decision was up to her fiancé as it was his family involved.
“I asked my fiancé what he wanted to do,” she said. “This is his decision to make and not mine, and he told me that he refuses to give up our dream venue on the only Sunday they have available to please his mother/grandparents who ‘aren’t even that religious.’”
There’s no clear etiquette rule against having weddings on holidays.
Wedding planner Krystal Gardenia told Brides that she recommends not planning your wedding on “a really big holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving.”
However, fellow wedding planner Annie Lee acknowledged that weddings on more lowkey holidays like Memorial Day, when people have a day off from work but not necessarily any carved-in-stone plans, can work well.
Still, Brides warned that holiday weddings can cause issues with travel and coordination with vendors.
In a follow-up post, the bride-to-be shared that everything worked out for the best. The venue was able to give the couple another date — “Not only a different date but a Saturday for the same price he was giving us for a Sunday!”
However, it seems the holiday wasn’t truly the issue for her fiancé’s grandparents.
“Once we called [his family] with excitement to let them know we changed to a Saturday, they said they were not going to be able to be in attendance as they have church/temple early in the morning on Sundays and cannot afford to stay out late Saturdays,” she wrote. “Cute considering they’ve never once been to church/temple the entire time I’ve known them.”
His mom, however, will be in attendance as she “saw [her parent’s] ways” and will no longer follow their rules or “be influenced by ‘their behaviors.'” Thankfully she is not letting her parents get in the way of seeing her son get married to the love of his life.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news, and human interest topics.
