Many little girls dream of a big, fancy wedding when they get married, and the bride-to-be in this story was one of them. She is really excited about planning her wedding but also stressed out about finances. However, money isn’t even the problem. The real problem is her parents’ attitude towards marriage and her wedding.

It would be hard to look forward to your wedding day for years and years, and when it’s finally almost here the family members you care about the most act like it’s not really important. The real question is how to move forward with wedding plans without letting the family’s attitude get to you.

While it’s perfectly fine to have a simple wedding, like a courthouse wedding, it’s also fine to celebrate in a big, elaborate way if that’s important to the bride and groom.

Keep reading to learn more about the wedding this bride-to-be dreamed of, and how the bride’s family’s reaction to her engagement is making wedding planning difficult.

My dad/family doesn’t seem interested in my dream of getting married

General info: My dad and mom (in their 70s) are still married and had kids late and are both retired now.

I (35) and my fiancé (38), had a lot of gap years, Health problems and stupid jobs and educations which hasn’t been great for our finances. Might be normal for the times.

I am the oldest girl and have three younger brothers.

I had a normal childhood with parents who love each other and their kids. They didn’t have a lot of money when they got married. But they had a lot of help from friends and family. And they were not really the types who cared a lot about that stuff.

Now we get to the problem.

The situation:

My dream has always been to get married. I don’t want kids. But I always wanted a marriage and life partner. That’s what I aspired to because of my parents.

I know that doesn’t have to mean a big fancy party, but I’m the girl that always thought and talked about the dress etc. and when I met my fiancé, we both wanted to get married and had that dream put on hold because of finances.

We both come from really big families and have many friends that will expect invitations.

They finally got engaged.

And as soon as my fiancé could afford he proposed, even though we knew we couldn’t afford a big wedding right now and didn’t know when we would be able to.

I’m so happy being engaged, but having a tough time saving up and waiting for the wedding I always dreamed of.

I don’t think I have very high expectations and I’m trying to save money by diy and sewing my own dress etc. since I studied fashion design.

Marriage isn’t as important to her family.

Thing is I don’t feel like my family cares about the situation.

When we talked about getting married my dad would make comments like “ no one needs to get married nowadays” and when my fiancé tried to ask for my hand he said something similar to “if she wants to it’s cool” or some vague stuff like that.

He would also say stuff like there is no hurry or competition on who gets married first etc.

I on the other hand feel like they aren’t getting any younger and my siblings might get married before me, which I’m trying to be okay about.

She wishes her parents seemed to care more.

My parents and siblings know about our finances and our dreams. But no one has offered to help with anything.

It’s okay if they don’t feel like they want to pay for anything. But it does sting a little bit to know that my ML, who doesn’t have much, wants to help pay and my dad hasn’t even offered a helping hand.

My mother hasn’t asked about wedding dress shopping or planing or anything. She generally doesn’t seem that interested either. And it’s making me not want to ask for help.

But all a girl wants is for her parents to be happy for her and to want to be there on the day. So how do I navigate my disappointment and not just cut them out of everything? Cause that’s what I feel like doing, even though I always thought it would be different.

She has a lot of questions.

Should I ask for help?

Or compromise on the wedding to be able to do it on our own?

I don’t have a lot of friends. I have a couple really good ones, but wedding planning help etc. feels like to much to ask of them.

Is it also to much to ask of close family?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who restored a vintage camera with her own money and doesn’t want to hand it over to family.

Let’s see if Reddit has some advice for this stressed out bride.

This is true.

But she doesn’t want a tiny wedding.

One person suggests the direct approach.

But it might be about the guy not the wedding.

It’s true that nobody will care about your wedding as much as you and your spouse, but usually parents are pretty excited about it. I’ve read so many stories about weddings and wedding planning where the engaged couple complains about family members being too involved in the wedding plans, almost taking over and dictating what they want to happen at the wedding instead of letting the couple have the wedding they actually want. At least the bride-to-be in this story should be glad she’s not dealing with that kind of drama.

She’s going to have to move forward planning the wedding while accepting that her family doesn’t really want to be involved. If she wants them to be involved, like if she wants her mom to join her for some of the wedding planning or wedding dress decisions, she needs to tell them. People aren’t mind readers, although, it would be easier if they were.