Gemma987

Jenny, I reread your original post. While the location may hold special memories for you, and you chose it because you knew your family and friends would love it, clearly your fiance's family does not feel that way. They don't want to go to Mexico. Who knows why? Maybe they are like many of the French ( from France) people we are friends with and don't like other cultures' food/language/weather/wine. Maybe they feel like weddings should be in the local church, performed by the priest or minister who has known the young people forever. Maybe they just want to stay in their own beds and get ready in their own bathrooms and drink their morning coffee from their own cups, drive their own cars to the church, and eat food they like and the reception. French food beats Mexican every time, in my book. Your challenge, I think, is to persuade them to attend. The word you are looking for in French is seduiser. Looks like seduce but means to charm and persuade. I think they want to know that you understand their reluctance to travel, and Mexico is far, far from Quebec. Work up a calendar of things for them to do so they don't have to think they are going to be spending every day lying on a beach towel all gooped up with sunscreen. Let them know how they'll get from the airport to the resort. Tell them when and where dinner will be every evening. Tell them they'll find food that isn't greasy or spicy and that the desserts are fabulous. In other words, be solicitous of their comfort and well-being. As to my luggage, pas possible. Evening gowns have to be packed carefully with tissue paper and so on and cannot be handed over to the hotel's maid to be ironed. It's not the cost for us-- the rehearsal dinner is more than most weddings-- it's just that we don't want to go this particular city. Like your future in-laws and Mexico.

Hello Jenny, I'm the mother of the groom.....not your groom, though. I just wanted to share with you my perspective and that of my husband, on the issue of our own son's destination wedding. I thought it might help you understand your future inlaws' actions. Our son is getting married in the next few months in a location that qualifies as a destination wedding, even though it is not in a foreign country, not on a beach, and not in a resort. To attend this wedding, we will have to drive 5 hours by car to large airport. Then it's a 6 hour flight to a location we have no interest whatsoever in seeing. ( We have been there and don't care to go back.) It's not his future wife's hometown, it's just an anonymus fancy downtown hotel in a big city. The choice our future daughter-in-law made was not driven by consideration for expense, by the way. Nor was it driven by sentimental feelings for a place she knew well and loved. For us, this wedding has turned into a forced vacation in a place we don't want to go. It means two suitcases for me-- one exclusively for my evening gown and rehearsal dinner cocktail dress and shoes and handbags and evening wraps. Two suitcases for my husband....one for his evening suit and shoes, and so on. Double the chance for the airline to lose our clothes. If that happens, then what? Do we show up at the wedding in clothes we've been wearing for the past 2 days? Have to wash our underwear in the sink? Yuck. Planning the rehearsal dinner has not been fun, either. Instead of a meaningful party at our house, lovingly catered by me, surrounded by family and friends, using greatgrandmothers' china and silver, we've got "an event planner". A nobody with no taste who just wants us to spend lavishly. Of course. Now, I understand that this is *your big day*. However, it might be helpful for you to consider that you are in effect forcing people to go on vacation to a place they never wanted to see. And that is a headache to get to. And that is expensive for them. And what's worse, empty of sentiment and meaning. Just think of what you are asking, or demanding, of your future inlaws and adjust your tone accordingly.