.

Poor you. Maybe your Oh feels that the wedding is taking over your lives a bit, particularly if you are having almost daily conversations that are wedding related. I make a conscious effort not to talk about the wedding details too much and catch OH up on all my thoughts and planning on a 2 weekly or so basis, when the time is right. We are getting married next June ,so still trying to stay cool. I vent my obsession by coming on here. Have a talk with your OH to see if he really is changing his mind, or is just feeling a bit overwhelmed with over 2 years still to go. Sending you a big hug. Good luck xx apologies for any typos - my I pad is playing up x

Angelfromyournight,

I'm so sorry you are going through this. I dont know if this will help but i've sort of been in your partners position. I was desperate for my OH to propose and kept going on about it and he just kept saying we couldn't afford it as we were saving for a house and both didnt have great jobs. We then moved back to my hometown in Scotland both got new jobs although mine meant I took a wage drop but we had managed to save enough and bought our first house together and 3 months later my OH proposed with a Tiffany ring he had been saving up for.

I was on cloud 9 thought it was everything I had ever dreamed of and then we booked the venue for 3 years time and things started to go down hill. OH is much better with money than me and so he set the budget and how much we needed to save in order to afford the wedding. For some reason I started to panic, felt it was all moving too quick I didnt know what to do and felt I had no control over anything. I kept it all to myself and became a moody awful person to my partner and things were awful between us until one night it all got too much and I broke down crying and confessed everything to my friend. It wasnt rational how I was thinking and I knew this was exactly what I wanted and with my OH so I decided to put the wedding out of my mind for a while and although I was saving I wouldnt do any planning and just focus on me and my OH. It worked wonders.

I dont know if it was all the pressure of planning the wedding or know I had agreed to spend the rest of my life with someone as thats what marriage is to me but it had the opposite effect on me that I expected. Once I got it back to being about me and my OH and spent time together going out, cooking for eachother and doing fun things together I began to feel normal again and now with 11 months until my wedding I couldnt be anymore excited and i'm full speed ahead.

Maybe your OH although this is what he wants just needs a bit of time to adjust to the idea and be reminded that you two are still the same people and nothing is really going to change just because you are getting married. He probably didn't expect this sort of reaction from you because as you said you had never really been the marrying kind. I wouldn't try forcing him to talk about it as the more my OH got onto me about it the more distant I became, try just having some you and him time without the wedding for a few weeks and see if he gets back to his old self.

I think although men like the idea of weddings they dont realise just how much work and planning is involved in the whole thing and its probably been a bit of a shock to him.

I'm not sure if I've helped any, but I wish you all the best and i'm sure with a bit of time he will be back to his old self

I think that is quite fast tbh. we didnt set a date until after a year, and didnt plan anything else until we had the venue booked. xx

There's nothing wrong with the things you've booked (venue, dress etc) but I agree with OB that he's probably overwhelmed with all the wedding chat.

2.5 years before the date is very early to be discussing things on a daily basis - me and H weren't even doing that the week before.

Just relax - you've got loads of time. No harm in you getting excited and researching but that's the beauty of Hitched - use us instead of your OH to discuss the intricate details etc.

Sorry lovebird but I'm going to disagree with you on that one. 2 years planning is very sensible, especially if you are on a tight budget. My OH proposed to me at the beginning of April and by May (with 16 months to go) we had booked the venue and the registrar. Planning our wedding this far in advance has given me loads of time to find bargains galore for my wedding. So far I have bought, my evening shoes, 3 x adult BM shoes, FG hair accessories all in the summer sales. Plus, we have found loads of sweetie jars and ornate blue glass bottles (table centres) for only £1 each just by popping down to the car boot sale every other weekend saving an absolute fortune.

To the original poster - I'm not surprised your guy is a bit freaked out. From you have said, you have spent years saying no to him and then suddenly you say yes! The fact that you have gone ahead and planned your budget in detail (well done btw cos that is exactly what we did) with a two year time period has probably taken him by complete surprise as he perhaps wouldn't be expecting it? I do think that, knowing how jumpy he was being, perhaps you should have spoken to him about buying that dress though before forking out for it?

I definitely think you need to sit down with him and have a proper discussion about what is going on in his head wedding wise. If you can't do that with someone you are going to marry then that is not quite right.

C x x x x

And this! Spot on Kharv

I agree with him feeling overwhelmed, the fact you had bought a dress probably just brought things home for him. I dont think it necessarily means he doesn't want to get married, more that the realities of what planning a wedding involves are hitting him. Agree no harm in thinking about things now, but you don't want to be having daily conversations about the wedding for the next 2.5 years, you will drive both of you mad! As others have said, used Hitched to vent wedding excitedness and just involve OH in key decisions etc.. I am sure you can work this out, try and have a talk with him soon and don't let it stew.

Miss L

I can see where you OH is coming from, a few weeks ago you were his chilled out lady, and now you have become a wedding-obsessed one!

Have a chat, ask is his 'strange' behaviour is a direct result of your strange 'wedding wedding wedding' behaviour. If it is, reach a compromise. Decide for or against booking the bargain venue, then chill for a while. Nothing else needs doing/deciding so far ahead. He may well sigh a sigh of relief. You made me exhausted reading that post!

Thanks so much to everyone whos taken the time to read and reply.

Getting things off of my chest definitely helped and when OH gets home from work this evening I'll be having a talk with him and finding out what he's thinking.

However, I would like to point out that the daily conversations are not and have not been initiated by me (apart from once saying "Have a look at this venue, it's absolutely perfect").

Aside from the budget plan and quietly having a look around at general weddingy stuff online myself out of interest, it's him who says to me things like "Lets have this kind of invitation" or "I like this photographer"

That's what my confusion stems from. It's all initiated by him and yet when I do or say anything practical he seems to lose it.

I'm far from wedding obsessed though & i'd probably be the first to admit if I thought id been acting too quickly or in a rushed way . A date was set, so a budget was made in order to be realistic about what we could afford.

I then just happened to stumble upon a dress that came in £1000 under budget. To me, perhaps stupidly, that makes complete and utter sense. There was no intention to move the wedding date or to change ANYTHING we had agreed on as a result, it was purely and simply about saving that £1000.

Note to self: Will not leave emails open in future.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick RE the part in bold. My reply above explains more.

I didn't have plans to do or book anything for atleast another year, I just wanted to go to a venue open day in a few months time and possibly put down a deposit if it was as perfect as it seems. The plan was to leave it there and save for the next year. I then invested in something (the dress) for no reason other than the fact it would save us £1000 in the long term. Perhaps that makes me wedding obsessed, who knows.

You sound like you're getting a bit defensive. You need to remember that we can only go by what you write, and your original post gave the impression it was you doing all the wedding talk (otherwise why would we all have cited that as a possible cause of your OH's hesitance?).

If it is as you say, and your OH was the one initiating all conversations and has suddenly made a U-turn then I'm afraid I don't know what could have caused that. I think you just need to have a proper conversation and find out why he's acting differently.

The whole wedding planning thing can get a bit overwhelming particularly at the beginning, lots to think about I know we had lots of doubts about everything at the beginning, can we afford it?what else could we buy with the money? if we do it on the cheap are we going to look back with regrets for not spending more? have we chosen the right venue? etc etc etc so i can imagine him having a little freak out but it is early stages so i would try not to take it to heart. I know its hard not to get caught up in the whole planning thing but maybe just chill for a while you do have loads of time and you always have us here on hitched for any wedding talk.

hope it all works out

FJ

Sorry, i'm not meaning to come across as defensive I just feel incredibly frustrated and confused at the moment. I want so desperatly for OH to understand my motivation for buying the dress and to realise that the absolute last thing I ever wanted was to apply pressure or to speed things up. It was an innocent purchase with no ill intent

In suppose, in my mind it shouldn't have been a big deal because in buying the dress I only ever acted with the very best intentions. There was no desire to speed things up, apply pressure or to solidify arrangement etc. It was purely and 100% about finances. £1000 is alot of money, so to be able to save that kind of money by simply buying and storing a dress for an extra year seemed logical. I thought he would understand that, as i'm exactly the same in day to day life. Something is on offer in Tesco...thanks very much i'll have 8 of them.

I wrote the initial post almost in tears, trying to keep brief what has essentially been ongoing for months, so perhaps it doesn't convey fully what I meant. I really do appreciate all input and advice.

I've edited original post now, so this post can die, as like everyone has said I just need to talk to OH now.

Don't apologise for getting upset about things, In your situation I would be too. I agree you need to talk to your OH but that doesn't mean to say you can't talk to us too.

I wasn't trying to be harsh with my last post, I was honestly trying to point out where the confusion might have lay with your post - I didn't want you to think people were simply getting at you

Hey Angel, I don't think there was a need to delete your original post as I thought this was a good discussion. The good thing about this site is that people here on Hitched are very honest, so if you need an un-biased opinion, here is where you will find it. If you need to clarify a few things from your original post along the way, it's no biggie.

Chin up petal, have a chat with your OH and see what's what. It sounds like the pressure is getting to him.

Good luck x x x x

If there is more to the story, there is no harm in pointing it out. None of us are psychic and can only offer advice on what we read (which by the sounds of it was written during an uber-emotional time).

I now see your original post was not phrased optimally to explain the situation. Like the others said, we will gladly give you advice if we can. Unfortunately, I think the situation is something that only you and your partner can sort out at the moment. It sounds like both of you are a bit confused about the other person's ideals about the future/wedding. I hope you get things cleared up soon, there is nothing worse than not knowing where you stand and nothing better than a good honest chat o find out!

Good luck!

yes two years planning is sensible. I was just saying you dont have to start the plans straight away

Oh ok, fair enough x x x