I need some advice and suggestions.

[Julia1996]

Hi everyone. Though Tristan and I haven't even set a wedding date, I'm already facing problems. The first one is to invite my mother or not. I would prefer not even to tell her I'm getting married, much less invite her. My dad says I have to invite her. I asked why and he said because she's your mother. I reminded him of all the stuff she has done and all he said was " it doesn't matter what she's done, she is still your mother". That annoys me to no end! All the mean and spiteful things she has done not just to me but my dad too. She says all kinds things and bad mouths him all the time. Yet he has never bad mouthed or said anything bad about her. All he ever says is "your mother has issues". So that's supposed to excuse her? My dad is being very insistent that I invite her which I really hope he's over by the time I actually get married! My mom is very unpredictable I never know what she is likely to do. I could totally see her jumping up and waving her arms when the part about anyone objecting to us getting married. Tristan and his parents can't stand my mom. At the last family event she attended before she moved out of state she insulted Tristan and then made his mom really mad. Tristan has a LOT of tattoos. Tattoos are his thing. I really like them. You can't see most of them when his shirt is on. So he and Tyler had been out shooting baskets and they both came in with their shirts off. My mom looked at Tristan and said "I always thought you were a very handsome boy. I can't imagine why you did this to yourself. You look like a circus freak". Then later on she overheard my mom making her usual insulting remarks to me. Since then she can't stand her. She has said a couple of times she thinks my mom is an awful person and horrible mother. I agree. Thankfully my dad and I agree that my uncle will not be invited.

The second problem is what to do with Tyler. Tristan's brother is going to be best man. His other brother will be an usher. So that leaves me with nothing for Tyler to do. He is a very important person in my life and I want him to have a significant role in my wedding. In another thread I joked about making him my maid of honor but now I am actually considering it. There is no law that a maid of honor has to be female. What exactly does a maid of honor do? Of course I would have to call it something else. If I call it maid of honor he would never do it. Any suggestions on a more masculine name?

Actually I have no female friends. So I won't have a maid of honor or brides maids.

[Lexxi]

Hi Julia,

Somewhere, in some other time I read or saw something on tv about a woman who had her best male friend as her maid of honor...only she called him her man of honor. I googled that question for you and a really cool result. They suggested bride's attendant. I think either one of them sound great and he should be honored with either.

I don't have any advice about your mother though. I really feel for you there. I'm lucky that I don't have anyone like that in my family that I have to deal with. If you do invite her though you could have your preacher or whoever is performing the ceremony take out the part about people objecting now or forever holding their piece.

In my previous life I was married to a woman and she hated the wedding vow about obeying me. She asked to take it out and I wholeheartedly agreed. I believe everything should be equal and no one should be forced to obey anyone else.

I hope this helps. Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Just remember that the wedding day is all about you and your significant other and you should have things the way you want them. 

Lexxi

[amandam]

Man of Honor. He can wear a tux. Settled.

As for your mom, no, it's YOUR wedding!!! Yours. The bride always wins! Tell your dad that if you invited her and she made a scene it would ruin your wedding forever for you. Ask him if he wants that. He'll say no.

[LizK]

I thinkMan of honour is a brilliant idea. I am sure he will feel honoured. It's your wedding do it how you want.

I understand how fed up you can get with family and I disagree with your Dad... if she doesn't behave like a mother then what affords her the privilege to be treated as one...again only you can answer this.

Good luck with your decision because I am sure no matter what you do some will never see it as right

Liz


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[Julia1996]

Hi Julia,

Somewhere, in some other time I read or saw something on tv about a woman who had her best male friend as her maid of honor...only she called him her man of honor. I googled that question for you and a really cool result. They suggested bride's attendant. I think either one of them sound great and he should be honored with either.

I don't have any advice about your mother though. I really feel for you there. I'm lucky that I don't have anyone like that in my family that I have to deal with. If you do invite her though you could have your preacher or whoever is performing the ceremony take out the part about people objecting now or forever holding their piece.

In my previous life I was married to a woman and she hated the wedding vow about obeying me. She asked to take it out and I wholeheartedly agreed. I believe everything should be equal and no one should be forced to obey anyone else.

I hope this helps. Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Just remember that the wedding day is all about you and your significant other and you should have things the way you want them. 

Lexxi

I like both of those titles. Thank you for suggesting them.  Actually I think that will work out. I don't have anyone to be my maid of honor. Unless Aurorasky wants to hop a plane to the USA. Lol. Aurorasky is a member here that I am good friends with.  I know a lot of times the bride's sister is her maid of honor so having my older brother in that role is great. I think so at least.  I never thought about having that part removed from the vows. If I end up having to invite my mother I will do that. The part about obeying Tristan doesn't bother me in the least bit. Lol.

Another possible problem is the priest. Our family is Catholic. My dad, brother and I have never been that religous. Basically we attend holiday mass and Easter services with my grandparents. My grand parents want me to be married in their church. I told them that was fine with me and I said as long as the priest didn't find out I was trans it would be fine. My grandparents said I have to be honest with the priest. I don't know why the insist on that. They don't seem to understand that if I tell him I am trans then he totally won't marry us. The Catholic church is very unforgiving when it comes to LGBT issues. I really don't care if the priest refuses to marry us, but it's very important to my grandparents, I don't understand why, and I will feel bad for them when the priest tells Tristan and I to get lost.

[Dena]

Your brother could be a ring bearer. On the other hand, he could be a bouncer if your mother gets out of line. 

[Julia1996]

Your brother could be a ring bearer. On the other hand, he could be a bouncer if your mother gets out of line. 

Yes he could.😂 but I wonder if he would bounce his own mother. Lol.  I did think of ring bearer but that role is usually done by a young boy. It just didn't really fit for me. But I really like "man of honor". What does the maid of honor do exactly. I have even started thinking about having "brides men" as well. I have no female friends but I do have a few male friends. Actually they are Tyler's friends but I consider them my friends as well. I have known them for years and they have always been very nice to me.

[Julia1996]

Man of Honor. He can wear a tux. Settled.

As for your mom, no, it's YOUR wedding!!! Yours. The bride always wins! Tell your dad that if you invited her and she made a scene it would ruin your wedding forever for you. Ask him if he wants that. He'll say no.

That might work. I can tell him that if my mom ruins my wedding that it will actually be him that ruined my wedding because he made me invite her. That has a very good chance of working. My dad would never want to cause me unhappiness. Thank you! That's an awesome idea.

[LordKAT]

I think the key part is that it is your and your partners wedding, in the end that is what matters. As to Tyler, the man of honor thing sounds good to me.

[MaryT]

Sadly, I think that you may be right about the RC Church not performing the wedding ceremony, although they haven't had much to say publicly about trans issues.  It will not be a same sex marriage, though, so there should be no harm in asking, as long as you are braced for a disappointing reply.  I doubt that you would be excommunicated, and there is some hope for the future, I think, as a trans women has been accepted as a novitiate in Canada:
Will the Catholic Church Accept its First Openly Transgender Nun?

I know that inviting your mother could cause unpleasantness but I think that your father could be right.  She is your mother and although it may not seem so yet, life is short and and I think that it will be sad, if not inviting her makes the rift even larger and more permanent.  It is okay to love people even if they behave badly and I hope that one day, you and she will be reconciled in some way.  Perhaps your father could have a special role besides Father of the Bride, i.e. perhaps he could discreetly shadow your mother and distract her if she becomes ornery.  If things still go badly, at least you will know that it is not because of anything that you did wrong.

If Tyler is Man of Honor, will he plan the shower?  I read somewhere that it is okay to have a co-ed shower.

I hope that you do find female friends of your own age in Denver.  I think that you need them, and not just for weddings.  If I remember rightly, you did once have a couple but they became envious of the compliments that you got from guys, and hurt you very deeply.  I think that most of us thought that it would be okay to drop such friends.  Cindy, ever wise, suggested that you take them back if they apologised, and in hindsight I think that she may have been right.  It would have been better than having no female friends at all in your home town.

Are there any female colleagues, at the hair salon where you work or worked, who would be happy to act as bridesmaids?   Workplaces are traditionally a good place to make friends.

Or, perhaps, your father may know some young policewomen who would be happy to act as security and go undercover as bridesmaids.  (I thought that it would be a great movie title but I gather there is already a movie with that name.)  Your mother could get a real shock if she gets out of line.

[Julia1996]

Sadly, I think that you may be right about the RC Church not performing the wedding ceremony, although they haven't had much to say publicly about trans issues.  It will not be a same sex marriage, though, so there should be no harm in asking, as long as you are braced for a disappointing reply.  I doubt that you would be excommunicated, and there is some hope for the future, I think, as a trans women has been accepted as a novitiate in Canada:
Will the Catholic Church Accept its First Openly Transgender Nun?

I know that inviting your mother could cause unpleasantness but I think that your father could be right.  She is your mother and although it may not seem so yet, life is short and and I think that it will be sad, if not inviting her makes the rift even larger and more permanent.  It is okay to love people even if they behave badly and I hope that one day, you and she will be reconciled in some way.  Perhaps your father could have a special role besides Father of the Bride, i.e. perhaps he could discreetly shadow your mother and distract her if she becomes ornery.  If things still go badly, at least you will know that it is not because of anything that you did wrong.

If Tyler is Man of Honor, will he plan the shower?  I read somewhere that it is okay to have a co-ed shower.

I hope that you do find female friends of your own age in Denver.  I think that you need them, and not just for weddings.  If I remember rightly, you did once have a couple but they became envious of the compliments that you got from guys, and hurt you very deeply.  I think that most of us thought that it would be okay to drop such friends.  Cindy, ever wise, suggested that you take them back if they apologised, and in hindsight I think that she may have been right.  It would have been better than having no female friends at all in your home town.

Are there any female colleagues, at the hair salon where you work or worked, who would be happy to act as bridesmaids?   Workplaces are traditionally a good place to make friends.

Or, perhaps, your father may know some young policewomen who would be happy to act as security and go undercover as bridesmaids.  (I thought that it would be a great movie title but I gather there is already a movie with that name.)  Your mother could get a real shock if she gets out of line.

Tyler wouldn't know how to plan a shower but Tristan's mom would help him. I think the idea of a coed shower is great. Yes I did have 2 female friends but they did say a lot of nasty things to me. I think the advice from Cindy was good and if they had offered an apology I would have taken them back. But not only did they not offer any apology, they sent me nasty text messages after the incident and I blocked them finaly. But actually I do have one female friend. My next door neighbor. I plan on inviting her of course but as far as her being a brides maid, I don't think she would be up to it. She's 84 years old. She's very healthy and active for her age but she has knee problems and standing that long would hurt her knees.

As for the girls I work with, I'm not really friends with any of them. We work at the same salon but have never done anything outside of work. One of them doesn't like me because I called her out about her ignorance. She's a total racist. She uses offensive names for any minority group. And she has many nasty names for African Americans in particular. I would never want to socialize with someone like that. One day someone was talking about Rhiana's music and she said "why would anyone want to listen to n###### music"? I told her not to use that word around me and that it was offensive. Then I told her that using words like that only displayed her vast ignorance for everyone. Since then she has not liked me. Which is no loss.

I'm still thinking about inviting my mom. If she would just remain quiet I would invite her, but she is very likely to embarrass me. Probably not during the actual wedding but there is a very high chance she would say something awful at the reception. But we haven't even set the date so I have time to think about it at least.

[Paige]

Hi Julia,

I like the Man of Honor idea but if that doesn't work what about Tyler being the MC for the reception? 

Also remember this is 2019 and this is your wedding.  It shouldn't be a burden on you and Tristan, it should be one of the happiest days of your lives. 

Take care,
Paige 😊

[Linde]

if my mom ruins my wedding that it will actually be him that ruined my wedding because he made me invite her. That has a very good chance of working. My dad would never want to cause me unhappiness. Thank you! That's an awesome idea.

If your mom loves you only a little bit, she will not ruin your wedding.  I say this as a parent!
My son will get married end of June, and non of her family or their friends have seen me ever as a female!  In order not to steal the show of their wedding, I promised to go there as much male looking as possible, with androgynous clothing, etc.  And my son can introduce me as his dad.  This is not really fun for me, but I love my son a lot, and I will do this to make him happy.  In fact, my ex (his mother) and I agreed that we will act like a couple at this wedding!

I bet your mother will love you enough, to be good for you on your wedding day!

[amandam]

Only Julia knows for sure. She could have someone earmarked as the "watchdog". If mom gets out of line, this person can run interference for Julia. Personally, I wouldn't invite her, but that's Julia's call.

[DawnOday]

Julia you go girl. You amaze me kiddos. I would say Pop I don't want to disobey you. But I can't. In good conscience allow mom to come.  This is supposed to be the happiest day of mine and Tristans life. I would like to leave it that way.
Here is the advice  I would.give..  I've lived my life the way I wanted to. All in all it w as  not so bad.
But this is your life to live as you see fit. Based on your description of Dad. He will agree. Like Dory is my daughter. You are his.Even though in her  thirties Dory is stll my princess



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[MaryT]

...
I'm still thinking about inviting my mom. If she would just remain quiet I would invite her, but she is very likely to embarrass me. Probably not during the actual wedding but there is a very high chance she would say something awful at the reception. But we haven't even set the date so I have time to think about it at least.

Your mother has certainly tried to embarrass you and Tristan in the past.  If I remember correctly, when Tristan introduced you to his parents, they presumed that you had already had GCS, and they were not immediately corrected on that point.  They probably know about your subsequent GCS but if they still have any misconceptions that your mother thinks might embarrass you or Tristan, it seems probable that she would take pleasure in correcting them.  I doubt that at this stage, however, your mother could say anything that would turn Tristan's parents against you.  Even so, the less time your mother spends talking to them, the better, I suppose.

I would love you to to have some kind of benign relationship with your mother, and I hate the idea of the rift become wider.  I know that I thought that your father was right about inviting your mother, and in an ideal world it would certainly be the right thing to do, but I must admit that the only way to GUARANTEE that your mother does not spoil your special day is to not invite her.   Alternatively, if everyone at the wedding knows everything about you, Tristan and your mother, it would dampen the impact of anything she had to say.