Eleanor asked:


I married the loveliest man in the world about 2 months ago and I was the happiest woman in the world on my wedding day. We lucked out on weather for our outdoor ceremony, the officiant did a great job, the caterer was amazing, and the limo ride back to the hotel (and of course the hotel itself!) were the stuff of dreams.

The wedding, however, didn’t make grandma happy at all. She HATED the fact that my stepdad (rather than biodad, her son) walked me down the aisle. To try and compensate, we’d arranged much of the rest of the wedding around her tastes – my groom, who is NOT Jewish, stepped on the glass, for example. The menu, music, and many other details were arranged around her picky tastes – to no effect, since she didn’t get what she really wanted.

I maintain good relations with dad’s side of the family, but dad himself and I don’t always get along so hot. He walked out on our family a long, long time ago, and stepdad has been there for us ever since. On the flip side, we showed respect to biodad. He did get the first dance at my wedding, to say nothing of an invitation extended to himself and his not-so-lovely wife. But dad’s side of the family sat there with their arms crossed the whole darned time while others ate, drank, and made merry.

I went to go visit my grandma 2 weeks after my wedding to try and make her feel better. Usually, a visit puts her right again. But not this time. She immediately started laying into me. The band sucked, the food sucked, the dancing sucked, and, of course, I ****** for doing such a bad job planning. Planning my wedding was a serious undertaking, of course, and I really tried hard. She really made me feel like I blew it. I told her to lay off me but she wouldn’t – then I burst into tears and my husband whisked me off to Key West for a few days for a proper mini-moon. But it’s still bothering me. It’s like she’s partly spoiled the memory of what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life by saying I did everything wrong.

I’ve blocked her from my phone, telling myself it was only temporary until I decided what I wanted to say to her. But honestly, I just don’t want to talk to her at all. We’ve shared a pretty good relationship our whole lives, but I think this is a pretty serious thing, and now that I think about it, she’s been a pain about a lot of other things in my life, especially my career (I’m a PhD doing my postdoc, and she continually asks me when I am going to get a real job). She has never shown any actual respect for me. All she can think about is herself.

I’d like to have a happier memory of my wedding day, and not let the bad things she said spoil everything. My husband and I are very, very happy together. I’ve been putting together my wedding album and that is sort of helping, seeing myself and my husband and everybody else so very happy in those photos. What other things can I do to convince myself that my wedding was a great time and that everybody had fun except for her?