ONLY DAUGHTER WANTS LOW-KEY WEDDING

Dear Coleen

I HAVE always been very close to my daughter, the youngest of three. She has two older brothers, one in Spain and the other lives over 100 miles away.

My daughter lives just around the corner and I see her most days and help look after her little girl, who is three.

She has been with her boyfriend for 10 years and they have been engaged for a year.

Recently she came round to tell my husband and I that they were going to book a register office wedding without any family or friends there. They’re both shy, and they don’t have much money.

So she says she wants a low-key wedding and that afterwards they’ll come round and we can all have dinner together or something. We’re heartbroken about it. My husband always wanted to walk his only daughter down the aisle, and after two sons I had always dreamed of going wedding dress shopping with her.

I don’t want to put a cloud over her special day but do you think I should tell her how I feel?

Coleen says

MY DAUGHTER will often say to me that she might just go off and get married when she decides to settle down. She’s quite shy too and doesn’t like a fuss. And I always say, listen it’s your day and your decision, so do whatever you want. Then I say, “But please can we go wedding dress shopping together?”

The point is, your daughter may still want a very quiet wedding without any of you there but that doesn’t mean you can’t be involved in other ways.

Perhaps you can go and buy her dress together and then go for lunch? There are still ways to make the day special. If she comes to you for lunch after, you can decorate the house for when they arrive, or make some special food. I eloped with my first hubby and had a blessing three years later because my dad wanted to walk me down the aisle.

Either way, we just have to be happy for our children and the decisions they make in life.