What a sweet story! By the way, my husband proposed in front of my extended family on Christmas Eve!

I can see both sides of the argument, but I think the fact is, you should do what makes you comfortable.

DH was well aware of my strong relationship with both my parents and knew I wanted him to "ask" for permission. I would have been more upset if he hadn't. My dad of course was thrilled and loves DH like a son. My mom was more upset b/c dad kept it from her until the weekend DH proposed b/c he felt mom would spill the beans.

We invited 300+ people to our wedding, and it was a total blast -- so those slamming big weddings should realize that it's less the size of the wedding and more the people throwing it that makes a wedding good or bad.

I'm from a huge family and my spouse has divorced parents that remarried when he was young, so he has two families. There was no possible way to cut down the guest list, and I'm glad I had it the way I did.

I pretty much consider myself a feminist but I'd probably still like to have the guy I marry ask my parents for their blessing. That said, I'm sure they'll be okay with whoever I choose.

And as far as large weddings go, I didn't know what a small wedding was until my college friends started getting married. The weddings I went to as a kid were typically 250 - 400 people. I have no problems with large weddings, they can be a ton of fun, but it's probably because it's normal for me.
I really enjoy going to weddings that are only around 75 people - which makes up my family alone (parents, sister+family, aunts, uncles, first cousins) - so if I wanted a wedding that small, I'd need to do a destination wedding somewhere. Or do a small wedding with a larger reception.

I did have 200 guests at my wedding, and I think part of that had to do with when I got married.

I was 30 years old, and so many of our guests were married or also in very serious relationships. Therefore, 200 "guests" equates to just a smidge over 100 couples.

My husband and I are from different states, attended different undergraduate colleges, different graduates schools and had jobs at two different hospitals. That is a lot of places where we each made close, sustaining friendships. Throw in sorority sisters and a similar type organization for him (sort of "eating club" type thing at his school) and it adds up fast.

We were also very active in our church and had many friends there. Take that 100 couples above, and that is approx 50 couples for each of us. Oh, and note that I haven't included any family yet, or friends of either set of parents. (my family is big, and they travel en masse for events such as this. My in-laws have a giant social circle, but most did not travel as they lived in a different state. If they had, we would have been closer to 250 :eek:)

It was important to me to greet each guest at the reception, and I can to this day remember many of the conversations. I have been married almost 6 years and people continue to tell me that the wedding was a blast, mostly because my friends and family are fun people and we made it such.

Therefore, in some cases, I do think it is possible to have a large wedding and just include the people that have had special places in your lives at different stages, and it can still have that "smaller wedding" feel. We didn't invite any "randoms," or people that we were not in continued contact with. However, I do agree that there are people who do invite everyone that they have had 2 conversations with in an effort for a gift shakedown.

Just cause a cousin might be a 3rd cousin, doesn't mean they are acquaintances or people you don't really know. Some of my closest extended cousins (i.e. not from the lineage of my grandmother) are my 3rd cousins, some are even 4th cousins. So, if and when I get married, I intend on inviting most of my family (we are all a close group), which could push the guest list to 200 or 200+.

I had 350 at my first wedding. We cut it at first cousins. It was a huge scandal in my family that I didn't invite my cousins' children. We did invite my parents' cousins. I knew every single one of them as they'd been at every family event my whole life and we were invited to all of their functions. Even the ones who came from Pennsylvania. There were some people our parents invited who we didn't know well.. friends of theirs from work. However, I even knew most of my dad's work/golf buddies because they'd been around for so many years. Then there were the neighbors from the neighborhood where I lived for 23 years. Yes, it was huge and overwhelming. My second was much smaller, only 125 and only 14 of them were my family. I did invite some work friends, but not many. Most of them there were for him. That whole wedding was for him. I had much more fun at that wedding because I didn't really care about the wedding process at that point. I'd had my "Big Fat Italian Wedding" already. So, the details were unimportant and it was a lot more fun because there was so much less to go wrong. That didn't really have to do with how many people were there. It had more to do with me having perspective about what was important that day.

ETA: My first wedding was one of the smallest in my family, believe it or not! I went to one that had 650. Unreal.

My dad is the oldest of 10. Just my parent's sibs and their spouses, their children and their spouses and children take up the first 55 people. Then let's get to my extended family (I'm close to most of them) and that's another 50-75. Then my friends and my husband's family and friends...small wedding went out the window a long time ago.

for me, I won't ask them for a permission, just notify them about my decisions or maybe listen to their suggestions.

Agreed on all counts. I think you have to look at the circumstances of the wedding before you can say that a big or small wedding is a bad idea. It's very possible to have a 200-300 person wedding (or more) and know everyone, because of large families, lots of close high school/college/grad school friends, work friends, etc.

I've definitely been to 200+ person weddings where everyone had a close tie with either the bride or groom.

ETA: I think it's just inherent in wedding stuff (not necessarily in this thread) that people are quick to criticize, without thinking about whether the type of wedding or proposal was right for the particular people getting married.

I wasn't "slamming" big weddings; I hope my response didn't indicate that. I even said that for this wedding, they didn't invite every Tom, Dick, or Harry.

I will concede that they tried to do "too much," which wouldn't have worked if there had been 50 people or 500 people there. The bride was quite open about the fact that her mother was footing the bill for everything and the budget was unlimited. It just stood out in contrast to the smaller, more intimate weddings I had been to a few months earlier where they really thought about what they were doing and why, instead of just throwing money at an event.

I didn't mean you, love. :) Was actually agreeing with you that it depends on the couple's circumstances.

And on the original topic, it never would have occurred to me or my husband that he should talk to my parents beforehand. Just not my thing at all.

I love the discussion here and some of the stories have been very touching. Though I would want my fiance to ask my parent's or spiritual guardian (if my parents were unavailable) for permission to marry me I completely understand and respect where someone else may be turned off by that gesture.
One interesting thing I saw repeated a lot was that people would feel strange if others knew about a proposal before they did. How much discussion do people have about an upcoming proposal before the guy proposes? Are people completely shocked because it was never discussed? Do some have an ideal but never really have a concrete conversation or do others fully expect it and have had a conversation beforehand and are just waiting for the actually proposal? I would love to hear the experiences and thoughts around how much a proposal is discussed and known beforehand.

I was wondering the same thing. I think my husband and I talked about it several times before we actually got engaged which was several months before I actually got a ring (which I picked out myself.) I'm not a romantic so having my husband "surprise" me with a ring I might not like just isn't me. My husband's romantic engagement gesture was to take me to Disney World as a Christmas present then ask me to marry him officially on that trip. Was it a surprise? Obviously not. We knew almost immediately once we'd started dating that we had something special and could see ourselves getting married, so we never played ANY of those dating games.

I've been with my boyfriend for a year and a half and we aren't engaged but have talked about it. Most of the talk is about an ideal timeline for me, ie I'd like to be dating 2 years before an engagement, be engaged for a year, etc. Several of my friends have gone ring shopping with their boyfriends. One of my sisters got engaged yesterday, they went ring shopping 3 months ago. My best friend went ring shopping with her boyfriend about a month ago and still has no idea when he'll propose- he told me he doesn't have a ring but I think he's lying to throw me off (his roommate let it slip to my friend when he was drunk that her boyfriend had a ring).