I attended the wedding of my boyfriend’s mother when she got re-married. Knowing only four people in total and barely being able to speak with other guest.
When i first heard about the wedding might be happening on the 9th of July two months ago there was a big part of me that hoped that they would change it to a later date, but soon after his mother confirmed the date. So then here I was being super nervous since this would be the first time I would meet Nathans mother and her side of the family and we have only been dating for 6 months and I barely knew any Dutch either. Being a people pleaser I was super worried that they wouldn’t like me or that I would overall give a bad first impression.
The day before my nerves started to pile up. I had so many different thoughts about how it would go, because all I wanted was for them to like me. Nathan said that I shouldn’t be worried and that everything would go fine, but there was still a big part of me who constantly kept thinking about the worst outcome. We got told that his brother was going to pick us up at 9.30 in the morning so we had to wake up earlier to get ready.
Apparently the wedding didn’t start until around noon but we were going to meet up with their mother just to hang out and Sara aka the brother’s wife was going to do the makeup. I didn’t know this before hand and got even more nervous when I got told. I tried to take a deep breath and just go with it. We sat in the car and drove over to the place. Upon arrival we got greeted at the door and we sat down in the sofa. I also got to meet Nathan’s grand mother. After a short time mother started asking question about my stay in Belgium, where I was from, if I was living with family which was fine as they were pretty slandered questions, but then she asked some intersting ones like “do you ask him to shave? and does he listen?” followed up by “because he never listens to me!” these kind of question made me a bit uncomfortable since I wasn’t sure how to respond.
When it was finally time to head to the place where the wedding was being held I couldn’t help but having a bit mixed feelings about everything, but I tried to just brush it off and keep going. The weeding took place in a nice town hall looking building since it was a stately there were no church and because of covid there were barely any people there. Just a the grooms parents and us. The wedding was held in Dutch which meant that I had no idea about what was said, but I assumed it was your standard wedding. The grand parents shared their speeches but there were no vows or anything. It all took around 30 min. After that it was photoshoot time. Sara was also the assigned photographer and she took ALOT of photos. I was also included in the wedding photos which I found intersting. After all the photos were taken the mother came up to me first speaking in Dutch and Nathan had to remind her that I didn’t understand it and said “I’ll give this to you since Nathan is the only one that isn’t married so maybe after a few years you’ll become my new daughter in law.” while handing me her bouquet, and all I could think about was “thanks, no pressure”
When everything was settled everyone headed over to a nice restaurant where we had lunch. There were more intersting question, a lot of cake. I had their special burger which I must say wasn’t that good. The patty was too thick didn’t taste that special. The cake was delicious however and it had macaroons which are always amazing.
After a long day it was finally time to head home. Both me and Nathan were pretty exhausted and we both took a small nap as soon as we got home. Later that evening we headed over to the his brothers place for some casual hangout, more food which tasted way better and card games. I had also asked Sara to take some pictures of me and Nathan since we didn’t have any proper couples photos. They turned out nice.
All in all it wasn’t too bad of an experience, but I’m so glad that my boyfriend was sitting right besides me making sure that I was feeling alright even when things got a bit awkward and I still have mixed feeling about his mother. So there you guys go. Just a small insight about how it went at my first abroad wedding.
The Anna behind Yannani 