Published on 12, July, 2020
I’m interested in the perspectives of both ASD and NTs who married ASDs.
I’m engaged and we had planned our wedding for the start of this year but decided to postpone 6 weeks before because I was too poorly (vestibular migraine) and the church and hotel we had booked were both messing us about.
The thing is, we didn’t enjoy planning a single aspect of our wedding. We found it a massive chore and in no way exciting, romantic or anything else. While we both know we definitely want to be with each other and we definitely want to get married, we don’t want to be burned out by all the prep.
On the other hand, we feel that eloping wouldn’t be right for us as we do want to be able to celebrate with our families. I would feel I had missed out a massive milestone if my dad didn’t walk me down the aisle, and I’m certain he would feel the same.
I know you’ll all say, “It’s your wedding, you can do it however you want,” but really what I’m looking for is concrete examples of things that worked for people with autism. For example, one idea we are toying with is having a small, formal service in a chapel with our very immediate families and then throwing a bigger party/reception a few months later for the wider family and a few friends. Neither of us really like being the centre of attention anyway.
Along with Asperger’s, I also have a number of physical health problems which cause fatigue and pain so that is a limiting factor too.
I've done it twice! Both times to NT men, it's me with the Aspergers. Both really good days, but for different reasons. The first one was done on a shoestring. We wanted a proper biker wedding, so there was a big old line of motorbikes accompanying us to the registry office and back. I was going to ride my own bike, but decided fairly late in the day to go with the full wedding dress (on the grounds that "you only do this once" ... er yeah OK) which meant I ended up in my mum's car. The catering was done by my mum and her friends, one of whom made the cake too. Hubby and I made gallons of home brew so that we could have a (mostly) free bar. Music was provided by another friend who ran a rock show at the weekends in local pubs and had a full PA. I think the whole thing came in at under £3k (in 1989) including my dress! But it was a great day, everyone pitched in and that made it very cosy. I did not feel too much stared at either, which I did notice at the 2 church weddings I went to before mine. I would not have liked that at all.
Plastic is spot on - it is a very long day and really tiring. I say this as someone who was very young at the time and with no health problems, so the only thing affecting my fatigue levels was having to be "social" for that long. It really is quite exhausting. I think the idea of factoring in a rest is a good one. We had two receptions really, a lunch/early pm bbq with the cake cutting etc, aimed more at the older relatives/traditionalists, then back home for a couple of hours. That gave time for a couple of hours rest, then we returned to the venue for a proper party: beer, loud rock music and general silliness. It was great.
Second time around we started looking at the options and realised that a lot of the hoo-ha around weddings is not for the benefit of the bride and groom, but is just to meet other people's expectations. Since it was second time around for both of us, we reached a point in the planning/ideas stage when we just thought "this time let's do it for us". We went on holiday to a Greek island, got married over there with a couple of the lovely holiday company reps as witnesses, and told everyone when we got back. We'd both done it for everyone else the first time, so the second we felt we could just do it for us and no-one would be offended. I don't think they were (well, if they were, we didn't hear about it!)
I think in your case the trick will be to make it a proper celebration, but make sure that it's one you can still enjoy without needing 4 weeks to recover afterwards! Perhaps splitting the party could work for you too? A lunch for very close family and something more informal in the evening maybe? The beauty of the informal evening thing is that if people are having fun drinking and dancing, they won't mind if you retire before they do :-)
Sounds like you've had the best of both worlds there. :-)