My fiancé and I (32) are different cultures and religions. We take both sides into serious account and consider traditional values often. However, me and my fiancé are working together (as well as in pre-marital counseling) to work through some cultural differences that are being placed onto him continually by his side of the family.
His father lost his brother a few weeks ago (my fiancé’s uncle) and he is pressuring us to cancel our destination wedding to continue to grieve the loss. The wedding is 5 months away and in their culture, they expect the close community and family to cancel big celebrations when there is a time of mourning due to respect and beliefs they have around loss. This usually extends to a year, sometimes more. My fiancé does not want to cancel and feels its unfair to us especially after a long time of me not being accepted into his family for over 13 years due to the cultural and religious differences they first denied. We both feel this wedding at our age was a long enough to wait for them to accept our relationship and asking us to cancel feels like pleasing them again. We also feel that this impacts all of our guests and my family who have already made arrangements internationally.
His father has been practically begging us to cancel and offered to pay for a wedding more locally instead. He told my fiancé if he goes to the wedding he will not dance or be happy and asked that there be no music or drinking to grieve the loss correctly. I feel this is a big cultural ask and clash for us. We want to have a talk with his parents to explain how we will still go on with the wedding plans and feel its important to us but naturally we both feel guilt and shame for this now.
AITA for continuing on with the wedding plans anyway?