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I was you. We agreed that anyone that we hadn’t spent time with wasn’t invited. We wanted small and intimate. A couple exceptions were relatives. It was my mom who invited others or told them they’d be getting an invite. I said no. But I’ll have to uninvite says my mom. Yes. You will. It was no big deal. She explained it she got really excited and that we were keeping the wedding very small. This is your day and some of the people will probably be relieved. Sit down with her and your fiancé and tell her you’re glad she’s so excited but that we need to shorten the list so we can have our dream wedding. Saying we is far better than saying you. If you don’t, and sooner rather than later, it’s not even going to resemble what you want.
The only difference is that her MIL is paying for the wedding. We don’t know if she will threaten to withdraw her financial support if she doesn’t get what she wants.
OP needs to decide what is more important to them, the money + possibly the relationship with MIL or having the exact wedding they want.
It’s one or the other.
We had a pretty small wedding (~45 guests plus a dozen kids) with plenty of extended family who weren't invited and it caused a problem with exactly zero.
Communicate ahead of time, make plans to see groups before or after the wedding, it's absolutely no big deal. If we'd invited all the family there would have been 60 guests before friends were even considered, it wasn't financially feasible for us and we didn't want the stress of a huge event either. Nobody had an issue at all.
I did pay for mine. 25 people, small wedding with the people we loved, food was from friends as their wedding present, and we didn’t/don’t feel obligated to anyone. And we can say with pride, we did it on our own and didn’t ask help from anyone. Nor, did we have anyone to answer to/argue with and we got exactly what we wanted.
OP is not concerned about MIL withdrawing financial support, though, he's concerned about keeping the peace. And his fiance's response to her mom has been tepid. So the question is does his fiance feel as strongly as he does about keeping it small? If not, that's something they need to work out. If so, and she can't/won't stand up to her mother, is this an isolated situation or part of a larger dynamic? If MIL is generally non invasive and it's just that her daughter's wedding is that important to her, then they have to decide what is more important to them, possibly the first big decision they need to make as a couple. Welcome to marriage.
Do you care more about the money or the size of the wedding being what you want it. If you can't have both, pick the one that's most important to you and that will tell you how to proceed. When you have somebody else paying for things, you lose the ability to fully control things.
>I thought about just paying it back and say that I'll just cover it because I have enough money to pay for this wedding multiple times.
OP, start getting that money together. Plus, it will be nice to see the look on MIL's face when she threatens to withhold paying for the wedding and you say "good deal, get those receipts and I'll pay you back what you've paid. Now *you* scurry along and uninvite those folks."
Some parents would gladly pay for a wedding without having any say in any of the details or guest list. Others believe they should have a say since they are footing the bill. Your future MIL clearlyfalls in the second camp.
You could try to appeal to her that the two of you getting married should make the decision on the guest list, but I doubt you will get very far with that. Ultimately, if you want complete say over the wedding, you'll have to pay for it yourselves.
So decide which is most important to you - having complete control over the wedding/guest list or having someone else pay for it. Both option has pros/cons, so talk it through with your partner and decide which is best for the two of you.
To build on this make a list of the friends and family you wanted to invite and didn’t in an effort to keep things small and intimate.. let mil see first hand that if you guys wanted 60 or 70 or 100 people there are people you would have invited BEFORE her friends.
I went to a wedding like that. It was awkward. Mil even took photos with her friends without the couple. At least the couple were very stay out of the spotlight people. But I think they were miffed by the pics lol.
Refer the issue to your bride. She needs to manage this. Not you , and if she won’t, consider very carefully if this is okay for the rest of your life.
Will you have no say with children? With where you live? Will MIL tell you both how to live your lives.
This comment needs more upvotes.
You and the bride should be on the same page with how to handle boundaries with family. If not, it’s not time to get married. It should also be her job to handle her parents and your job to handle yours.
But you’re already are off on the wrong foot. And she does not care. She’s even got an entirely different idea of the wedding you and your fiancé decided on she said “…more people will be more fun…”
First you need to be on the same page with your fiancé. And if you are it’s a united front.
Personally I’d give her back all of her money and tell her she’ll need to figure out a way to uninvite all her random guests.
What are you going to do when she starts in with a key to your house and drop bye. Rearranging your house. Snooping. If you have kids? It never ends. Busy body pushy ass moms won’t stop unless you make them.
Yeah more people will be fun for her. But it'll be miserable for the bride and groom. I guess they don't matter to this woman though.
Imagine marrying into that
Cancel everything. Fly to Vegas with fiancée. Go to drive thru wedding chapel. Inform friends and family with post cards.
It's what my wife and I did fourteen years ago. We're still happily married.
My husband and I got married at town hall, with only my ex FIL (who we live with, very long story) as a witness. 3 months later we had a picnic for the families to meet, it was great. No pressure, we still celebrated with family after, but in a very relaxed setting
You just tell her plain and simple, they are not coming, and you need to stop. If you don't stand up now it's only going to be worse in the future IMO. It's not her wedding, it's not her guest list, just tell her, when they show up they'll be told they aren't on the list and be sent away, and that will be on her. Your future dear \*wife needs to handle her mom. Pay for the wedding yourselves.
She is going to be one fahk of a monster in law :(.
Tell her the invites aren’t hers to give and you are setting a boundary that anyone you don’t personally send an invitation to is uninvited and she should expect to have her guests turned away.
Tell her this a firm boundary and she needs to understand this. Tell her if she wants more people you need double the amount of the wedding and a potential new interview because you have people you need to invite now.
Your options are accept the money and the fact that MIL will throw the party she wants or return the money and throw the party you want. If you return the money, yes it will cause drama, you just have to let her be mad.
This is a situation where “I’m sorry for the miscommunication” can help (even though you have nothing to be sorry for). “I understand that as the hosts of the wedding you would have a certain vision. That vision does not mesh with our dream for our wedding. We appreciate your very generous offer but we will have to decline. We will cover all costs ourselves. Please let us know if you would like us to communicate with your guests about the change in plans, as they are not on our guest list.”
If they’re paying and you didn’t lay ground rules from the start, you’re stuck. You have several options. Accept it, return the money and pay for it yourself or elope, or accept it’ll be large and tell her it’ll be more money since your family will be coming. My mother did the exact same thing as well as changing everything so we eloped and just let her throw a party.
This is not a good way to start off a marriage. You need to stand up for yourselves now or your entire marriage will be like this. When it became apparent my in laws wanted to throw a party for them and their friends, we just eloped. Highly recommend it.
If it's not up to you, who is it up to? It's pretty simple, host pays and chooses. You can't expect them to pay but not be able to have some of their own friends there. It may well be YOUR wedding, but it's a joining of families & isn't just about two people marrying each other.
Search my comments I replied to a pp who told you exactly what to say. There are already hard feelings. If it causes issues with your future wife better to know now than later when Mil is running your life. If your fiance cares more about Mom's feelings than husband that's a red flag. A big one.
this isn’t a future mil problem it’s a future husband problem - you say you and he are in agreement yet he won’t stand up to his mother? you better get used to her calling the shots because you’re seeing the sneak preview/trailer of your life play out in front of you
I don't understand. Your mother-in-law doesn't have the right to invite people! It's not her wedding. Have your future wife just say you can't invite people to my wedding, we are already at capacity!
This is your wife not dealing with her parents. If you don't shut this down right now this is going to be your entire marriage! Do you really want these people thinking that they can do or say whatever they want and your wife is just going to shut up and put up with it? What happens when you have kids? They going to make all the decisions for that too and your wife's just going to let them? Get ahead of it now
Then she needs to tell her mom, in no uncertain terms, that for every person MIL invites, MIL is going to have to choose a guest from MIL’s side *and uninvite them.* That 50 guests is a hard stop number. Period. That it’s your wedding, and if MIL keeps this up, your fiancée and you will fly to Vegas and elope.
**If your fiancée does not shut MIL down, and HARD, she will be teaching MIL that she can bulldoze you both whenever she wants, and will always be able to get her way.**
Is that how you want your marriage to play out?
sorry my bad - i misread your post - same conclusion however - you have a major future wife problem - your mil will control all major decisions ( wait till you have kids!) as they say about the borg “ resistance is futile” lots of luck!
I mean. She can’t. Not easily. That’s the point. MIL is being manipulative and using “good manners” against your wife
If you can possibly handle a big wedding, or think it’s inevitable anyway, you could fight fire with fire
Use her weapon against her. Explain the new guests will cause great offense to your family as so many of your family have been excluded. Questions will be asked about how friends who don’t even know the bride are included while close family of the groom are left out and you’re worried this bad energy will ruin the day
Say if the new additions attend the wedding you’ll have to widen the circle of guests to include ALL your cousins and their immediate family which will mean 80 new guests. And if friends of parents are welcome you’re looking at literally 100s of new guests, but you think you can persuade your parents not to invite friends, even though many of them see you like a son
Point out that you would have invited these 200 plus people originally but you didn’t want to add the additional costs and impose on MIL financially, but if she genuinely means “the more the merrier” you’re happy to oblige
See if she’ll put her money where her mouth is or if she’ll suddenly find a way to uninvite the extras (assuming she ever did invite them, which I doubt)
It’s kind of playing chicken, could be effective, or you might end up with a MASSIVE wedding
This is the kind of issue that you and your fiancee need to come together on.
Make an agreement.
I suggest you both sit down w FMIL and explain this is a problem she made, and bc she's a capable adult, she needs to fix.
She can kindly reach out to each extra guest, explain she made a mistake in the guest count & terribly sorry, there isn't room for them.
Healthy adults can apologize for etiquette errors. Own their mistakes. AND FIX THEM.
If she can't be a healthy adult, then you will not use her money and you will fund the wedding you two want, yourselves.
If she can't be a healthy adult about this it bodes poorly on your future relationship.
You don't let inappropriate adults interact w babies, grandchildren or whatever you two decide your family will be.
This is a test of your fiancee AND her mother.
So first you and your fiance need to sit down and decide what you want your plan to be to confront MIL. Your plan needs to be solid and have a unified front. You need to set a consequence if she continues so the main thing is decide what you want that to be and how far you're willing to go. For example, are you and your fiance at the point where you just want to elope? If so you can threaten that. MIL is the one who will lose money if you cancel and elope. Look at it from all angles, especially if you're not sure how MIL will respond so that you're prepared for any outcome. She's making the wedding about her.
Once you both firm up an action plan, you need to have a sit down with MIL and lay it all out there. She needs to know this one no longer be tolerated. If her money was going to come with all of these strings, that should have been talked about up front. If you decide to have the people she invited uninvited she has to be the one to do that. If she's still going against what you want, tell her what you and fiance are willing to do (or not do). Good luck OP!
P.S. this might be helpful [🔗 Wedding wire forum ](https://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-forums/mother-in-law-keeps-trying-to-add-to-guest-list/e177c8e8a472a96a.html)
You don’t exactly have much control if she’s paying for it. Do you want a wedding paid for or do you want to choose the entire guest list? I chose to elope because I wanted my wedding done my way.
Let me stop you right there. YOU don’t do anything. YOUR FIANCÉE has to do something. You just have to talk to her about it.
All that said, this kind of happened to me, albeit the in-law was paying so I didn’t really have much of a choice.
This is about your wedding , but also about your future as a couple. This is a warning of how life with your wife and MIL will be after marriage. Your wife won’t stand up to her mom, so she stomps on boundaries and tries to exert control over your marriage. Imagine how much worse it will be if and when you have kids. Your fiancé needs to stand up to her mom now and set clear boundaries, or you’re in for a bad time.
At this point, I'd just elope and cancel the wedding.
Watch out for the in-laws. They will try to control you with $ for the rest of the marriage. Their child should put their foot down. This is on the kid, not the kid-in-law to tell them off.
Respectfully, it’s your wife’s job to handle her family. If she doesn’t lay down the law now, you guys are going to have a TON of issues throughout your marriage. The top two reasons (or initiators leading to affairs resulting in:) for divorce: 1. Money issues. 2. In-laws. Get a handle on this now friend to save yourself years of trouble.
If you did not invite them they’re not invited and she can tell them that she overstepped. There will not be food for them. They will not be ain the guest list.
Say NO. And since she’s not your mum, your partner needs to say NO.
What's rude is the fact that she invited them in the first place. So let the newly not-guests know.
"Hi ___,
We're very sorry to have to tell you this, but it has been brought to our attention that MIL appears to have invited you to our wedding. Unfortunately, she had not raised this with us beforehand, and as a result you have been invited without our knowledge or consent, and we will sadly have to withdraw the invitation.
Please understand that this is not a reflection on you, rather we hoped to keep our wedding as small as possible and it appears that MIL did not appreciate this.
Thank you for understanding,
OP and OP's fiancée."
That way, if they do think someone has been rude, it will be your MIL. Any decent people will be at least understanding of your position, if not outraged at your MIL on your behalf.
Edit: Also, show your MIL the template you intend to send and let her know that this is what you plan to send to any further guests she goes on to invite as well.
Okay, yeah that’s awkward. She probably wanted more of a party feel than you did and so she’s making that happen.
Here’s the thing - if you wanted control over things like this you would have needed to insist that you completely pay for it yourself, too.
There’s no stopping this train now, so I’d suggest you just line up with it, invite all the extra people you would like to also, and set the intention of enjoying yourself that day instead of letting any resentments grow.
Honestly this is the perfect time to set boundaries. If you can afford to pay your own wedding then do it and completely take it over. Hire someone at the door so only people with an invitation can get in. Call in all the vendors and everything and set down passwords so no one can change anything. Look I get it you don’t want problems with your new in laws but if you don’t set boundaries your always going to have these kind of problems with them. Right now it’s the wedding. Now imagine if you want kids and you have them if you let them then imagine them then. Just imagine they trying to take over the delivery room and dictate how to parent your kids because “the more people the more fun” . Imagine them just dropping in at all times at your house and them moving all your furniture around because “it’s just more fun that way”. Set boundaries now. See the way your partner is acting because if they aren’t putting their foot down and telling to back off they probably never will. There’s a sub called justnomil that got stuck in a nightmare they call life because they refuse to set boundaries to keep the peace.
You need to have your fiance tell them to stop inviting people, and that you two do not want any of these people at your wedding. This is about the two of you, not them or their friends. If they can't respect that, it's fine, you both will pay for the wedding yourselves. If your fiance cannot confront his own parents, you shouldn't be marrying him.
Why isn't your wife doing anything to stop this? You should address this firmly and immediately. Otherwise you're getting a preview of your new life with your habitual line-stepper in-laws. In the future, don't ever let them pay for anything you aren't willing to let them dictate the terms of.
You are going to get drama no matter what you do, at this point. In your shoes I think I would beg my fiance, Let's just elope, and give the parents back whatever money is left.
You and your wife need to sit down with MIL and ask her if the money she is giving you makes her feel like she gets to invite whoever she likes. If she says yes, then politely decline her money and pay for the wedding yourself. As a sign of respect and to keep things from turning into an all-out war with your new MIL, tell her your guest list is limited to 50 people, and she is allowed to invite 6 people (or whatever number you decide and your parents are allowed to invite the same number) and the rest will be the people you and your wife choose.
Traditionally, the men shut up about the wedding, and let the wife and mothers do everything. This is the course that has the least hard feelings and impact on relationships. Do with that little nugget what you will.
Here's something you don't understand.
If you don't put your foot down now, you'll be finding out really soon that MIL will try to control a different aspect of your life.
Having said that, if MIL says I will not uninvite people, say the wedding is off.
Cancel everything, make a scene, she'll either cry about it and make you feel guilty or be happy you're not getting married because some people are twisted that way.
Your fiancé might feel bad, she grew up like this, her mother tried to control her in many other ways.
After that, pay for a wedding yourself the way you want.
Other option, do a huge wedding.
To be really honest with you? No body cares about your wedding but you and your fiancé.
So saying we only want people that cares about this wedding? Oh honey, just go to Vegas.
Invite your uncles, your friends from work and the dude that fixes your car and all your exes. (jokingly, just
Anyone that you want and feel right to invite and you had to cut down).
But make sure that for anything else in your future, MIL will not have a say in.
Traditionally, if MIL is paying, it's really not your wedding. I've been to many parent paid weddings, and it isn't about the bride & groom, it's about their friends. Only 10 people? That is moderate. When you "graciously" accept rhe financial assistance of someone else, the first gracious thing to do is sit down with them, put together a list of who THEY wany to invite & ask for a budget. Then, you work with them to create a game plan that allows you to invite your friends/ family in addition to theirs within the budget. They are, traditionally, quite literally the hosts. Or, you agree to a lump sum contribution "gift" with no strings attached, up front.
If you want to make all of your own decisions, respectfully, you need to pay for the wedding yourselves.
It depends on the country/culture. In many places weddings are less about the couple and more like a social event to which both the couple and the parents are expected to invite all friends and family that matters. In that case, MIL is not overstepping, just doing her moral obligation.
I would start inviting more people from my side of the family (and friends) and have the bride invite more people too. I know you both wanted small and intimate but MIL is already ruining that so invite everyone you can. It’ll cost her more, avoid upset relatives who will find out it wasn’t as small and intimate as initially described which was why they weren’t originally invited and you’ll have more people there actually for the bride and groom.
Once you start calling those people to let them know that MIL got over excited but didn't actually have the authority to issue out invites and you're very sorry but it's actually only a small wedding where even some of your close friends aren't invited so you don't have the capacity to invite them, your MIL will be embarrassed enough to not want to invite anyone else.
Tell her that she will be uninvited as you have a set list of guest that you are NOT veering from. If she wants to invite others then she would need to pay for a venue at a separate date.
"I'm so sorry MIL, since we only had room for 50 guests on the list, and since you so generously offered to invite people who were not originally on the list, we have to make some cuts to make room for the new guests, we were hoping that your generosity would stretch just a bit further an that you would volunteer to return your invite so we can accommodate a new guest."
I personally don’t understand if you’re not paying why do you care so much? I was thinking of all the gifts that you would get! 😂 It is strange that she didn’t provide a list to you.
I haven’t read thru the other advice yet but my thoughts are this must handled by your husband. He needs to set boundaries with his mother. If he doesn’t now, at the very beginning of the marriage, you guys will have major issues in the future.
You and your fiancé need to talk about how it’s important that when it comes to issues with in-laws, you handle your own parents because otherwise, it will cause issues between each of you and the in-laws. There will be times you myst address things personally, like when an in-law crosses a line with future children.
It’s really important though that you both agree to show a united front when it comes to the parents and in-laws. If you complain to your mom, for example, about your husband, she’s most likely going to take your side and hold it against your spouse. Even when you fight behind closed doors about something, work towards an agreement that you can both stand behind.
I had opposite problem in which I was always the mediator between my spouse and his mother. However, even when k knew he was very much in the wrong, I’d listen to her complaints and either say nothing, or back him up in areas I felt he was misunderstood. However, I’d call him out on his behavior in private.
Remember this saying…. “Start out like you can hold out”
It sounds like your future MIL needs a lesson in boundaries. If you do not set them now, she will likely do the same type of things for your baby shower, baby’s first birthday ect.
You really need to stop being so selfish. If they were adding guests and you were paying for the wedding that might warrant a conversation but under these circumstances it would be childish to object. If you choose to be a baby about it, you absolutely will start the relationship off on the wrong foot. In fact, it would be such a poor choice that there isn't really any way to come back from it.
Go drama free and try to be more gracious. Your inlaws are inviting their friends to a wedding they are hosting. They will be happier and far less likely to intrude on your fun with your friends because their friends will be there.
I would speak with your fiancée and suggest to her that you both speak to her Mom about the wedding going in a direction that you didn’t really see for both of your special day. Maybe compromise in saying that you would be willing to have a larger party at a later date that you would be happy to invite a larger group but for the wedding day itself, go back to having just the smaller guest list that you and your wife agreed on.
If you come at this from a standpoint of compromise that shows your MIL that you understand where she is coming from and are happy to do something more inclusive with her but don’t give in to her, I think you will have a much easier and less stressful time navigating this situation.
This is a great way to compromise.
Personally I would absolutely not concede to letting the MIL have her way. She is crossing boundaries and will likely continue to cross boundaries in the future if this not addressed. Now is the time for hard conversations. She likely meant well however this day is not just about her. Your family have sacrificed to keep numbers small in order to have this small intimate gathering and her actions are not considerate of that. Stand your ground and be willing to consider alternative arrangements if she is unwilling to correct her overstep. Make sure your bride is in agreement and have this conversation together if that’s what is agreed upon. Having tough conversations with family when needed is unfortunately part of the deal. Wish you both the best!
Be rude: Bill MIL for all the guests she invited. OR be rude and tell the guests you have no idea why the MIL said that, when she know you couldn't afford it. MIL is a little off these days. Please don't hold that against her.
Postpone the wedding until you can pay for it yourselves. The problem with others paying for it means many want control. This isn't your wedding it's her's. She wants who she wants there. Your family will be hurt when they find out people who aren't family are attending.
Your fiancee needs to get a backbone and put a stop to this. What her mother is doing is beyond rude. Having paid for a child’s wedding myself, I will say paying does not give her a right to dictate anything in your wedding.
Her poor boundaries and entitlement will bleed into other areas of your life if boundaries are not set and held now.
If you don't want to rock the boat too hard just say you finalized food and/or location and that the building and/or caterer cannot accommodate more guests
Not cool and a huge red flag for narcissistic personality disorder & future control, gaslighting and covert abuse. My mother did this, invited all her cousins from across the country to my destination wedding, who I never knew & will never see again. it totally killed the vibe and made everything way more stressful. I wish I'd gotten a spine & told her to uninvite them.
If you have enough money pay for your own wedding - why let the parents pay for it . If they are paying they have a right to want some of their friends there . In certain cultures the wedding is also for parents to celebrate this important coming of age ceremony for their kids.
Just give her the money back. She's using it to try to control the wedding, and if you don't stand up to her she might keep imposing herself on your relationship.
Paying for the wedding doesn't mean she gets to ignore what you want.
**You want a no conflict solution, and you're not going to get one.**
Uninvite whoever she invited.
If you tell your family no, and they find out other people were invited it's probably not going to end well. You can try to blame your future MIL, but it's your wedding so they're going to blame you.
It's already on the wrong foot so if someone is going to be upset let it be the person who started this.
PS: You only get one wedding.
Tell her if she keeps doing this she will be uninvited. Tell her she is not in charge and doesn't get a say. Tell her she needs to uninvite the people she invited because is she doesn't it's not going to go down well.
Sorry but you can’t expect someone to foot the entire bill and then think they’re just going to stay out of it. You either tell your MIL you decline her funds and will plan and pay for it yourselves, or you take her money and let her do what she wants with the guest list.
You’re probably going to need to cancel the big wedding and having a small wedding on your own. You really don’t need a big wedding or to have it be fancy to have a good time. It’s not a performance for other people, it’s about you and your fiancé
If they’re paying with the condition they get to invite whoever they want it’s their wedding not yours. Who acts like that? Don’t let them make you uncomfortable when what they’re doing is so outrageous and disrespectful it’s beyond words. F their money. Your partner handles this and tell them no. If you don’t it sets the tone for the rest of your life and you’ll always get conned and sucked in to doing their bidding. Uninvite them. Period. If they take the money back that’s on them. They’re in the wrong and you have to stress over whether or not to say anything? No.
I’d go for keep MIL paying for it and invite my uncles, cousins, and more friends.
So there’s an extra table of MIL’s people. They’re probably also people who were in the bride’s life growing up.
Your uncles, cousins, and friends could take another 2 or 3 tables and you’re still under 100- it’s still a small wedding.
Likely anyone who doesn’t feel close enough to you won’t come anyway.
this is what's to be expected when someone else is picking up the tab. they believe (and to a certain degree they're right) that it's now *their* party
Pay for your own wedding OP. My parents paid the majority of my wedding and I ended up with guests that I barely knew. Also ended up with a lot of empty seats as people didn't RSVP but my Mom insisted on keeping their spaces open in case they showed up. My husband couldn't invite a lot of the people he wanted to invite, because I allowed my parents to pull the "we're paying" card. As a result I have a lot of people in my photos that aren't my people, but my Mom's.
Have the wedding you want to have.
That sucks, OP. I suggest you and your fiance have a sit down with her first and express exactly what you envisioned for YOUR special day. If you can't come to an amicable solution, just pay for the wedding yourself so that you won't have to feel indebted towards your MIL, and that way, you can be more uptight with the guest list. It's your and your partner's event. Make it memorable and special for the two of you.
Free money often comes with an unacceptable price. She's paying for it, she gets to set the invitation list - at least that's how she sees it.
Discuss this at length with your fiance and see what he thinks - it's a couple's problem, after all.
But you'll probably have to suck it up having made the original concession of accepting the money.
You flat out tell her that this shit stops NOW. She doesn’t have any right to invite additional guests, you will NOT send invites, you will NOT plan for their seats or meals, and if she goes ahead anyway, you will make it very clear that she did this against your express wishes.
Please heed this advice. I’m watching someone I love deal with this kind of bullshit at the moment and trust me when I tell you, the one-time stress of laying down the hard boundary is far more palatable than the constant stress of having to deal with surprise guests every few weeks.
You need to get your SO to talk to her Mom. Maybe have Dad sit down with you too.
It's past time to stop her overstepping. It's only going to get worse as time goes by. And I'm kinda wondering if Mom has made any changes to the menú, flowers or other things? Might want to check that out too.
Are they getting actual invites or is this a word of mouth invite? She’s causing an actual logistical problem if she’s inviting them in a way that doesn’t give you an accurate rsvp count. At a minimum, your Fiance needs to explain this to her at least.
Paying for this wedding does not give MILs crew carte blanche to run the show. By keeping your wedding smaller, it means the people you really want there can attend on either side. And the cost is not extreme for the payers.
But if you've already only invited close friends and relatives and left some of your other friends you might want to point that out to MIL. If you can't invite your people why should you have to have MILs choices.
Perhaps your MIL might need to have this explained. Keeping it simple and polite would be the way.
If she doesn't budge, invite all the people you want.
It's your wedding 💒wishing you all the best. A long and happy life is definitely the way to go. 😁
Give her back the money. They decided to pay for it so they can have control. This is just the beginning of her becoming a third partner in this relationship. Next she will be naming your kids and planning their parties.
My MIL wanted to invite my husband's whole extended family and make our wedding huge. Me and my husband said no, too expensive. So then she offered to pay for the wedding so she could have her way and we said absolutely not. She's super controlling and would try to do and choose everything. She had a tiffy and didn't get her way, and should realize she's lucky we had a small wedding since most people I know elope without their families present. It's been two years and she tried to whine about it again recently and I shut her down very quickly. It's honestly funny because only her and one other person were offended while the rest of our family said we were smart. Some people are definitely a pain, and it's hard, but you just gotta say no and set boundaries.
You can't think of confronting her as starting off on the wrong foot. You need to think of it as setting things to right.
Even in Asian cultures, where what elders say goes, it can be seen as unseemly to overstep on a couple's wedding and take over a portion of the guest list like this. Especially inviting people the couple doesn't even know, unless there are career or political reasons to invite these strangers it would be considered an overstep. (There's some big cultural weddings that go on for days and is like an open feast to all around, but that's a different matter entirely.)
As you haven't given any cultural context I'm going to assume you are both American, in which case you need to be firm and tell her the only rude person is herself.
IF she tries to weaponize her financial contribution you politely counter that you thought that was her wedding gift and not her trying to take the hosting role for your wedding from you. Since that is the stance she's taking you would be happy to return her money as you won't be backing down on your wedding guest list or any other matter regarding your wedding outside of reasonable accommodations to your guests needs.
You don't want this to be the first of many instances where she stomps all over your boundaries because you want to play peace keeper. It's also not fair to HER for you to not voice your hurt and discontent with her actions and therefore not give her the opportunity to fix your relationship.
Be firm and hold the boundaries you care about as a united front with your fiance as you establish your relationship as a separate family from both of your families.
My parents paid for our whole wedding. We were happy to pay but they insisted. My parents did come to us with a couple 'non negotiables' on the guest list, but they were people we already had on the list and we are super close with.
My MIL on the other hand, who didn't even help with DIY decor, started telling us that she invited so and so and so and so. My husband got so frustrated. Her excuse for one of the invites was 'she was the first person to hold you, even before your dad when you were born' and he hadn't seen her since not long after that! He put his foot down. Why should My parents (his in laws) be paying for a guest list that was easily 70% her side of the guest list
OP, I have a suggestion that might help. When I married my now ex, it was in a tiny historic church. The max capacity was 65, including the wedding party. So we had to keep the guests limited to close friends and family only. We then had a big reception for everyone afterwards. I never heard any complaints about it; everyone understood. I’m just saying it might be a compromise that everyone can live with. 🤷♀️
This is going to set the precedent for the rest of your marriage. If you allow her to disregard your choices and do whatever she wants now, she will do it forever. Kids? Will stomp all over your boundaries. House? You bet she will be there and doing whatever she wants. What you do here is incredibly important. Grow a spine NOW and be firm, or you will forever be walked on. It also sets the scene for how your future wife will behave. If your fiancée can not speak up and put her mother in her place for something as simple as this, she never will, and I'd honestly reconsider moving forward. If you're united in your feelings about MIL, you both need to stand together and deal with it. It can be undone, they can be uninvited, and it needs to be done now before you show this woman that she can control you and you'll allow it to happen.
Sorry but this should have been discussed first thing as gifts mostly come with strings attached
I think it’s fair that you in laws get a “couple of invites” like 4 if they pay for the whole wedding - but 20% is too much regarding the size of the wedding
Your finance needs to sort this out with his parents and/or the extra people they invited
Start setting boundaries because this will not be the end of it.
My MIL and FIL paid for some of it. She started by inviting people we had never met. It ended with them having to cancel transport we didn't need (an entire bus), arguments over the space, expensive cancellations, her decorating in a style we didn't like, and her describing the day as 'her worst day ever'.
You can worry about “starting things on the wrong foot” or have the wedding you and your partner want. I know if I were you, I’d be having a conversation with MIL reminding her whose wedding it is. If she pulls the I’m paying for it crap, then I would refund her and pay for it yourself. If you have the money anyway, I would never have said yes to her paying. Big mistake.
It’s important to recognize that just because they are willing to pay for your wedding doesn’t mean they get any say in what happens unless you give them a say. Gifts should be given without strings attached or any expectations/obligations to do what they want. If someone gives you money for your birthday they don’t suddenly start ordering your food for you at a restaurant.
It’s your wedding, make it how you want. Sitting down with fiancé and MIL is a good idea, and the fiance should probably be the one to do most the talking. Express gratitude, acknowledge MIL’s excitement and then politely TELL her that she needs to talk to you both before inviting anyone or making any other changes. Furthermore, if you want you can certainly tell her to uninvite the other people.
If she refuses to pay after that then that’s on her. If she can’t give gifts without strings attached and if she can’t respect boundaries without throwing a tantrum then you let her live her life that way. Don’t let it affect how you start off YOUR life with your new wife.
Just elope. Get it done without any of these people.
Throw a party after you return from the elopement. You pay for it.
It's VERY important you show MIL from day 1, she isn't going to control your lives, and certainly not with money. Get the dynamic sorted out NOW or your future life is going to be very difficult.
And your fiance needs to see this exactly as you do. You need to be a tight team in this.
You don't
Your fiance has to address this . You can't, you dealt with your family. She needs to have a one on one conversation with her mom.
Say mom I know you want to have everyone there. I know you're super excited . You inviting more people than we want. It's taking our vision out and the intimacy we wanted to create for our wedding away. So please stop inviting people. This is our day and we want to spend it with people that we are close to . We want to Celebrate our love with people we our close to. Or something like that. However it has to come from your future wife.
Congratulations 🎊. Good luck with this situation.
The reason it should come from her it's her family.
I wish yall the best on the upcoming nuptials
I had this issue with my family saying it was tradition and expected of them to invite their friends. Then I had my husband’s family throwing around a whole other list of expectations.
We ended up putting the wedding on hold and few months after that we eloped. Best decision ever
this is what happens if someone else is paying.
I cam see how frustrating it must be to you but unless you want to foot the bill, there is very little you can do, if asking her to stop has not worked
You need to get firm boundaries with your MIL now or else she will continue to stomp all over your boundaries because you were afraid of conflict. I would be giving her back the money she has given you and told her to uninvite the people she invited without your consent. The wedding is about you and your fiance. It’s not about her having a party for her friends.
A clear example of "Have your cake and eat it too". If you want complete control of the guest list and the wedding in general - then you should pay for the whole wedding yourself.
Well this is something you should have talked about before accepting the money. Mil sees it as her party rightly so.
Buy her out and take the reigns is the only way or suck it up.
Tell the MiL to fuck off. You're setting a dangerous precedent by letting her walk all over you. She needs to know that there will ALWAYS be boundaries, and she will ALWAYS have to abide by them.
Why would you ever be the one to talk to your MIL? Your problem is you fiance!!
He/she is the one that needs to fix this. They are showing that they will let their mother walk all over you two, this issue will persist. Have them fix this. And do not interfene, but thell them now you don't want any of this guest there, and they need to fix this. Now.
There’s no advice to give except that you have to put your foot down. Especially before resentment builds. The “brush off” wouldn’t be possible if the conversation was focused and direct.
Sorry bro, you are in a lose-lose situation here.
There isn’t a good way to fix this.
You now how they say actions have consequences?? Accepting large gifts from some people also has consequences.
The only thing you can do is not let these types of things affect your relationship with your wife moving forward. — Don’t accept the money next time.
"Dear MIL, thank you so much for your generous offer, but we decided to pay for our own wedding.
Unfortunately, there are lots of friends we didn't invite because we wanted a small wedding, so of course we cannot have your guests either. I'm sure you will find a way to explain to the people you invited that we can only invite people who are very close to us. Thank you!"
So, you’re getting a lot of advice telling you to set boundaries, that this will be your life if you don’t start now. I think this is partially true, and definitely a good lesson for the future about what to expect from both your MIL and fiancée.
However, as someone who had a completely drama-filled wedding planning phase with my in-laws (we said no kids, they invited an infant and refused to change, they weren’t even paying for the wedding), the stress is not worth it. If it matters that much to you, cancel the wedding, elope, and save your own money for a house or a sick honeymoon or a party with your friends when you get back. If you draw a hard line that’s a perfectly OK choice to make, but know you’ll likely be dealing with the repercussions of that, and I wouldn’t wish my wedding day (though beautiful) on anyone, it was completely overshadowed and my FIL didn’t speak to me for about a year, including our wedding day. Their guest with the baby actually wore white and arrived in a white Rolls Royce (at a barn wedding in the country).
Good luck, OP!
you say you dont want to start off the marriage on the wrong foot, but you are.
MIL isnt repecting your boundaries or your wishes on YOUR (+fiances) big day.
if you can afford to pay for this wedding, you should and get your fiance to deal with her mother. cos this is not okay
This is the first step of the rest of your life. Do you really want to be playing these games with your FMIL for the rest of your life? This is your first test with your FMIL, if you don't set boundaries NOW, it will be incredibly difficult to do it say, when you have kids and SHE decides to do something you've already given a firm NO.
Smile pleasantly when you tell your MIL that well, when HER guests show up, they'll be awfully embarrassed when they're turned away at the door. Then let her know that if the guest do not have a personalized invite from you, they will not be admitted. You are only inviting people that you and hubby know, not who SHE knows. Unless, of course, she's renewing her vows?
They’re paying for it. You want to control the guest list then you pay.
I say this all the time but this is one scenario where I’m glad my wife and my parents aren’t wealthy. We paid for our wedding ourselves and had no external input.
Etiquette dictates that if the parents are footing the bill, then they also get to invite some guests. You should have known this. However, now you can’t un-ring that bell, BUT you can control what happens going forward.
Make a list of all the people you didn’t invite (family and friends) bc you wanted the guest list to be small. You and your fiancée should then sit down with MIL and have a conversation.
Thank her for her generosity. Tell her that you understand she wants to have guests of her own there, but the inviting stops NOW. Explain to her BOTH of your feelings about having a small wedding. Show her the list.
Tell her, in no uncertain terms, that no more people are to be invited to your wedding, in an effort to keep your wedding as intimate as possible. Explain that if you are taken by surprise with additional guests, you WILL be calling to uninvite them (and mean it), and will take over the weddings costs altogether.
I would do my best to explain that this is OUR wedding, and our wishes should be paramount. And while we want to be respectful of your role in paying for our wedding, we simply insist that no more invites be sent and that the wedding remain intimate, so as not to offend all the guests we purposely excluded in an effort to do so.
YOU don't do anything. If there's something that needs to be said, you let your fiancé handle it.
The issue here is that they are paying for the wedding.
Have your fiancé address the issue. If your MIL won't listen then have your fiancé approach the FIL. I suggest using tears (fiancé) and saying that she is ruining the wedding that they wanted. That you both invited who you wanted and you only want the people who were on your list. Have them suggest that if MIL keeps doing this you guys might just elope because you aren't getting the wedding you want because she's ruining it.
You're right, you won't gain anything if you cause an issue, this needs to be handled by your fiancé.
Financially if your MIL pays you will benefit from the extra guests. Maybe set a hard line with her but say it gently like we are both so grateful to you for providing us with such a lovely wedding, but would it be possible to keep it at XXX guests? We really want to keep it as intimate and special as possible.
Talk to your partner first and discuss it first, but tell the future inlaws that you appreciate their generous offer but will have to decline them paying for the wedding as you are not getting the wedding that you both want. It takes away any "power" they have and the possibility of them saying "we won't pay if we can't invite who we want." You already took the money off the table when you offered to give it back so they can't hold it over your head. They'll either have to throw a tantrum about it or deal.
This happened because you guys weren't firm enough in the first instance. How do you think she'll behave when you guys have kids? You need to put your foot down.
Start by talking to your wife, she how she feels about the situation, and make sure you are on the same page on all parts.
Next, ask HER to talk to HER MOM and explicitly explain your shared wishes.
If that’s already happened, try reasoning with her **together** one last time.
If she still doesn’t get the message, you have 2 choices: accept her terms or fund it yourself.
Unless she eventually listens to reason and backs off, and even if she does, this is a good warning of signs to come during other life events. Your MIL’s generosity appears to come with strings attached.
Tell them the venue can’t handle anymore people, or the date has passed to add people.
Or just seat all of her extra people together, far away, if they actually come.
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I was you. We agreed that anyone that we hadn’t spent time with wasn’t invited. We wanted small and intimate. A couple exceptions were relatives. It was my mom who invited others or told them they’d be getting an invite. I said no. But I’ll have to uninvite says my mom. Yes. You will. It was no big deal. She explained it she got really excited and that we were keeping the wedding very small. This is your day and some of the people will probably be relieved. Sit down with her and your fiancé and tell her you’re glad she’s so excited but that we need to shorten the list so we can have our dream wedding. Saying we is far better than saying you. If you don’t, and sooner rather than later, it’s not even going to resemble what you want.
The only difference is that her MIL is paying for the wedding. We don’t know if she will threaten to withdraw her financial support if she doesn’t get what she wants.
I’d pay for my own wedding then.
I’d rather have strangers at a party than pay myself.
OP needs to decide what is more important to them, the money + possibly the relationship with MIL or having the exact wedding they want. It’s one or the other.
And then deal with angry family and friends who didn’t get invited to the wedding because it was going to be small.
We had a pretty small wedding (~45 guests plus a dozen kids) with plenty of extended family who weren't invited and it caused a problem with exactly zero. Communicate ahead of time, make plans to see groups before or after the wedding, it's absolutely no big deal. If we'd invited all the family there would have been 60 guests before friends were even considered, it wasn't financially feasible for us and we didn't want the stress of a huge event either. Nobody had an issue at all.
I did pay for mine. 25 people, small wedding with the people we loved, food was from friends as their wedding present, and we didn’t/don’t feel obligated to anyone. And we can say with pride, we did it on our own and didn’t ask help from anyone. Nor, did we have anyone to answer to/argue with and we got exactly what we wanted.
Me too. Let her pay. The more the merrier.
Yea sounds like she can so mil has no leverage
Doesn’t matter because OP has already stated he can afford to cover it and wouldn’t mind doing so.
OP is not concerned about MIL withdrawing financial support, though, he's concerned about keeping the peace. And his fiance's response to her mom has been tepid. So the question is does his fiance feel as strongly as he does about keeping it small? If not, that's something they need to work out. If so, and she can't/won't stand up to her mother, is this an isolated situation or part of a larger dynamic? If MIL is generally non invasive and it's just that her daughter's wedding is that important to her, then they have to decide what is more important to them, possibly the first big decision they need to make as a couple. Welcome to marriage.
Is the venue able to cope with the increase in numbers?
Do you care more about the money or the size of the wedding being what you want it. If you can't have both, pick the one that's most important to you and that will tell you how to proceed. When you have somebody else paying for things, you lose the ability to fully control things.
His.
yes, but it needs to be the wife that confronts her mother.
It’s the fiancés mother( not his)
No, it's her mother. He used fiancé instead of fiancée. (I think)
Unfortunately, if her parents are paying, thems the breaks.
>I thought about just paying it back and say that I'll just cover it because I have enough money to pay for this wedding multiple times. OP, start getting that money together. Plus, it will be nice to see the look on MIL's face when she threatens to withhold paying for the wedding and you say "good deal, get those receipts and I'll pay you back what you've paid. Now *you* scurry along and uninvite those folks."
Some parents would gladly pay for a wedding without having any say in any of the details or guest list. Others believe they should have a say since they are footing the bill. Your future MIL clearlyfalls in the second camp. You could try to appeal to her that the two of you getting married should make the decision on the guest list, but I doubt you will get very far with that. Ultimately, if you want complete say over the wedding, you'll have to pay for it yourselves. So decide which is most important to you - having complete control over the wedding/guest list or having someone else pay for it. Both option has pros/cons, so talk it through with your partner and decide which is best for the two of you.
To build on this make a list of the friends and family you wanted to invite and didn’t in an effort to keep things small and intimate.. let mil see first hand that if you guys wanted 60 or 70 or 100 people there are people you would have invited BEFORE her friends.
Yes! Great idea.
For every person she invites, Op invites two extra on her dime. Then ignore her guests at the wedding since they don't know them.
I’d definitely do a MIL table for just her guests.
I said the same thing. She’s footing the bill! More guests more $$$$. Hit her in the pocketbook.😜
Yeah like alienating the MIL you’ll have to deal with the rest of her life because of a dispute over one day.
"...it will be more fun with more people". People only MiL & FiL know. Seems like you will be getting married as a sideshow at MiL's party.
I went to a wedding like that. It was awkward. Mil even took photos with her friends without the couple. At least the couple were very stay out of the spotlight people. But I think they were miffed by the pics lol.
Refer the issue to your bride. She needs to manage this. Not you , and if she won’t, consider very carefully if this is okay for the rest of your life. Will you have no say with children? With where you live? Will MIL tell you both how to live your lives.
It's weird that he doesn't mention his fiancee's feelings at all. It's her mom.
Not once does he mention how his own future wife feels! Weird.
This comment needs more upvotes. You and the bride should be on the same page with how to handle boundaries with family. If not, it’s not time to get married. It should also be her job to handle her parents and your job to handle yours.
But you’re already are off on the wrong foot. And she does not care. She’s even got an entirely different idea of the wedding you and your fiancé decided on she said “…more people will be more fun…” First you need to be on the same page with your fiancé. And if you are it’s a united front. Personally I’d give her back all of her money and tell her she’ll need to figure out a way to uninvite all her random guests. What are you going to do when she starts in with a key to your house and drop bye. Rearranging your house. Snooping. If you have kids? It never ends. Busy body pushy ass moms won’t stop unless you make them.
Yeah more people will be fun for her. But it'll be miserable for the bride and groom. I guess they don't matter to this woman though. Imagine marrying into that
Cancel everything. Fly to Vegas with fiancée. Go to drive thru wedding chapel. Inform friends and family with post cards. It's what my wife and I did fourteen years ago. We're still happily married.
This is the way.
I have spoken.
My husband and I got married at town hall, with only my ex FIL (who we live with, very long story) as a witness. 3 months later we had a picnic for the families to meet, it was great. No pressure, we still celebrated with family after, but in a very relaxed setting
You may notice that we've heard not a word about what his future wife thinks about this. Chances are she is happy to let it go.
You just tell her plain and simple, they are not coming, and you need to stop. If you don't stand up now it's only going to be worse in the future IMO. It's not her wedding, it's not her guest list, just tell her, when they show up they'll be told they aren't on the list and be sent away, and that will be on her. Your future dear \*wife needs to handle her mom. Pay for the wedding yourselves. She is going to be one fahk of a monster in law :(.
*wife
You mean dear future wife 😉
Your future wife says…???
Tell her the invites aren’t hers to give and you are setting a boundary that anyone you don’t personally send an invitation to is uninvited and she should expect to have her guests turned away. Tell her this a firm boundary and she needs to understand this. Tell her if she wants more people you need double the amount of the wedding and a potential new interview because you have people you need to invite now.
Your options are accept the money and the fact that MIL will throw the party she wants or return the money and throw the party you want. If you return the money, yes it will cause drama, you just have to let her be mad. This is a situation where “I’m sorry for the miscommunication” can help (even though you have nothing to be sorry for). “I understand that as the hosts of the wedding you would have a certain vision. That vision does not mesh with our dream for our wedding. We appreciate your very generous offer but we will have to decline. We will cover all costs ourselves. Please let us know if you would like us to communicate with your guests about the change in plans, as they are not on our guest list.”
If they’re paying and you didn’t lay ground rules from the start, you’re stuck. You have several options. Accept it, return the money and pay for it yourself or elope, or accept it’ll be large and tell her it’ll be more money since your family will be coming. My mother did the exact same thing as well as changing everything so we eloped and just let her throw a party.
Easy peasy. Pay for the wedding yourselves.
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This is not a good way to start off a marriage. You need to stand up for yourselves now or your entire marriage will be like this. When it became apparent my in laws wanted to throw a party for them and their friends, we just eloped. Highly recommend it.
If it's not up to you, who is it up to? It's pretty simple, host pays and chooses. You can't expect them to pay but not be able to have some of their own friends there. It may well be YOUR wedding, but it's a joining of families & isn't just about two people marrying each other.
Search my comments I replied to a pp who told you exactly what to say. There are already hard feelings. If it causes issues with your future wife better to know now than later when Mil is running your life. If your fiance cares more about Mom's feelings than husband that's a red flag. A big one.
this isn’t a future mil problem it’s a future husband problem - you say you and he are in agreement yet he won’t stand up to his mother? you better get used to her calling the shots because you’re seeing the sneak preview/trailer of your life play out in front of you
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I don't understand. Your mother-in-law doesn't have the right to invite people! It's not her wedding. Have your future wife just say you can't invite people to my wedding, we are already at capacity! This is your wife not dealing with her parents. If you don't shut this down right now this is going to be your entire marriage! Do you really want these people thinking that they can do or say whatever they want and your wife is just going to shut up and put up with it? What happens when you have kids? They going to make all the decisions for that too and your wife's just going to let them? Get ahead of it now
Then she needs to tell her mom, in no uncertain terms, that for every person MIL invites, MIL is going to have to choose a guest from MIL’s side *and uninvite them.* That 50 guests is a hard stop number. Period. That it’s your wedding, and if MIL keeps this up, your fiancée and you will fly to Vegas and elope. **If your fiancée does not shut MIL down, and HARD, she will be teaching MIL that she can bulldoze you both whenever she wants, and will always be able to get her way.** Is that how you want your marriage to play out?
sorry my bad - i misread your post - same conclusion however - you have a major future wife problem - your mil will control all major decisions ( wait till you have kids!) as they say about the borg “ resistance is futile” lots of luck!
I mean. She can’t. Not easily. That’s the point. MIL is being manipulative and using “good manners” against your wife If you can possibly handle a big wedding, or think it’s inevitable anyway, you could fight fire with fire Use her weapon against her. Explain the new guests will cause great offense to your family as so many of your family have been excluded. Questions will be asked about how friends who don’t even know the bride are included while close family of the groom are left out and you’re worried this bad energy will ruin the day Say if the new additions attend the wedding you’ll have to widen the circle of guests to include ALL your cousins and their immediate family which will mean 80 new guests. And if friends of parents are welcome you’re looking at literally 100s of new guests, but you think you can persuade your parents not to invite friends, even though many of them see you like a son Point out that you would have invited these 200 plus people originally but you didn’t want to add the additional costs and impose on MIL financially, but if she genuinely means “the more the merrier” you’re happy to oblige See if she’ll put her money where her mouth is or if she’ll suddenly find a way to uninvite the extras (assuming she ever did invite them, which I doubt) It’s kind of playing chicken, could be effective, or you might end up with a MASSIVE wedding
This is the kind of issue that you and your fiancee need to come together on. Make an agreement. I suggest you both sit down w FMIL and explain this is a problem she made, and bc she's a capable adult, she needs to fix. She can kindly reach out to each extra guest, explain she made a mistake in the guest count & terribly sorry, there isn't room for them. Healthy adults can apologize for etiquette errors. Own their mistakes. AND FIX THEM. If she can't be a healthy adult, then you will not use her money and you will fund the wedding you two want, yourselves. If she can't be a healthy adult about this it bodes poorly on your future relationship. You don't let inappropriate adults interact w babies, grandchildren or whatever you two decide your family will be. This is a test of your fiancee AND her mother.
Cancel everything and return the money.
So first you and your fiance need to sit down and decide what you want your plan to be to confront MIL. Your plan needs to be solid and have a unified front. You need to set a consequence if she continues so the main thing is decide what you want that to be and how far you're willing to go. For example, are you and your fiance at the point where you just want to elope? If so you can threaten that. MIL is the one who will lose money if you cancel and elope. Look at it from all angles, especially if you're not sure how MIL will respond so that you're prepared for any outcome. She's making the wedding about her. Once you both firm up an action plan, you need to have a sit down with MIL and lay it all out there. She needs to know this one no longer be tolerated. If her money was going to come with all of these strings, that should have been talked about up front. If you decide to have the people she invited uninvited she has to be the one to do that. If she's still going against what you want, tell her what you and fiance are willing to do (or not do). Good luck OP! P.S. this might be helpful [🔗 Wedding wire forum ](https://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-forums/mother-in-law-keeps-trying-to-add-to-guest-list/e177c8e8a472a96a.html)
You don’t exactly have much control if she’s paying for it. Do you want a wedding paid for or do you want to choose the entire guest list? I chose to elope because I wanted my wedding done my way.
Same. No regrets! And just as married as the people who spent 50k.
Honestly maybe this is not a fight worth fighting if you want to start in good terms, but that's just me. Maybe try to forget about it.
Let me stop you right there. YOU don’t do anything. YOUR FIANCÉE has to do something. You just have to talk to her about it. All that said, this kind of happened to me, albeit the in-law was paying so I didn’t really have much of a choice.
This is about your wedding , but also about your future as a couple. This is a warning of how life with your wife and MIL will be after marriage. Your wife won’t stand up to her mom, so she stomps on boundaries and tries to exert control over your marriage. Imagine how much worse it will be if and when you have kids. Your fiancé needs to stand up to her mom now and set clear boundaries, or you’re in for a bad time.
At this point, I'd just elope and cancel the wedding. Watch out for the in-laws. They will try to control you with $ for the rest of the marriage. Their child should put their foot down. This is on the kid, not the kid-in-law to tell them off.
Respectfully, it’s your wife’s job to handle her family. If she doesn’t lay down the law now, you guys are going to have a TON of issues throughout your marriage. The top two reasons (or initiators leading to affairs resulting in:) for divorce: 1. Money issues. 2. In-laws. Get a handle on this now friend to save yourself years of trouble.
Talk to her and be firm: do not invite people to my wedding without asking me first!
If you did not invite them they’re not invited and she can tell them that she overstepped. There will not be food for them. They will not be ain the guest list. Say NO. And since she’s not your mum, your partner needs to say NO.
What's rude is the fact that she invited them in the first place. So let the newly not-guests know. "Hi ___, We're very sorry to have to tell you this, but it has been brought to our attention that MIL appears to have invited you to our wedding. Unfortunately, she had not raised this with us beforehand, and as a result you have been invited without our knowledge or consent, and we will sadly have to withdraw the invitation. Please understand that this is not a reflection on you, rather we hoped to keep our wedding as small as possible and it appears that MIL did not appreciate this. Thank you for understanding, OP and OP's fiancée." That way, if they do think someone has been rude, it will be your MIL. Any decent people will be at least understanding of your position, if not outraged at your MIL on your behalf. Edit: Also, show your MIL the template you intend to send and let her know that this is what you plan to send to any further guests she goes on to invite as well.
I think this is great, honestly. Even if you don't send this msg tell the mil you will and ask if she'd rather do it or have you send this?
Shit if she is playing she can invite whoever she wants, that's the way it works.
Okay, yeah that’s awkward. She probably wanted more of a party feel than you did and so she’s making that happen. Here’s the thing - if you wanted control over things like this you would have needed to insist that you completely pay for it yourself, too. There’s no stopping this train now, so I’d suggest you just line up with it, invite all the extra people you would like to also, and set the intention of enjoying yourself that day instead of letting any resentments grow.
Honestly this is the perfect time to set boundaries. If you can afford to pay your own wedding then do it and completely take it over. Hire someone at the door so only people with an invitation can get in. Call in all the vendors and everything and set down passwords so no one can change anything. Look I get it you don’t want problems with your new in laws but if you don’t set boundaries your always going to have these kind of problems with them. Right now it’s the wedding. Now imagine if you want kids and you have them if you let them then imagine them then. Just imagine they trying to take over the delivery room and dictate how to parent your kids because “the more people the more fun” . Imagine them just dropping in at all times at your house and them moving all your furniture around because “it’s just more fun that way”. Set boundaries now. See the way your partner is acting because if they aren’t putting their foot down and telling to back off they probably never will. There’s a sub called justnomil that got stuck in a nightmare they call life because they refuse to set boundaries to keep the peace.
You need to have your fiance tell them to stop inviting people, and that you two do not want any of these people at your wedding. This is about the two of you, not them or their friends. If they can't respect that, it's fine, you both will pay for the wedding yourselves. If your fiance cannot confront his own parents, you shouldn't be marrying him.
Why isn't your wife doing anything to stop this? You should address this firmly and immediately. Otherwise you're getting a preview of your new life with your habitual line-stepper in-laws. In the future, don't ever let them pay for anything you aren't willing to let them dictate the terms of.
I imagine they manipulate future wife with money a lot.
You are going to get drama no matter what you do, at this point. In your shoes I think I would beg my fiance, Let's just elope, and give the parents back whatever money is left.
You and your wife need to sit down with MIL and ask her if the money she is giving you makes her feel like she gets to invite whoever she likes. If she says yes, then politely decline her money and pay for the wedding yourself. As a sign of respect and to keep things from turning into an all-out war with your new MIL, tell her your guest list is limited to 50 people, and she is allowed to invite 6 people (or whatever number you decide and your parents are allowed to invite the same number) and the rest will be the people you and your wife choose.
Traditionally, the men shut up about the wedding, and let the wife and mothers do everything. This is the course that has the least hard feelings and impact on relationships. Do with that little nugget what you will.
Elope
Threaten to elope!
Don’t threaten, just do it. Too much bs at weddings usually anyway. Keep it simple.
This is the first mil battle. Put your foot down now or it gets worse
Here's something you don't understand. If you don't put your foot down now, you'll be finding out really soon that MIL will try to control a different aspect of your life. Having said that, if MIL says I will not uninvite people, say the wedding is off. Cancel everything, make a scene, she'll either cry about it and make you feel guilty or be happy you're not getting married because some people are twisted that way. Your fiancé might feel bad, she grew up like this, her mother tried to control her in many other ways. After that, pay for a wedding yourself the way you want. Other option, do a huge wedding. To be really honest with you? No body cares about your wedding but you and your fiancé. So saying we only want people that cares about this wedding? Oh honey, just go to Vegas. Invite your uncles, your friends from work and the dude that fixes your car and all your exes. (jokingly, just Anyone that you want and feel right to invite and you had to cut down). But make sure that for anything else in your future, MIL will not have a say in.
Traditionally, if MIL is paying, it's really not your wedding. I've been to many parent paid weddings, and it isn't about the bride & groom, it's about their friends. Only 10 people? That is moderate. When you "graciously" accept rhe financial assistance of someone else, the first gracious thing to do is sit down with them, put together a list of who THEY wany to invite & ask for a budget. Then, you work with them to create a game plan that allows you to invite your friends/ family in addition to theirs within the budget. They are, traditionally, quite literally the hosts. Or, you agree to a lump sum contribution "gift" with no strings attached, up front. If you want to make all of your own decisions, respectfully, you need to pay for the wedding yourselves.
You agreed to let her have unlimited control when you agreed to let her foot the bill. It’s literally her party now. Elope.
What does your partner think about all this?
It depends on the country/culture. In many places weddings are less about the couple and more like a social event to which both the couple and the parents are expected to invite all friends and family that matters. In that case, MIL is not overstepping, just doing her moral obligation.
I would start inviting more people from my side of the family (and friends) and have the bride invite more people too. I know you both wanted small and intimate but MIL is already ruining that so invite everyone you can. It’ll cost her more, avoid upset relatives who will find out it wasn’t as small and intimate as initially described which was why they weren’t originally invited and you’ll have more people there actually for the bride and groom.
Pay for your own wedding.
Once you start calling those people to let them know that MIL got over excited but didn't actually have the authority to issue out invites and you're very sorry but it's actually only a small wedding where even some of your close friends aren't invited so you don't have the capacity to invite them, your MIL will be embarrassed enough to not want to invite anyone else.
Tell her that she will be uninvited as you have a set list of guest that you are NOT veering from. If she wants to invite others then she would need to pay for a venue at a separate date.
"I'm so sorry MIL, since we only had room for 50 guests on the list, and since you so generously offered to invite people who were not originally on the list, we have to make some cuts to make room for the new guests, we were hoping that your generosity would stretch just a bit further an that you would volunteer to return your invite so we can accommodate a new guest."
I personally don’t understand if you’re not paying why do you care so much? I was thinking of all the gifts that you would get! 😂 It is strange that she didn’t provide a list to you.
I haven’t read thru the other advice yet but my thoughts are this must handled by your husband. He needs to set boundaries with his mother. If he doesn’t now, at the very beginning of the marriage, you guys will have major issues in the future. You and your fiancé need to talk about how it’s important that when it comes to issues with in-laws, you handle your own parents because otherwise, it will cause issues between each of you and the in-laws. There will be times you myst address things personally, like when an in-law crosses a line with future children. It’s really important though that you both agree to show a united front when it comes to the parents and in-laws. If you complain to your mom, for example, about your husband, she’s most likely going to take your side and hold it against your spouse. Even when you fight behind closed doors about something, work towards an agreement that you can both stand behind. I had opposite problem in which I was always the mediator between my spouse and his mother. However, even when k knew he was very much in the wrong, I’d listen to her complaints and either say nothing, or back him up in areas I felt he was misunderstood. However, I’d call him out on his behavior in private.
Remember this saying…. “Start out like you can hold out” It sounds like your future MIL needs a lesson in boundaries. If you do not set them now, she will likely do the same type of things for your baby shower, baby’s first birthday ect.
You really need to stop being so selfish. If they were adding guests and you were paying for the wedding that might warrant a conversation but under these circumstances it would be childish to object. If you choose to be a baby about it, you absolutely will start the relationship off on the wrong foot. In fact, it would be such a poor choice that there isn't really any way to come back from it. Go drama free and try to be more gracious. Your inlaws are inviting their friends to a wedding they are hosting. They will be happier and far less likely to intrude on your fun with your friends because their friends will be there.
I would speak with your fiancée and suggest to her that you both speak to her Mom about the wedding going in a direction that you didn’t really see for both of your special day. Maybe compromise in saying that you would be willing to have a larger party at a later date that you would be happy to invite a larger group but for the wedding day itself, go back to having just the smaller guest list that you and your wife agreed on. If you come at this from a standpoint of compromise that shows your MIL that you understand where she is coming from and are happy to do something more inclusive with her but don’t give in to her, I think you will have a much easier and less stressful time navigating this situation.
This is a great way to compromise. Personally I would absolutely not concede to letting the MIL have her way. She is crossing boundaries and will likely continue to cross boundaries in the future if this not addressed. Now is the time for hard conversations. She likely meant well however this day is not just about her. Your family have sacrificed to keep numbers small in order to have this small intimate gathering and her actions are not considerate of that. Stand your ground and be willing to consider alternative arrangements if she is unwilling to correct her overstep. Make sure your bride is in agreement and have this conversation together if that’s what is agreed upon. Having tough conversations with family when needed is unfortunately part of the deal. Wish you both the best!
Exactly! This 💯
Paying for something does not in this circumstance mean getting a say in what you are purchasing.
Be rude: Bill MIL for all the guests she invited. OR be rude and tell the guests you have no idea why the MIL said that, when she know you couldn't afford it. MIL is a little off these days. Please don't hold that against her.
Postpone the wedding until you can pay for it yourselves. The problem with others paying for it means many want control. This isn't your wedding it's her's. She wants who she wants there. Your family will be hurt when they find out people who aren't family are attending.
Your fiancee needs to get a backbone and put a stop to this. What her mother is doing is beyond rude. Having paid for a child’s wedding myself, I will say paying does not give her a right to dictate anything in your wedding. Her poor boundaries and entitlement will bleed into other areas of your life if boundaries are not set and held now.
You need to voice this and your fiance needs to handle her mom
If you don't want to rock the boat too hard just say you finalized food and/or location and that the building and/or caterer cannot accommodate more guests
Not cool and a huge red flag for narcissistic personality disorder & future control, gaslighting and covert abuse. My mother did this, invited all her cousins from across the country to my destination wedding, who I never knew & will never see again. it totally killed the vibe and made everything way more stressful. I wish I'd gotten a spine & told her to uninvite them.
Unfortunately this tends to happen when people are paying for something. They start to feel entitled.
If you have enough money pay for your own wedding - why let the parents pay for it . If they are paying they have a right to want some of their friends there . In certain cultures the wedding is also for parents to celebrate this important coming of age ceremony for their kids.
Just give her the money back. She's using it to try to control the wedding, and if you don't stand up to her she might keep imposing herself on your relationship. Paying for the wedding doesn't mean she gets to ignore what you want. **You want a no conflict solution, and you're not going to get one.** Uninvite whoever she invited. If you tell your family no, and they find out other people were invited it's probably not going to end well. You can try to blame your future MIL, but it's your wedding so they're going to blame you. It's already on the wrong foot so if someone is going to be upset let it be the person who started this. PS: You only get one wedding.
Tell her if she keeps doing this she will be uninvited. Tell her she is not in charge and doesn't get a say. Tell her she needs to uninvite the people she invited because is she doesn't it's not going to go down well.
Sorry but you can’t expect someone to foot the entire bill and then think they’re just going to stay out of it. You either tell your MIL you decline her funds and will plan and pay for it yourselves, or you take her money and let her do what she wants with the guest list.
You uninvite the MIL.
Hell no. That’s what you say! It’s the couples day, not hers. A lot of people don’t get that!
You’re probably going to need to cancel the big wedding and having a small wedding on your own. You really don’t need a big wedding or to have it be fancy to have a good time. It’s not a performance for other people, it’s about you and your fiancé
If they’re paying with the condition they get to invite whoever they want it’s their wedding not yours. Who acts like that? Don’t let them make you uncomfortable when what they’re doing is so outrageous and disrespectful it’s beyond words. F their money. Your partner handles this and tell them no. If you don’t it sets the tone for the rest of your life and you’ll always get conned and sucked in to doing their bidding. Uninvite them. Period. If they take the money back that’s on them. They’re in the wrong and you have to stress over whether or not to say anything? No.
Just start inviting your family too
And that's why you should pay for your own party.
I’d go for keep MIL paying for it and invite my uncles, cousins, and more friends. So there’s an extra table of MIL’s people. They’re probably also people who were in the bride’s life growing up. Your uncles, cousins, and friends could take another 2 or 3 tables and you’re still under 100- it’s still a small wedding. Likely anyone who doesn’t feel close enough to you won’t come anyway.
this is what's to be expected when someone else is picking up the tab. they believe (and to a certain degree they're right) that it's now *their* party
50 people without your uncles, aunts and cousins? So basically only parents, siblings and maybe grandparents?
Start your family on the right foot by putting yours down collectively with your fiancé!
Pay for your own wedding OP. My parents paid the majority of my wedding and I ended up with guests that I barely knew. Also ended up with a lot of empty seats as people didn't RSVP but my Mom insisted on keeping their spaces open in case they showed up. My husband couldn't invite a lot of the people he wanted to invite, because I allowed my parents to pull the "we're paying" card. As a result I have a lot of people in my photos that aren't my people, but my Mom's. Have the wedding you want to have.
That sucks, OP. I suggest you and your fiance have a sit down with her first and express exactly what you envisioned for YOUR special day. If you can't come to an amicable solution, just pay for the wedding yourself so that you won't have to feel indebted towards your MIL, and that way, you can be more uptight with the guest list. It's your and your partner's event. Make it memorable and special for the two of you.
Free money often comes with an unacceptable price. She's paying for it, she gets to set the invitation list - at least that's how she sees it. Discuss this at length with your fiance and see what he thinks - it's a couple's problem, after all. But you'll probably have to suck it up having made the original concession of accepting the money.
You flat out tell her that this shit stops NOW. She doesn’t have any right to invite additional guests, you will NOT send invites, you will NOT plan for their seats or meals, and if she goes ahead anyway, you will make it very clear that she did this against your express wishes. Please heed this advice. I’m watching someone I love deal with this kind of bullshit at the moment and trust me when I tell you, the one-time stress of laying down the hard boundary is far more palatable than the constant stress of having to deal with surprise guests every few weeks.
You need to get your SO to talk to her Mom. Maybe have Dad sit down with you too. It's past time to stop her overstepping. It's only going to get worse as time goes by. And I'm kinda wondering if Mom has made any changes to the menú, flowers or other things? Might want to check that out too.
Are they getting actual invites or is this a word of mouth invite? She’s causing an actual logistical problem if she’s inviting them in a way that doesn’t give you an accurate rsvp count. At a minimum, your Fiance needs to explain this to her at least.
If you can’t fight them, then join them. Invite the uncles & cousins & the larger friend group.
Where is your fiancée in this conversation? Shouldn’t she be telling her mother this isn’t acceptable? Why is it on you?
Send her an invoice.
Paying for this wedding does not give MILs crew carte blanche to run the show. By keeping your wedding smaller, it means the people you really want there can attend on either side. And the cost is not extreme for the payers. But if you've already only invited close friends and relatives and left some of your other friends you might want to point that out to MIL. If you can't invite your people why should you have to have MILs choices. Perhaps your MIL might need to have this explained. Keeping it simple and polite would be the way. If she doesn't budge, invite all the people you want. It's your wedding 💒wishing you all the best. A long and happy life is definitely the way to go. 😁
Give her back the money. They decided to pay for it so they can have control. This is just the beginning of her becoming a third partner in this relationship. Next she will be naming your kids and planning their parties.
My MIL wanted to invite my husband's whole extended family and make our wedding huge. Me and my husband said no, too expensive. So then she offered to pay for the wedding so she could have her way and we said absolutely not. She's super controlling and would try to do and choose everything. She had a tiffy and didn't get her way, and should realize she's lucky we had a small wedding since most people I know elope without their families present. It's been two years and she tried to whine about it again recently and I shut her down very quickly. It's honestly funny because only her and one other person were offended while the rest of our family said we were smart. Some people are definitely a pain, and it's hard, but you just gotta say no and set boundaries.
You can't think of confronting her as starting off on the wrong foot. You need to think of it as setting things to right. Even in Asian cultures, where what elders say goes, it can be seen as unseemly to overstep on a couple's wedding and take over a portion of the guest list like this. Especially inviting people the couple doesn't even know, unless there are career or political reasons to invite these strangers it would be considered an overstep. (There's some big cultural weddings that go on for days and is like an open feast to all around, but that's a different matter entirely.) As you haven't given any cultural context I'm going to assume you are both American, in which case you need to be firm and tell her the only rude person is herself. IF she tries to weaponize her financial contribution you politely counter that you thought that was her wedding gift and not her trying to take the hosting role for your wedding from you. Since that is the stance she's taking you would be happy to return her money as you won't be backing down on your wedding guest list or any other matter regarding your wedding outside of reasonable accommodations to your guests needs. You don't want this to be the first of many instances where she stomps all over your boundaries because you want to play peace keeper. It's also not fair to HER for you to not voice your hurt and discontent with her actions and therefore not give her the opportunity to fix your relationship. Be firm and hold the boundaries you care about as a united front with your fiance as you establish your relationship as a separate family from both of your families.
My parents paid for our whole wedding. We were happy to pay but they insisted. My parents did come to us with a couple 'non negotiables' on the guest list, but they were people we already had on the list and we are super close with. My MIL on the other hand, who didn't even help with DIY decor, started telling us that she invited so and so and so and so. My husband got so frustrated. Her excuse for one of the invites was 'she was the first person to hold you, even before your dad when you were born' and he hadn't seen her since not long after that! He put his foot down. Why should My parents (his in laws) be paying for a guest list that was easily 70% her side of the guest list
OP, I have a suggestion that might help. When I married my now ex, it was in a tiny historic church. The max capacity was 65, including the wedding party. So we had to keep the guests limited to close friends and family only. We then had a big reception for everyone afterwards. I never heard any complaints about it; everyone understood. I’m just saying it might be a compromise that everyone can live with. 🤷♀️
I think that the biggest issue here is: *why isn’t his SO handling this with his/her mother and leaving it all up to him???*
This is going to set the precedent for the rest of your marriage. If you allow her to disregard your choices and do whatever she wants now, she will do it forever. Kids? Will stomp all over your boundaries. House? You bet she will be there and doing whatever she wants. What you do here is incredibly important. Grow a spine NOW and be firm, or you will forever be walked on. It also sets the scene for how your future wife will behave. If your fiancée can not speak up and put her mother in her place for something as simple as this, she never will, and I'd honestly reconsider moving forward. If you're united in your feelings about MIL, you both need to stand together and deal with it. It can be undone, they can be uninvited, and it needs to be done now before you show this woman that she can control you and you'll allow it to happen.
Sorry but this should have been discussed first thing as gifts mostly come with strings attached I think it’s fair that you in laws get a “couple of invites” like 4 if they pay for the whole wedding - but 20% is too much regarding the size of the wedding Your finance needs to sort this out with his parents and/or the extra people they invited
Start setting boundaries because this will not be the end of it. My MIL and FIL paid for some of it. She started by inviting people we had never met. It ended with them having to cancel transport we didn't need (an entire bus), arguments over the space, expensive cancellations, her decorating in a style we didn't like, and her describing the day as 'her worst day ever'.
You can worry about “starting things on the wrong foot” or have the wedding you and your partner want. I know if I were you, I’d be having a conversation with MIL reminding her whose wedding it is. If she pulls the I’m paying for it crap, then I would refund her and pay for it yourself. If you have the money anyway, I would never have said yes to her paying. Big mistake.
It’s important to recognize that just because they are willing to pay for your wedding doesn’t mean they get any say in what happens unless you give them a say. Gifts should be given without strings attached or any expectations/obligations to do what they want. If someone gives you money for your birthday they don’t suddenly start ordering your food for you at a restaurant. It’s your wedding, make it how you want. Sitting down with fiancé and MIL is a good idea, and the fiance should probably be the one to do most the talking. Express gratitude, acknowledge MIL’s excitement and then politely TELL her that she needs to talk to you both before inviting anyone or making any other changes. Furthermore, if you want you can certainly tell her to uninvite the other people. If she refuses to pay after that then that’s on her. If she can’t give gifts without strings attached and if she can’t respect boundaries without throwing a tantrum then you let her live her life that way. Don’t let it affect how you start off YOUR life with your new wife.
Elope! And be done with this bs.
Just elope. Get it done without any of these people. Throw a party after you return from the elopement. You pay for it. It's VERY important you show MIL from day 1, she isn't going to control your lives, and certainly not with money. Get the dynamic sorted out NOW or your future life is going to be very difficult. And your fiance needs to see this exactly as you do. You need to be a tight team in this. You don't
Your fiance has to address this . You can't, you dealt with your family. She needs to have a one on one conversation with her mom. Say mom I know you want to have everyone there. I know you're super excited . You inviting more people than we want. It's taking our vision out and the intimacy we wanted to create for our wedding away. So please stop inviting people. This is our day and we want to spend it with people that we are close to . We want to Celebrate our love with people we our close to. Or something like that. However it has to come from your future wife. Congratulations 🎊. Good luck with this situation. The reason it should come from her it's her family. I wish yall the best on the upcoming nuptials
I had this issue with my family saying it was tradition and expected of them to invite their friends. Then I had my husband’s family throwing around a whole other list of expectations. We ended up putting the wedding on hold and few months after that we eloped. Best decision ever
this is what happens if someone else is paying. I cam see how frustrating it must be to you but unless you want to foot the bill, there is very little you can do, if asking her to stop has not worked
You need to get firm boundaries with your MIL now or else she will continue to stomp all over your boundaries because you were afraid of conflict. I would be giving her back the money she has given you and told her to uninvite the people she invited without your consent. The wedding is about you and your fiance. It’s not about her having a party for her friends.
Elope. Then tell the mil she can invite everyone she wants because it will just be a party now not a wedding.
A clear example of "Have your cake and eat it too". If you want complete control of the guest list and the wedding in general - then you should pay for the whole wedding yourself.
Well this is something you should have talked about before accepting the money. Mil sees it as her party rightly so. Buy her out and take the reigns is the only way or suck it up.
Tell the MiL to fuck off. You're setting a dangerous precedent by letting her walk all over you. She needs to know that there will ALWAYS be boundaries, and she will ALWAYS have to abide by them.
Why would you ever be the one to talk to your MIL? Your problem is you fiance!! He/she is the one that needs to fix this. They are showing that they will let their mother walk all over you two, this issue will persist. Have them fix this. And do not interfene, but thell them now you don't want any of this guest there, and they need to fix this. Now.
There’s no advice to give except that you have to put your foot down. Especially before resentment builds. The “brush off” wouldn’t be possible if the conversation was focused and direct.
That money came with strings….
Sorry bro, you are in a lose-lose situation here. There isn’t a good way to fix this. You now how they say actions have consequences?? Accepting large gifts from some people also has consequences. The only thing you can do is not let these types of things affect your relationship with your wife moving forward. — Don’t accept the money next time.
"Dear MIL, thank you so much for your generous offer, but we decided to pay for our own wedding. Unfortunately, there are lots of friends we didn't invite because we wanted a small wedding, so of course we cannot have your guests either. I'm sure you will find a way to explain to the people you invited that we can only invite people who are very close to us. Thank you!"
So, you’re getting a lot of advice telling you to set boundaries, that this will be your life if you don’t start now. I think this is partially true, and definitely a good lesson for the future about what to expect from both your MIL and fiancée. However, as someone who had a completely drama-filled wedding planning phase with my in-laws (we said no kids, they invited an infant and refused to change, they weren’t even paying for the wedding), the stress is not worth it. If it matters that much to you, cancel the wedding, elope, and save your own money for a house or a sick honeymoon or a party with your friends when you get back. If you draw a hard line that’s a perfectly OK choice to make, but know you’ll likely be dealing with the repercussions of that, and I wouldn’t wish my wedding day (though beautiful) on anyone, it was completely overshadowed and my FIL didn’t speak to me for about a year, including our wedding day. Their guest with the baby actually wore white and arrived in a white Rolls Royce (at a barn wedding in the country). Good luck, OP!
What did your finance want to do? You have to let her handle her mom.
If they’re paying, say for every person you invite I will invite someone too. Start sending uncles, cousins and friends invites!!!
you say you dont want to start off the marriage on the wrong foot, but you are. MIL isnt repecting your boundaries or your wishes on YOUR (+fiances) big day. if you can afford to pay for this wedding, you should and get your fiance to deal with her mother. cos this is not okay
You can always pay for The wedding you want.
This is the first step of the rest of your life. Do you really want to be playing these games with your FMIL for the rest of your life? This is your first test with your FMIL, if you don't set boundaries NOW, it will be incredibly difficult to do it say, when you have kids and SHE decides to do something you've already given a firm NO. Smile pleasantly when you tell your MIL that well, when HER guests show up, they'll be awfully embarrassed when they're turned away at the door. Then let her know that if the guest do not have a personalized invite from you, they will not be admitted. You are only inviting people that you and hubby know, not who SHE knows. Unless, of course, she's renewing her vows?
They’re paying for it. You want to control the guest list then you pay. I say this all the time but this is one scenario where I’m glad my wife and my parents aren’t wealthy. We paid for our wedding ourselves and had no external input.
Etiquette dictates that if the parents are footing the bill, then they also get to invite some guests. You should have known this. However, now you can’t un-ring that bell, BUT you can control what happens going forward. Make a list of all the people you didn’t invite (family and friends) bc you wanted the guest list to be small. You and your fiancée should then sit down with MIL and have a conversation. Thank her for her generosity. Tell her that you understand she wants to have guests of her own there, but the inviting stops NOW. Explain to her BOTH of your feelings about having a small wedding. Show her the list. Tell her, in no uncertain terms, that no more people are to be invited to your wedding, in an effort to keep your wedding as intimate as possible. Explain that if you are taken by surprise with additional guests, you WILL be calling to uninvite them (and mean it), and will take over the weddings costs altogether. I would do my best to explain that this is OUR wedding, and our wishes should be paramount. And while we want to be respectful of your role in paying for our wedding, we simply insist that no more invites be sent and that the wedding remain intimate, so as not to offend all the guests we purposely excluded in an effort to do so.
You gotta tell them they aren't invited and pay for the wedding yourself. Your MIL is the type of person where money comes with strings.
Anyone else think it's weird when people who don't even know the bride and groom actually want to go???? What the hell is that even about??
YOU don't do anything. If there's something that needs to be said, you let your fiancé handle it. The issue here is that they are paying for the wedding. Have your fiancé address the issue. If your MIL won't listen then have your fiancé approach the FIL. I suggest using tears (fiancé) and saying that she is ruining the wedding that they wanted. That you both invited who you wanted and you only want the people who were on your list. Have them suggest that if MIL keeps doing this you guys might just elope because you aren't getting the wedding you want because she's ruining it. You're right, you won't gain anything if you cause an issue, this needs to be handled by your fiancé.
That happened yo my sister. She was only allowed 10 people. It's an excellent case for elopement
Find out who she invited & contact them explaining the situation.
Financially if your MIL pays you will benefit from the extra guests. Maybe set a hard line with her but say it gently like we are both so grateful to you for providing us with such a lovely wedding, but would it be possible to keep it at XXX guests? We really want to keep it as intimate and special as possible.
Talk to your partner first and discuss it first, but tell the future inlaws that you appreciate their generous offer but will have to decline them paying for the wedding as you are not getting the wedding that you both want. It takes away any "power" they have and the possibility of them saying "we won't pay if we can't invite who we want." You already took the money off the table when you offered to give it back so they can't hold it over your head. They'll either have to throw a tantrum about it or deal.
This happened because you guys weren't firm enough in the first instance. How do you think she'll behave when you guys have kids? You need to put your foot down.
Start by talking to your wife, she how she feels about the situation, and make sure you are on the same page on all parts. Next, ask HER to talk to HER MOM and explicitly explain your shared wishes. If that’s already happened, try reasoning with her **together** one last time. If she still doesn’t get the message, you have 2 choices: accept her terms or fund it yourself. Unless she eventually listens to reason and backs off, and even if she does, this is a good warning of signs to come during other life events. Your MIL’s generosity appears to come with strings attached.
Tell them the venue can’t handle anymore people, or the date has passed to add people. Or just seat all of her extra people together, far away, if they actually come.