What would you think of your mother in law wanted to invite 3 friends to your wedding, you’ve not met before

I'd think does your fiance know them, and is she contributing to the wedding.

The more the merrier, if it made MIL happy why not, but I like my mother in law

Unless she's paying for the wedding, in which case perhaps she could if they're old family friends and your partner knows them, then your answer is a simple 'no, I don't even know them and want the wedding to be intimate with family and close friends only' and move on.

Fine by me. My parents invited some of their friends to my wedding to celebrate with them. It's important for them to have a good time too and not feel like a spare wheel with just your friends in attendance. A wedding is as much for parents as it is for the couple imo. It's a landmark day in child rearing!

If you have space and if they are her only guests and she is helping to pay I would agree.
Does your DH know them?

Does he know his mum’s friends? Is he happy to have them there? Is it a small ceremony or one with wider acquaintances?

It’s your partner’s wedding too, so I wouldn’t just shut it down because you don’t know them.

Depends if he knows them well, type of wedding and if she’s contributing financially. My mum asked to invite her friend but I’d grown up socialising with them, holidays etc so of course I would invite them, equally my dd invited my long term friend from school that she grew up knowing, I didn’t even ask dd to, she did it automatically

Mine did, but that was negotiated with us beforehand. ILs wanted to invite far more friends than my parents so they had a separate post-wedding celebration at their house for most of them, which we attended

I would think that the MIL had some old fashioned views. Thought that parents inviting random friends along had died out in the 80s/90s when couples started paying for their own wedding.

So she prefers her mother in law to attend alone )as no fil mentioned -or he may be attending with his soo she?)

I think at least one should be allowed as her plus one. (If she isn’t with the fil). Others maybe evening only if mum is paying too.

My son and DIL really struggled with numbers so even though I made a very large contribution financially, I didn't expect them to invite any of my friends.

It would have been nice as I don't have a partner and did feel a bit of a spare part at times.

Depends on numbers really. It would be sad if some of their friends were left out to accommodate these people . Three seems a lot , maybe one could be a compromise. If it's a friendship group then nobody gets invited .

Inviting 3 people she's never met isn't going to make a difference then really.

She's putting herself through a wedding ceremony and presumably a reception, that she doesn't have to anyway so I don't see why this would add to her anxiety.

If he doesn’t want them there he needs to tell his mother. He needs to decide who he’d rather upset, his mother or his wife to be.

I’d be happy with that if we had the space. I invited several of my mum’s friends to my wedding and one of them brought her sister who I’d never met. It was nice that she had friends there as she didn’t really know my friends or Dh’s family well.

I'd explain to your niece that MIL also probably feels anxious and wants her friends with her to make her feel better then ask niece if there is one safe friend she wants to have there for herself. And I'd suck up the cost of an extra four plus ones.

Weddings used to be about parents celebrating their offsprings marriage and some still are, I've been to several where there are more guests of the parents than the couples.

Has MiL been a guest like this and is trying to reciprocate? Does she need more people she knows or likes there?

If it's a big wedding and the cost isn't an issue I'd be fine with it.

Is this replacing FIL?
If her husband has gone and she needs her closest friends at the wedding I would accommodate if I possibly could.

My MIL invited 30 friends without asking us so I would say 3 is not bad…

I actually secretly wanted a bigger wedding so I was ok with it, but it was very obvious that MIL hadn’t noticed that parents inviting their friends was what happened back when parents were the hosts and paid for it all. A big wedding wasn’t ideal for her son either tbh.

I personally would suck it up but with some visible effort - asking her anxious questions about the guests, involving her in the seating plan etc - with a view to stopping it at 3.

Unless it’s a really small wedding and /or money is really tight it seems fairly standard to me to have some of the parents’ friends at a wedding

I'd say if they were old family friends your fiance knows, has a current relationship with, and who knew him as a child and growing up then it's ok, but only if MiL is paying or giving a large contribution.

When I got married 40 years ago my parents paid for everything and compiled the guestlist themselves. So my wedding was filled with family but also plenty of people I hadn't seen for years and who were my parents' friends. It almost felt like I was a guest at my own wedding.

When my son got married, even though I was paying for a lot of it, I said that everything must be their choice, particularly the guest list, as they knew who was important in their lives and who they wanted to celebrate such an important day with.

To be honest, after a few years it's difficult to remember who attended your wedding, unless it was very small.

I've had to dig my album out in the past to check if a fairly close friend attended mine.

I think it’s standard too. My parents and in-laws invited friends but I did have a quite relaxed wedding with no seating plan for example.