Mother of the bride/groom-Zillas

Nice selective quoting there saraclara

The OP asked So - why? Have you ever behaved like this about a wedding? What was the thought process? (Or what do you think if it happened to you!) and most of us have answered the part in brackets, so we did read the OP too.

My DS is only 5 so I haven't been a MOG yet, but honestly I do think that often parents get a bad rep at weddings and it's not always fair.

The amount of MOBs and FOBs I had who were trying to help only to get shot down so rudely by very agitated brides and grooms.
And to be quite honest, as the wedding manager, I would often be agreeing with the parents but trying to get the Bride or Groom to 'have the same idea' if that makes sense.

That said, when I was getting married, MIL and DM kept expecting traditional aspects when we wanted a modern, relaxed wedding. I just stopped talking about the wedding with them after a while but then they would get all panicked and thinking I was having second thoughts etc.

My MIL went batshit over our wedding and my relationship with her never recovered.

They didn’t contribute much so they had no control thank god but among other things she:

1. whined about us having a sit down because she wanted a buffet to accommodate FIL and all his obsessive behaviour about food. No.

2. Bought a white outfit for herself. No.
   Insisted on paying for the wedding cars to bring the groomsmen and her/FIL to the venue. Fine except that equally batshit UKIP FIL then demanded the cars be “British” which meant in the days when hardly anyone had a website and all the cars seemed to be Mercs, it took me fucking ages to book them. Should have made DH do it - his monkeys, etc.

3. Because I was getting ready at the wedding venue, our “posh” vintage car was arriving at the end of the reception to whisk us off to a different hotel. They insisted on paying for that but - get this - wanted to turn up to the venue in it (in her white outfit…). I said to DH it was not the fantasy wedding they never had and they could fuck off with that and we’d pay for our going away car ourselves. They then found out it would cost an extra 2 grand to have the car hanging about all day and we never heard any more about it.

4. She demanded I arrange transport for them from the central London venue back to her central London hotel. I said, “go out into the street and hold out your arm and hail a taxi.” She’d lived in London in the swinging 60s!

5. My parents surprised us with a big gift of cash for the wedding and my mother also made our cake. DH wouldn’t let me tell MIL how much my parents had contributed, and she spent months bitching about how my mother “only” made a cake (which cost more than the cars she’d paid for, let alone the rest).

6. She spent 6 months before the wedding saying “the bigger the wedding the shorter the marriage”. Fuck. Off. Especially as she was constantly trying to turn it into a second wedding for herself. She looks as miserable as sin on all the pictures.

I mostly wanted to know if anyone here has BEEN a Mother of the Bride/Groom who has been demanding about your child's wedding?

Well I read the OP at least!

I've been a MOB, and all the decisions were made by the bride and groom. It wasn't my wedding, and apart from me paying for the dress, they were finding it themselves, so I had no right. Also I thought their plans were lovely anyway.

Close to the day though, I was worried that guests who'd travelled a long way for the late lunchtime ceremony (in a rural location) would be starving by the time the wedding breakfast was served at nearly 4. The bride and groom didn't see the problem, so I offered to pay for the hotel to provide canapes with the drinks the guests would be served while photos were taken etc.
I was worried I'd be seen as interfering, but if the B&G thought so, they never showed it, and were just appreciative of me paying for something that had been out of their budget.

@CharlotteUnaNatalieThompson

Your post has every single thing I wanted to say! Put a lot better then I could have ever put it.

I’ve never been married but my brothers did

brother no1

jesus Christ-as soon as they’d set the date,she started

(well even before they set the date-my brother had taken his mate to chose the ring-she kicked off-the ring was shit if you listened to her,he popped the question in a restaurant-she kicked off because she didn’t know what he had planned,wanted to be sat at the table with them and the restaurant was ‘tacky’ it wasn’t and she wasn’t the first to know-her family was)

she only paid for the evening do (well the rent of the room-nothing else) but she had to have a say in everything from the colours to the food

and if nobody danced to her tune,she’d start swearing and kicking off until she got her own way-and if that didn’t work,the tears would start and my dad would be dragged into it to try and make the peace-if that failed then my aunts would try-then my cousins

the brides friends where not to be bridesmaids,the grooms friends that she’d watched grow up where ‘common’ and not to be invited,she didn’t like the wine,hated the food,disliked the venue,didn’t like the idea of a dj,hated the music ‘why can’t you play Daniel O’Donnell?I like Daniel O’Donnell’,went mental at their choice of a photographer,kicked off cos the bride wanted her mum to help choose a dress and my mother wasn’t welcome ‘I have rights!’ ,the grooms suit wasn’t right,the wedding rings where shit,the vows where not right,the unusual cake was ‘tacky’ and ‘looked shit’,they couple didn’t tell her her outfit was the most special outfit in the history of womens clothes,they where not ‘allowed’ to have hen/stag dos,she wanted full say on the guest list-im talking people that none of us had a clue who they where,flowers where not to her taste-it just went on and on

she sulked the whole day as none of the attention was on her,she told the bride that her dress was shit (just after the vows so the bride burst into tears and looked awful in the photos) and flounced on the evening do as the groom was tipsy (after sitting with her sisters in the corner for the first hour,ignoring everyone)

it kicked off again when they had a baby-she wanted to chose the nursery,the pram,clothes,blankets,how the mum to be should give birth,how baby should be fed-it went on and on

Brother no 2

well he married someone as narcissistic as her

it was amusing watching them-mother would try and take over even more than she had with brother no1,the bride wouldn’t let her,brother was trying to keep them both happy and failing badly at every point and it was a battle of wills for months-I lost count of how many times they locked horns

they did end up married (god knows how) and mother sat and sulked the whole day-she refused to speak to anyone and stomped out early as nobody made her feel ‘special’

She missed their evening do to go home and sulk-again she’d only paid for the renting of the room for the evening

I can’t wait to hear if my other brother gets married-he’s the most strong willed,selfish narcissistic prat ever-the fireworks will be heard the world over

Both amused me no end-my kids have been told that the first sight of me trying to take over is the day they cut me out of the day-and out of their lives

I've never watch the dress program (my mind has gone blank on the name!) but I did read an interesting behind the scenes article. They are told they have to bring an entourage- I'll try to find the article.

My then-partner had a mother who was very much a down to Earth, no-nonsense type. Never one for fuss or drama. Well, not until her daughter got married, that is.

The wedding was an away fixture so we were staying in a hotel. On the day of the wedding, she took to her bed Mrs Bennet style, while everyone - including the bride - danced attendance and rushed around. Would she like a sandwich? A nap? A stiff drink? A cup of tea?

Once she was up and ready, everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - was a drama. People actually running around a hotel ministering to the latest drama about flowers dripping/loose threads on clothes/not being able to find tissues to go in a handbag and so on. I’ve never seen anything like it and I can only assume the pressure of the day got to her.

Wow!!! What an absolute bellend. And the OW - l wouldn't have the nerve!!

I love that show!!
Always amazed by the entourage! I took my mate who has a good eye for clothes - brutally honest and that was what l needed!

I remarried 6 weeks ago. No in-law input except mil wanting husband's brother invited "he won't come but he'd like invite" that will be a a no then!!

My daughter is getting married next may. She's doing it all her mil already thinks they are rushing into it! Together 4 years before engagement and year to wedding.! I'm thrilled with it all having just done my own wedding I just want to turn up to hers and enjoy it!

My Mum told me that I couldn't have the the venue I wanted because it wasn't good enough and she'd be embarrassed by a wedding there.

It was a moot point though because FMIL decided to tell fiancé that she wasn't coming to the wedding at all, and she'd also cut him off from his whole family if he married me. I knew she didn't like me before the engagement but not that much. Fiancé capitulated to her threats.

My daughter has recently married and hopefully I wasn't any sort of zilla. The budget for flowers was shocking and I did urge caution but wasn't listened to. The last total I heard discussed for the flowers was 8k with hanging installations, arches, garlands etc etc and I still find that shocking.

In my case in was my mum who went utterly mental. There's only me and her, so she was doing the Father of the Bride stuff as well - walking me down the aisle, giving a speech, etc.

DH and I decided on a location for our wedding which was reasonably convenient for everyone invited - majority of the guests coming from London and Newcastle. Mum lives in Devon. No one else did, and it's not a place which holds any significance to me or DH - she moved there when I was at uni, so it had never been "home" to me.

She threw an absolute screaming temper tantrum when we told her. Said it was "unforgivable", that the bride should be married from her parents' home as it was "tradition" (she'd never bothered marrying herself so why she was so suddenly hung up on tradition I don't know!) and that if we didn't get married near her she "wouldn't get to do anything!" I pointed out that was doing both MOB and FOB roles, to which she replied "yes and that's all I'll get to do!" I asked her how much more she expected to do, and if she actually realised it was me getting married and not her.

This went on for a while, till I eventually told her that if she didn't stop behaving like that, we'd elope and no one would get to "do" anything, and hung up on her. I then refused to take her increasingly abusive and angry calls for a couple of weeks, till she seemed to calm down and apologised.

A few months before our wedding, the venue we'd booked cancelled on us. They said they had to have some building work done over that period - which was very odd, why would a wedding venue chose July to close down for building work. This was a bit of a disaster as we'd booked and paid for quite a lot of stuff by then, and the MOH and BM had booked their flights from different continents to be there on that date.

I rang mum in tears, and she said not to worry, there was a beautiful venue ten minutes down the road from her that had availability ten minutes down the road from her...

It actually was a beautiful venue, and we needed somewhere, so we went ahead with the wedding there, and it was a wonderful day. But over ten years later I still wonder how mum pulled that off - and also what made her behave that way in the first place.

What was the aftermath?!

Got married a few years ago. All paid for by me and my husband with a few smaller gifts paid for by family members which was very much appreciated but not expected and certainly came either no strings attached. Which is just how w wanted it ( both been married before.)

My Mum is normally a very laid back person who l love to death, but she became utterly, utterly fixated with what she was going to wear, to the exclusion of everything else. It dominated every conversation we had for about 6 months.

Given that I'm a size 18 and had real trouble finding a dress I felt happy wearing ( found one in the end which I loved so all good) and she's a size 10 with (you'd imagine) the entire high street and beyond at her disposal, you'd think it would be a relatively simple exercise.

Not so, dear reader! I can't tell you how many times I either went out shopping with her while she rejected dress after dress after dress or listened to her on the phone while she just moaned and moaned on and on and fucking on about it. It was the wrong colour. It was too long. It was too short. It was too revealing. It wasn't revealing enough. She didn't have a handbag/shoes/jewellery that would go with it. I should add they've got plenty of money had she wanted to go Designer, or even just have something altered, and that she buys clothes recreationally all the time.

And what did she choose in the end? Grey trousers and a white top like you'd wear to the office. She looked perfectly smart and I was so far beyond caring I was just glad she turned up at all, given the constant muttering about how awful she felt and that she looked awful and so on. It was just the strangest focus pulling! She disappeared half way through the reception and changed into black trousers and a t-shirt!

My mum had a tiny wedding because she already had me, and it was a source of shame to her Catholic mum.

she made sure that I had a lovely big wedding. The night we paid for the reception she said “now darling, I know your not married yet, and people will say you can still change your mind. Well, you can’t. I’ve bloody paid for this”. I couldn’t stop laughing.

MIL was an absolute sweetheart. She and FIL were much wealthier than my mum. She sent my mum a letter offering money towards the wedding. She only had a small list of people she wanted to invite, so my mum told her to invite some more friends. And the week before the wedding she pressed some money into my hand telling me to use it on whatever stuff I needed for the wedding. She died a couple of months ago, and I miss her so much

My mother in law said she wouldn't come to our wedding because her other son refused to let her dictate his travelling plans to the wedding. He had to leave a day early to help us set up but she insisted he wait for her to go to the credit union at an unreasonable time that suited her (she just wanted to control him and could have easily gotten a lift from other relatives who were travelling to the wedding the following day). He refused as he had commitments to fulfil and she said she wasn't coming.

The wedding was a hastily re-arranged, stressful Covid job, and it was 3 months after DH had lost his father (her ex - split was acrimonious) so she would have left him with no parents on his wedding day.

We strongly supported BIL in not giving in (prior to this he always gave in to her nonsense) and a day before the wedding she realised the game was up and she'd look very bad if she didn't show up so she attended.

Last month we told her I was pregnant and she completely ignored the news and blanked me. So she's still a bitch!

See, my father us a total bloody nightmare. Everything is done to increase his social standing, make him look good. We had already started booking our wedding when he visited and insisted on paying for the reception. I feared the worst but was really surprised. He paid. He passed on food preferences, mum did the invitations - all exactly as I sent them. They didn't step out of line once.

This is the couple who made my childhood a lonely place, giving away my possessions when they deemed I had had them long enough being the most explainable.

This carried on with the wedding present. I came home to find my stereo had been replaced. My mix and match separates had been replaced with one of the new fangled midi hifi stacks. All my 1960s 70s amps, decks and irreplaceable speakers, gone, given away to various family members. Took me bloody years to rebuild that system?

My exMIL (divorced) was so strange re the wedding. Again don't want to speak ill of the dead, she was nice normally, but she went a bit mad too.

We booked a christmas wedding and she campaigned and campaigned to get us to move it as she was worried about snow. ExH gave in and we had it in August, I hate heat and sun. It was 30 degrees on the day and I melted.

On the wedding day she brought big tupperware boxes to take the leftover buffet and cake home. We paid 4k, my parents paid 1.5k. They paid nothing. SIL took home all the unopened wine too.

She dominated every conversation for the 6 months before, with whether she should buy this baby blue handbag - that was £25 - to go with her dress. They were millionaires with acres of land.

She got a selection of veils and tiaras of her friends and insisted I take them - didn't use them as I wouldn't be seen dead in a veil or tiara.

I bought a £60 monsoon dress and a £50 cape for my wedding outfit - she disapprovingly said I'd splashed out!

She stood up and read a poem about her son at the reception. Just about how wonderful he was (he really wasn't) no mention of the marriage. At the end everyone just sat there shell shocked.

So random, I had forgotten most of it but now I think about it, it was such strange behaviour.

Have to pay to cover our plates as well which is a bit galling.

I hate this! Either ask people or don't, but if you're providing hospitality, don't expect to 'make it back'.

All these stories are why when we planned our wedding everything before we told people the date of our wedding. Deposits paid etc so no way could we change anything No one came with me to pick my wedding dress, showed my best friend once it was picked that was all. One bridesmaid one best man, their outfits all bought online. Venue could only fit set amount of people so limits to invites etc. Myself and my partner only went to the wedding tasting - don't know why anyone else needs to be at it ? Don't tell people too many things, then they don't get to have an opinion on it. The only people who care and need to know anything about your wedding is yourself and your future husband. It doesn't need to be so stressful. I couldn't be dealing with all that drama

I paid for most of the wedding; about £18,000. I had no input into the guest list, the food or anything else. They chose what they wanted, who they wanted and when they wanted. I covered the cost of the bride, bridesmaids and family staying overnight before and after the wedding. They invited the relatives and friends they wanted to invite and I had no knowledge of who was on the guest list.

I didn’t expect to make any decisions and I wasn’t asked for my opinion.

When I got married my parents paid for everything and I had very little say in anything at all. My two sons had very different weddings a year apart - one with no guests, just her mum and DH and myself and the other had a church wedding with a lovely informal reception. Two daughters got married in 2020 and because of the pandemic everything was pared back. One was married away so she had parents and one sibling/inlaw. He had the same the rest of the congregation was made up of friends. Second wedding was local to us. The 30 guests were family and one friend. Neither had a reception.

Youngest DD is getting married next year. She and her fiance are paying for the reception. We have bought her dress. I have asked her to add one friend to the guest list which she was happy to do. We now have a running joke that for every adult type call she asks me to make (phone the vicar, make enquiries about cars etc) I get to add a name to the guest list. She has also decided that she would like small children to be her attendants after all but it was her sister that convinced her of that, not me.

I believe we have an understanding that if I am a MOBzilla she will tell me so and I have not attempted to persuade her to do or change anything.

Not sure how my DM and MIL would have been, we sneaked off to the register office with two witnesses from work and didn't tell anyone. I've never regretted it, these stories are making me shudder! I think there probably was the potential there for MOB/MOG-zilla behaviour, both can be a bit tunnel visioned and possessive so I think we dodged a bullet.

I do think it would have come from a sort of insecurity though, the fear of 'losing' their son/daughter and the finality (from a mother's perspective) of their child being married and their nest being properly empty. Interfering in wedding plans might be a way of trying to gain some control back and fend off having to fully let go, which I can kind of understand/sympathise with. Not everyone is strong enough not to let those feelings make them behave irrationally I suppose.