AIBU to expect my future MIL to butt out of wedding planning?

[thelaststripe]

Now I see her dilemma, she has 3 sons who are traditionally not as keen on wedding planning, but she will not leave it alone. I'm letting her make the wedding cake but she's bombarding me daily with hymn suggestion, questions about the exact colour of my veil etc. Is there a nice way to remind her that she's had her own wedding, this one is mine and my OHs?

But what has the MIL got to do with wedding planning? I don't get it at all. Sounds like she thinks she can give her seal of approval on it all and that's not right, I'm sure it would drive me mad. Giving her a project would be ideal....that way she has total control over something that actually you find irrelevant so she feels she's had a win and you're not bothered by it.

confused why was you hurt though ? Is it traditional that mils go on the wedding dress shop?

Will her mum becoming with your son when he picks the suits out?

So many people an axe to grind on this thread. Simply exhausting.

Joyful - seriously, who talks about the men's suit at a wedding???!!! Noone!! (Unless their flowers don't match the bridesmaids dresses and flowers that is....)

It is the bride, her dress, the bridesmaids, etc that get talked about.

Of COURSE it is one of the important things in a traditional wedding.

How dare the bitch get excited about your wedding....

YABU.

And you don't know if it was her mums choice. Your DIL might have just wanted it to be a private thing between her and her mum which they are both entitled too.

Looks like the battle lines have already be drawn.

One of my aunts, who had both sons and daughters, used to say the following:

When you're the mother of the bride, you can wear what you like, the biggest hat, and you run the whole show. When you're the mother of the groom, you wear beige and shut up.

Ds1 isn't engaged but I can see his relationship heading that way, and I am very thankful his partner is lovely, as is her Mum. If and when the wedding comes I won't be wearing beige that's for sure!!!

confused why is there no comparison? Would her mother been invited if your son had suit shopping 'experience' ?

I think you hot the nail on the head when you said you wanted to experience it because you had no daughters. I think a lot of mils feel that. But that's the luck of the draw really isn't it? You had sons so you can't really expect to experience every aspect of having boys and girls. Wedding dress shopping is very private, maybe she wanted to give every one the wow factor including you.

mrs

I went to a wedding a couple of years ago and the brides mother walked her down the Isle as did her dad. They had devorsed a few years back and didn't want to be side lined to a pew. It was really weird as all three of them were walking at different speeds, She also wore a fucking wedding dress like gown she had arranged the whole event as she was a 'wedding planner'.

It was basically a whole day dedicated to her. Every one was

So it's not just mils

joy

Wow. Just wow!

My MIL did not come wedding dress shopping with me. And why should she? To all those saying 'I have sons I am a little sad I wasn't invited to do this with my DIL' .....I bet you didn't invite your MIL to view your dress did you.

Surely if you just have sons, you get to have a lovely mother son relationship which includes different things to a mother daughter relationship?

There seems to be an assumption here that mother son is less good than mother daughter and so DILs need to make good the gap!

Totally not the point I know, but I really don't understand the 'special'ness of wedding dress shopping tbh. I bought my dress online so neither DM or DMIL got to 'experience' it. Funnily enough the only person who was sad to miss out was one of my bridesmaids who was dying to have a movie montage style day in a boutique! I don't think I am that unusual. Among my friends anyway. I know a few who bought online, went to a sample sales (not the place for most DMs / DMILs unless they know exactly what the bride wants and have very sharp elbows), or bought white designer evening gowns on a solo shopping trip instead of going to a boutique. Their DMs and DMILs didn't bat an eyelid either.

If I had bought a dress from a boutique I wouldn't have minded if DMIL and / DM came, but I seriously doubt either of them would really have wanted to.

Anyhow, I wouldn't feel too bad confused is what I'm trying to say. It just isn't that important to some people. I'm sure you future DIL didn't mean to offend. It probably just never occurred that yu might like to go.

Also that shut up, show up, wear beige phrase is fucking hideous. My DMIL looked awesome in a mega bright outfit.

Pintofcider and Confused, yes one would consider a bride's dress one of the most important things if you were oddly heteronormative and conservative for 2015.

WTF would you do if your son was marrying a man?!

I honestly do think that mothers of sons who have bought into this strangely narrow view of what is important at a wedding only have themselves to blame when they get upset.

I also think their is an unpleasant misogeny in these expectations. I was bought up to focus on valuing my personality above my looks as were many other women of my generation. But apparently if we don't have the telepathy to realise that mothers of sons consider what their future DIL is wearing on their wedding day to be of such high importance that she shouldn't be able to decide without her future MIL there then we are horrid MIL bashers.

There are absolutly no equivalent expectations of men to guess the expectations of their future IL, and that in my opinion is deeply misogenistic.

Its interesting that it is mothers of sons have failed to realise this imo.

I've got 2 sons and I will absolutely NOT be bothered if I'm not asked to be involved with wedding arrangements if/when either get married.

I don't understand what the fuss is about!

My MIL (no daughters) tried to steamroller me when I married DH - it didn't work...

Confused if you buy into the heteronormative shit about wedding dress shopping being of such importance then you suck up the heteronormative shit about the bride's family having a bigger role in the wedding imo.

Honestly, can't you see that by placing such importance on heteronormative ideals of wedding traditions you have made your own bed?

You could well have bought up your son to place more importance on his own decisions about his wedding day and how important if was to you to be involved in his decisions. Instead you decided to get upset about not being invited along to some bloody dress shopping.

Almost 18 and 16 Confused.

If your son has taken such a leading role in his own wedding then why the getting upset over the teeny tiny detail of the wedding dress shopping? Can't you see it is a weird obsession that you only have yourself to blame for?

Has his MIL demanded that she gets to experience what it is like to have a son getting married, through him?