I think my dm is bu about my wedding, what do you think?

[marybrian]

I am not that close to my dm, we are ok, but not besties constantly in each others lives. We live several hours drive apart and see each other maybe half a dozen times a year. I am engaged to be married this Christmas and we are limited by venue size to 150 guests. My fiance and I chose our venue because it is close to our home and so easy to pop back and forth to make arrangements. We have invited most of my parents friends but not all. I chose to invite the ones I know best and am friendly with. My dm is very angry with me that I haven't invited the last couple as they're giving her a hard time about being 'the only ones' in her friendship group without an invite. She says they've threatening to break the friendship over it. I don't want to invite these people as a) I barely know them & b) it's not like my parents are paying for the wedding. My fiance & I are financing the whole thing ourselves. This is our special day & I only want the people present who are close to us. If I invite these people to make my dm happy, it'll be at the expense of losing people close to myself or my fiance. There is space for them to attend later in the evening but they refuse to drive the 3hrs to get here to take part at the end of the day and they're angry not to be included all along. Aibu?

[SandyY2K]

I honestly cannot see why your mother couldn't have invited mil to your engagement party, it was so mean. No, she absolutely doesn't have to be 'best friends' with mil or see that much of her but leaving her out of such a nice occasion was a massive snub and given how she is now overreacting, incredibly hypocritical.

I agree with thid. It was horrible of your mum and TBH. I would have insisted my MIL came, otherwise she can throw the party in my absence.

My parents paid for our wedding, but thst didn't mean they could invite the world and his wife. We gave each set of parents an allocation of invites and they could invite who they wanted within that number.

I didn't want the wedding overrun with old folk and wanted most guests to be friends of me and DH.

I'm Also from a culture where MILS would be friendly upon marriage, so I can't imagine my mum being so unfriendly towards MIL.

FWIW, my mum also had people asking why they weren't invited to my wedding and they'd heard so many people talking about the upcoming wedding.

She told them thete was a limited number ab it's not like 'back home' where everyone can attend.

Your mum is being unreasonable.

[NataliaOsipova]

This sort of thing is annoying - classic wedding madness. I had this from my DM - "What about Susan? She is my cousin?". Me - "I wouldn't know Susan if I fell over her, so why would I invite her to my wedding?". You get the drift! But who are these friends of your mother's? Admittedly, may not have been the best strategy to exclude one couple - but given you barely know them, don't see the grounds for their taking it hugely personally. They sound very childish and silly.

[TheNaze73]

Of course YANBU. No idea why you live several hours apart....

I think your DM is trying to emotionally blackmail you about her friends as well.

[sonjadog]

I gut reaction was that your mother is making this up, or at the least greatly exaggerating, about her friends´reactions to not being invited. I bet they aren´t that upset. There is no reason why they should be. I think your mother wants to create a fuss about this for some reason.

Also, I think it was unkind of her not to invite your future MiL to the party, but I think you are unreasonable to get annoyed with her for not wanting to be friends with your MiL. That really is her own choice.

[BlackeyedSusan]

oh goodness. we had something similar. actually happened on both sides of family. one set politely declined and sent a card. other side kicked up a fuss and ended up damaging the relationship between us.

[Koan]

Sorry Mary, wasn't sure how to phrase it. You'd mentioned your DM being out of her comfort zone and I was seeking possible sources for her hostile seeming behaviour and tbh was probs getting a tad defensive on your DMIL's behalf. Good luck with the rest of your wedding preparations

[LineyReborn]

RE: the engagement party; I assume it was at your mother's house for her side of the family so no other people from your fiancé's family were invited? So not unusual.

On what planet? Planet Knob?

OP I don't really understand why you agreed to this if it made you feel ashamed.

[nooka]

When you are marrying someone culturally very different from you there will be issues due to difference to manage from time to time. You can't expect your mother to behave how your MIL wants because of your MILs cultural expectations. You are choosing to marrying into your husband's family because you love him. Your parents are not. Your mum isn't snubbing your MIL she is behaving in a way that i normal in her own culture. Perhaps in time a relationship will grow, but it may not and you will need to manage your MILs expectations.

[marybrian]

Koan the financial side of things doesn't 'favour' my parents as you put it. My fiances family are very well off compared to my own family. Hence us paying for our own wedding. My family don't have a bean to contribute. So they say anyway.

[Roseformeplease]

Don't invite them. We ended up (we paid for the bulk of the wedding) with people such as my Dad's accountant and a woman my Mum had met dog-walking. These people weren't even real friends of my parents' - just people they were using to score points about how amazing they were. Also, because of my job, we were able to marry (free - paying only for food) in an unbelievable venue in London. This seemed to attract even longer compulsory guest lists. Our only real limit on numbers was financial (not much - food was cheap, wine was from supermarket in France). I gave in and it still pisses me off massively even though it was nearly 20 years ago.

[TaterTots]

For those saying the OP 'excluded' one couple from her mother's friendship group, I doubt this was deliberate. Her mother lives 200 miles away in a town the OP didn't grow up in, and they see each other every couple of months. Should she really be expected to know the ins and outs of her mother's social circle? I AM close to my mother, but she doesn't necessarily know everything about which of my friends is friends with who.

OP - tell your mother that the guest list is finalised and remind her that her friends were invited to the evening do, but declined. It's over. (I'd be tempted to add in that anyone old enough to have children getting married should not have to be dealing with people threatening to 'break friends', but that's just me.)

The bigger issue is the way she's treating your future mother-in-law. I absolutely agree that they don't have to be best friends - but to deliberately exclude her from the engagement party, before warning you 'I will NOT be coming to see her', smacks of active dislike. And unfortunately, I think the issue may be down to this being a mixed marriage. This needs nipping in the budget quickly before it becomes an issue in your marriage.

[gamerchick]

Tell her she's welcome to give up her own spot for one of them if it's so important to her.

[Koan]

Inviting a future MIL to an engagement party does not mean she has to buddy up. There's a symbolism involved too. But your mother chose her own symbolism, sending quite a different message about things going forward. I suppose today couples don't 'need' their respective families to be decent to one another, but it really helps the couple if they are. The engagement party celebrated a marriage to come, so as the host, publicly extending a welcome to your MIL is partly a gesture. What would it have cost? Already, your MIL faces the wedding without her DS's father and this may add to that feeling.

Does the financial comfort zone favour your DM, as I wonder if she would behave like this otherwise, or if dear FIL was around.

This is the worst part of all of for me tbh. I just can't get past it.

[ohtheholidays]

Your Mum sounds like she's not a very nice person OP!

Stick to your guns and don't let her run rough shot over your wishes,its your wedding day not your Mum's!

As for not inviting your MIL to the engagement party why the hell didn't you or her son invite her?That behaviour from your Mother I couldn't forgive that's a really cruel and evil thing to do!

If I was you I wouldn't talk to your Mother anymore about anything to do with the wedding,that way if she knows nothing she can't complain,take over or try and change everything you've decided on.

Your MIL though sounds really lovely,I'd be including her as much as I could to try and go some way to making up for the fact that she missed out on the engagement party.

[chocolateworshipper]

YANBU - your wedding, being paid for with your money. DM can suck it up. My own "D"M did her very best to try and turn my wedding into her own day - I strongly suggest you don't let yours get away with anything. I think the letter you wrote to her friends was a lovely thing to do. You don't owe anything else to them or your DM. Have a lovely day and congratulations

[PGPsabitch]

Yanbu at all. Your mum completely is.

Dh and I did our head co unts too and chose a venue based on that. Each of our patents best friends we invited because we were close to them. One of my parents tried to royally take the much wanting day invites for several more and evening invites for a dozen more. Total piss take as they knew we'd done nmbers before venue choosing and we were paying ourselves.

Told them no to day invites and to evening, they weren't happy but got over. My sisters had a word and told them it wasn't their wedding again it was mine and dhs. Also reminded them of their mothers attitudes on their wedding day and assumptions which I think was what hit home.

[LittleCandle]

I am at your DM not inviting MIL to the engagement party! How rude can you get. There is no need for them to be best friends, but that is beyond the pale.

When I was getting married, my parents were paying for everything and DF wanted to invite people that not only I had not met, but that he had not seen since he was in nappies! We ended up having a monumental row about it. In the end, most of the guests on our side were relatives. My friends were mostly relegated to the reception in the evening, and due to us having just graduated a month prior, nobody had a car, and there was a bus strike that day and nobody made it. (No trains in that area at that time, before anyone says anything about that.)

If you are paying for your own wedding, then you invite the people that you want. You might also want to give your DM a lesson in manners. I am still at her bad manners.

[SallyGardens]

My MIL tried something similar with me about how her friends were all horribly offended at being invited to the evening only and if it was a question of money, then she'd be more than willing to pay the shortfall. I told her to speak to DH who's far less diplomatic than I am and bluntly told her that if her friends didn't want to come, then they were welcome to decline the invitation.

Come the wedding, all her friends show up on cue, having booked hotel rooms for the entire weekend (Friday wedding) and made a proper trip out of it, without their husbands who were also invited. I mentioned to one of them that it was great to see them there and she told me that they wouldn't have missed it for the world!

It was all about face-saving to MIL.

[ArmfulOfRoses]

Invite her friends instead of her.

[PotteringAlong]

It's not unwelcoming to not want to be "like a sister" to someone you barely know who lives 3 hours away. Wanting to see you when she visits rather than your mil is not unwelcoming. It's actually perfectly normal and usual. Don't make this bigger than it is. You're annoyed about the guests, yes. Don't start reading into events things that are not there.

RE: the engagement party; I assume it was at your mother's house for her side of the family so no other people from your fiancé's family were invited? So not unusual.

[MidnightAura]

Yanbu we had this at our wedding from my in laws trying to control our guest list. Don't give in if you don't want too!

[trafalgargal]

Sounds like your MIL told them that of course they were invited and feels she's going to lose face if they aren't. However her problem not yours if you've not seen them since you were eight.

[Zombieswillreign]

This is just the start of yr mum trying to control everything..just wait till you have kids and she is demanding they follow her religion ...

[Zombieswillreign]

Your wedding.your choice.tell her to bog of

[Myrobalanna]

Your mum sounds like she might be horrendous if you have children.
I hope your mil is able to understand it's your mum's foible that's caused the rejection. What a shame! Usually we are so careful with each other in the uk to the point of being offhand: it's sad to hear of genuine warmth being knocked back.