To ask you to share CF in law stories from your weddings?

[Sconesandgravy]

Please share your CF in law stories from your weddings. I need to know it's not just me that has one.

I got married on Saturday. We had a micro wedding for multiple reasons. Our daughter, our closest friend each and their partner, and our parents or in my case parental. No siblings or other family.

My Mother in Law is weirdly emeshed with DH's two older siblings and can't cope if they aren't included in everything.

As we were cutting the cake, and having our moment, She shouts out "Make sure you save a piece for BIL, SIL and grandad!" After we'd served everyone she hacked off a huge messy chunk for them, rather than take the finger slices we'd been cutting rendering the rest of the top tier unusable.

It sounds childish but out of all the "petty" moments of the day this one stuck out the most. I think it's because she "stole" my moment.

I'm sure I'll laugh about it in years to come, but it's been four days and amongst the nastier things she did I am beyond angry. So I'm using MN as a form of catharsis, in the hopes that other people have nightmare in laws 😁

@ReadersD1gest no I didn't get the three items, I got a microwave and a liquidiser. The microwave broke a week later and I asked dsil for the warrantee and she laughed and said she wasn't surprised as it was so cheap and helpfully suggested that I put extra money towards a better quality one.

DH and I didn't go to DD & DSIL's wedding.

It was covid times. The rules kept changing, we didn't know if we would be risking being arrested on the motorway. So we made the decision.

Reading this thread I am realising we should have insisted on being there, messing up the convoluted arrangements around how many people could be together at any one time and generally making total pains of ourselves!

I am a total failure and hang my head in shame!

My (now ex) MIL decided she was taking the cake home the day after the wedding. She was told by my grandma (who had paid for the cake amongst other things, my in laws didn’t contribute a penny) that she most certainly was not. Anyway everyone went home and it transpired some of the cake was in the box but a tier was missing and so was the extra cake the baker had done for us (it was fruit cake so she’d meant it as an anniversary present or something) MIL denied all knowledge, venue couldn’t find it so we had to accept they were lost.

Until a year or so later when both cakes turned up. As Christening cakes for my SIL’s latest brat. They’d had some icing put on them but some detail meant they were unmistakably the missing wedding cakes.

Also my DF is extremely tight with money but very good to himself. When I announced my wedding date he decided to renew a lot of furniture in his house and his present to me was his old stuff. I've no idea why he thought this was any way appropriate but like a mug I accepted it . His wife gave me a lot of her old curtains as a present especially from her. They had the cheek to tell everyone that they had furnished our new home!

I was at my mums the night before final dress fitting. Her new partner phoned just as dinner was served. I answered and asked if my Mum could call him later as we were about to eat (nice, jokey tone). Sat down ate my dinner.

Roll on next day. Get to dress fitting. Mum not there. She rings me as I go in and says ‘I can’t possibly come to your fitting after the way you treated Rob on the phone yesterday. You were nasty and I don’t feel I want to support you at the moment’. She didn’t come. I cried through my fitting.

Thats now the only thing I think of when I think of my dress now.

Turns out this was the start of similar behaviour from him and her over the years.

We got married in a university city, in part because DH, FIL and BIL all studied there and we thought guests on their side would enjoy the visit.

We didn't appreciate that this would mean FIL taking all of them off to the university sports club during our reception. We're talking all of DH's relatives and the friends PILs insisted we invite. They missed quite a bit of the party including the cake cutting and first dance, despite all the timings being printed in the order of service.

MIL also offended my gran by getting uppity when a well meaning friend of my mum's made a jokey comment about being in the presence of two district judges, being as my gran was "only" a magistrate and MIL was the real deal.

We eloped and husband and his parents are estranged so no CF in laws at our wedding. But my mother in law did miraculously try to get in touch while I was 7 months pregnant with our first and bed ridden in hospital after 15 years of not speaking to husband. She was very nice and all until we overheard a very nasty conversation she was having about us both in the hallways with her husband. Turned out she was just trying to get to know us to exploit the grandparents law in our area so she could sue for visitation rights with our child and she didn’t actually want to patch things up with my husband.

(Basically if the grandparent is involved in the child’s life for a certain amount of time they become legally entitled to visitation in some situations.)

Long story short she neglected him and used him as a nanny when he was a teenager and then kicked him out At the stroke of midnight when he came of age rendering him homeless. We promptly told her to never speak to us again.

She is a total waste of space and she treated my husband like crap. In my book if she can’t be a mom to her son and patch things up like a grown up then she has no right to be a grandparent.

Very upsetting. She was also very judgemental of my pregnancy complications and said they were my fault and kept calling it HER baby when we never agreed to let her be around the baby in the first place. She didn’t even have the full picture of my health. We were just trying to be nice and let her visit and give the benefit of the doubt.

You need to start your own thread

Isn't it nice to share happy events though? One of my kids got married close to their siblings birthday and a friends birthday, BG made a point of wishing them both a happy birthday in his speech and they stood up and took a bow. It didn't detract from the wedding, it just felt nice and kind and inclusive.

Weddings go on for hours singing happy birthday or even, God forbid, having a dance is hardly making it all about you.

I'm not "demonising" (you use very dramatic language which is why I think so many people have queried your post) you just by disagreeing with you, nor did I suggest you had invited your own family and not DHs - you made that very clear in your OP and I even specifically quoted the number of people in attendance in accordance with what you'd described (11) so I have no idea why you think I thought you'd invited your family but not DHs.

Just pointing out (as I specifically said) that you are allowed to invite whoever you want to your wedding, but if you go against cultural norms (which is usually to invite close family even to a small wedding) then it's fairly normal to query/be upset by this and this alone (which was all the information you'd given at the time) isn't sufficient to describe someone as weirdly enmeshed or unable to cope.

Even with all your subsequent updates I still also don't see why her cutting a slightly larger and differently shaped piece of cake to the size and shape you had previously cut rendered the remainder inedible! Fair enough there's a lot of background to your history with your MIL but that alone is the sort of thing that, I'm sure if anyone else had done it you'd have thought mildly odd at worst, whereas because of your issues with your MIL it became something that ruined "your moment" to the extent you're still annoyed about it and posting on a forum to rant about it days later.

That’s absolutely fine if the bride and groom suggest it or it is run by them first. Not really very thoughtful to not give them the heads up first. Birthdays happen every year, most people only hope to have one wedding day. And I personally think it’s the one day of your life (apart from your funeral) which is about you (and spouse)

I did genuinely just mean we were cutting the cake into rectangular slices. Because our cake lady had shown how you get more portions out of it, with everyone still getting a decent slice. Each tier was a good 20cm tall with 3 layers so it wasn't like slices were ever going to be tiny

Families differ, it wouldn't occur to me or anyone in my family that it could be an issue, it's a celebration and as long as they don't get up and announce it in church or insist on having birthday cake with the meal no one would bat an eyelid. So if the grooms family did it the bride might think it is awful but to his family it would be a complete non issue and they wouldn't even think anyone would be bothered. In fact we'd think it was really odd to worry about something like that on a happy day.

It’s been 15 years but I still haven’t moved on…it was photo time and the photographer was working her way through a list of photos we had discussed ; at the time I was blessed to have all four grandparents alive, many many aunties and cousins etc all at the wedding. It was in my home country so not so many of DH family (just his DB, parents and an uncle). Mother in law stormed over to photographer and said when are WE going to be in any photos, disrupting the order and causing chaos.

in the ensuing maelstrom, photographer didn’t get a portrait of me and my mum, who died the following year.

15 years on, still bothers me.

Not an in-law but my bridesmaid handed me a list of dates that didn't suit to have the wedding on. She also through a strop when I wouldn't invite her husband's friend to the wedding, she then told me her husband couldn't go to the wedding as he was going to a lap dancing club on the same night. Absolutely ridiculous carry on, needless to say I haven't spoke to the narcissistic nutjob in years😂

Families do differ, you’re right. I’ll just ensure I don’t behave so entitled at my DIL’s wedding because I’ll know how it made me feel on my big day.

I thought I did lol sorry I don't know how I'm new here sorry 😐

@1offnamechange It was unserveable because she cut it so unevenly that the top of the remainder was maybe 1cm wide and the bottom was a good 10cm wide. We couldn't have physically sliced it up, and nor would we have wanted to as I don't really want to serve a battered uneven cake to guests.

And no. Even if MIL wasn't generally a dick, I would still feel like this. Just as I would if one of my parental figures did this. I think key parts of a wedding are for the couple and shouldn't be interrupted.

Also FWIW I think even if someone does go against a cultural norm, by having a small wedding it's not right to be a dick about it.

"you a lot to live up to as the second Mrs..."

She really did have a hard time.

That is awful and it does put some other issues into perspective. For lots of things I think you just have to have a sense of humour, my MIL turning up like she was the chief mourner at a funeral all in black from her hat to her shoes and then sobbing all through the ceremony made me want to laugh but spoiling that moment with you mum is on another level. I do hope you have other lovely photos of your mum.

Good grief, it is perfectly clear that @Sconesandgravy would not have written what she did if MIL was previously lovely and reasonable. That is so obvious, you really have to wonder what the nit-pickers' motives are. Do they think OP will suddenly think 'oh shit, yes, the wedding we had planned to suit our very individual circumstances and wishes was WRONG because some rando on MN said siblings are a priority'. She shared a story and asked for solidarity, not a forensic investigation into her family and morality 😆

I had a small wedding too - the room held something like 15 including the registrars. My brother unexpectedly turned up with his newish girlfriend. The registrar counted us and said there was now one too many so my granny, ever the diplomat, volunteered to wait outside! Brother and girlfriend were fine with this and got arsey when I protested! Everyone else just got uncomfortable until the Registrar, bless her soul, said let's try and find a spare chair. Unfortunately audacity is the main personality trait on bro and his girlfriend!

Not me, but my friend was invited to her sister's wedding which was in Portugal. She has a H and and 4 children and funds are tight so she had to say sorry, but not possible. The PIL of the bride said she HAD to come and they would fund it so friend scraped together what she could for new outfits, spends and time off school...only for the PIL to present her with a payment plan a month after the wedding. She is paying it as they 'offer' does not expressly say it is a gift, just that they will pay up front and the rest of the family agree it was obviously a loan. She's devastated and now in about £4k debt to people she barely knows.

Me too.

It's the sort of thing that you'd laugh at if it happened in a comedy show, while thinking "No-one would dream of doing that IRL", but it seems they did!

@Nanny0gg

OFFS back at you.

Yes I've read it.