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 😁

Now that, I don't mind at all. It's expected, it makes sense. But my MiL genuinely wanted the two 'lovers' together and wasn't prepared to pay.

Can’t you just block her? I would have nothing to do with her

My in-laws are OK. However at our wedding my SIL pushed my DN(7) forward to be in the photos. We didn't clock it happening as our headspace was elsewhere. So she is in the foreground of every single "action" photo such as signing the register etc. It actually looks really creepy when we look back at our wedding photos - there's definitely a horror film vibe!

My parents kindly provided the drinks mainly by making a booze run for champagne. They were surprised to see DH's siblings and their partners walking off to their hotel at the end of the reception carrying one or two bottles each. There were five of them so over £100 minimum which they basically stole from DM and DF!

I realise mine are pretty tame compared to others!

At my wedding best man made entire speech without mentioning ME! Just new hubby life story. AND during this not one but TWO cakes turned up - one decorated as a dart board, and the other as a rugby pitch in hubby's team colours!!! Conspiracy between best man and MIL!!! When waiters made moves to put them on the same table as actual wedding cake I nearly blew a fuse!!!! My first CF post- hope it qualifies! Surprise - now divorced 😁

My poor cousin had problems with her own mother. She's my aunt's DSD. Despite the wedding guest list being known for over a year, the mum decided a few days before that her ex shouldn't be there. She gave my cousin the ultimatum either them or us. Cousin said well I want you both there and left it at that. So during the wedding service the mother turned up at the reception hotel and was stopped from taking the cake she was saying she had paid for it (she hadn't). She swiped the bride and groom cake toppers, which had been made by my cousin's friends, and was escorted off the premises. She then turned up during the reception but was barred from entering by the hotel. We had no idea all this was going on and only found out later.

My cousin's mother wasn't single then having remarried several years before. My aunt was not the OW and had been married for about 12 years by then and had a civil relationship with her. My aunt is one of the calmest people I know. My uncle and the ex/mother had had rocky times but that was years before. My cousin's engagement party was uneventful. The mother had form for batsh*t moments, some were quite cruel, when their children were young.

Wow!

We sat through the most cringey best man's speech at a school friend's wedding. He not only failed to mention my friend but basically listed the groom's sexual exploits ending with the finale of him having a surprise baby while he was at uni. It was incredibly awkward.

We and my friend knew about the child but half of her relatives were from a different country and culture and had not. She and her husband were as surprised as us at the speech and she said it was typical of him to do something like that!

Their children are adults now but when we all get together it still gets brought up

My in laws have always seen my husband as a cash machine - even when we got married 13 years ago and my husband was on less money than he is now. We had to pay for money towards flights for them to attend in Italy which they readily accepted, only to find out, they’d given a similar amount to their grandson to ‘help him out’. I was furious! They’ve been utterly useless in-laws and now grandparents to our children ever since.

Our wedding was small - siblings & partners, parents, a couple of friends, GPs

DGMiL phoned a few weeks before the wedding to say she wouldnt be coming as reception was in a Chinese restaurant and she didnt want to eat 'foreign muck'.

It was a very traditional restaurant with no western cutlery. Guests were forewarned. Before the ceremony my two GMs sidled up to each other and opened their handbags to reveal to the other that they had each brought 2 sets of western cutlery!

These two elderly ladies lived far apart had met no more than a handful times ever yet each had thought of the other!

Not wedding but when DS was born he went to NICU as was 8 weeks early- EX MIL phoned NICU repeatedly and when found out baby was under my surname went mental at the nurse on the phone. She also turned up and tried to tailgate into NICU to see him- before I had even seen him as had an emergency C section so NICU had to go on lockdown. When I finally got to NICU I was so embarrassed to hear what she had been doing and blocking the phone lines constantly- luckily the staff were sympathetic to me. She also wasn’t invited to christening due to her behaviour so attended and hid in a bush 😂

Went to the wedding of one of DH’s long long term friends. The best man was so nervous about making his speech he got completely hammered before it (and started amending it with DD’s crayons 😬).

The speech started fine but ended up with a hideous story about a girl they all knew at school (including getting all the men who had known her - inc DH - to stand up) that was so horrific the bride stormed out and locked herself in the disabled loo. She emerged about 2 hours later she and the groom had an enormous row about it on a balcony in front everyone. The best man got a huge row on the dance floor from his wife and sent to bed. 😳

Hideous @OverTheHillAndDownTotherSide !

We should start a new thread about knobby best men and their stupid speeches...

We had a registry office wedding, so not a big venue. MIL sobbed really loudly through it and stage whispered she wished it was DHs funeral instead 🤷
Wore a white suit and apparently was most put out that I wore pink.
On the way to the reception decided that her and FIL had to stop at the house for FIL glasses, fair enough it's on the way.
Then didn't come back for hours, tbh me and DH hadn't noticed and just carried on until we realised they weren't there for the photos. So we still carried on 😄. She wasnt happy that DH hadn't left me at the reception to go back home and see where they were.
I don't think she spoke a word to me the whole day.

@Hoppinggreen brilliant 😂

That's sweet though about your two GMs.

DGMIL was a strange woman by all accounts. Not really very nice at all. All the rest of my ILs are delightful people!

@SeulementUneFois yes it's one of my favourite memories from our wedding day (30+ years ago eek!)

But the siblings had actually said they had no issue with this, you are not the ops siblings so how you would feel in a similar situation is inconsequential- the actual people involved here had confirmed they are fine.

Thinking about it, I do feel a bit sorry for some of these badly behaved relatives.

Some of the older relatives may have married at a time when the 'happy couple' didn't get so much choice as their parents took over the wedding planning. The wedding of a DC is their 'time to shine'. Except society has moved on. More couples pay for their own weddings so make their own choices. Older relative may be still be holding on to the idea that they are somehow in charge.

There is probably a whole thesis to be written about why people behave badly at weddings. Perhaps Brides Magazine could be approached for sponsorship!

My MIL was the first person to see me after I put on my wedding dress and was completely ready’, she walked in, cast her eyes up and down over me, then said “where are the girls?” (Bridesmaids). Not a as smile or a nod or a word. I’ve never forgotten it. She also never smiled once all day from what i could see. Twenty years on we get on fine on the whole, not a huge warmth which may be becasuse it’s just there.

@T1Dmama That would be best all round ideally but I don't have her number and she doesn't have mine, it's her DS that she messages, he wouldn't ever block her because I think he's kind of scared of her (alas why he never stands up to her or for me)

My Mum and Dad got married in 1966. They were a Catholic/Protestant controversial at the time marriage and my Irish Nan did not approve. She photobombed most of their photos but the one that irked my Mum the most was the cake cutting one where my Nan pushed in and put her hand on the knife and placed herself as the main subject of the photo. We laughed about it in later years when looking through the album but I don't honestly know what she was thinking! It was so rude!

Start a thread! I’d read it, I love a CF thread.

My MIL was blameless at my wedding, my own dear mother on the other hand …

The vast majority of these examples are pretty bad, a minority reflect more on the poster.

My MIL had a photo printed of my husband's side of the family at the wedding (it was a small wedding so it was only us, his parents, his sister and BIL). The problem was, she chose the worst picture of us all as the sun was in our eyes so we're all squinting. The picture she chose was actually originally a picture of all the wedding guests so my family included but she cropped them all out. I understand she wouldn't want a picture of my side of the family up in her house but there were plenty of other nicer pictures she could have chosen of her side of the family alone. I can't help but think she did it on purpose to make me feel rubbish as when she showed me the photo printed and in a frame she made a point of saying "can you tell what I've done to this picture?" I knew full well that she'd cropped out my side of the family but I didn't give her the satisfaction so pretended I had no idea.

It is a fascinating subject. Some of it must be to do with heavy drinking, often on an empty stomach, but lots of people connected by blood have very little in common with each other and don't get on. All sorts of decades-old grudges can come to the fore when they do have to mingle, as Christmas on Mumsnet always demonstrates! Then when you throw an extended family together with lots of other people to whom they don't even have ties of blood, in a formal setting where not everyone knows the conventions and etiquette, with all the stresses and strains of travelling, buying wedding outfits and presents, paying for accommodation, having to make small talk, which not everybody is comfortable with - and so on and so forth - well, it's surprising any wedding goes off all right.

Ours did, but it's so long ago I can scarcely remember it. Very small, which helped.

Oh my MIL is an actual liability so I feel your pain.

Wedding - ordered a ghastly white dress with gold trim, talked her out of that so she wore black. Anyone who saw the pictures asked if she hated me. We married in a very romantic city abroad, it was a child-free weddings. She brought hubby's niece who we'd had very little contact with previously and then complained about the lack of activities and food for said child (who we'd actively said not to bring, wasn't invited and therefore unexpected). Dressed child in a bridesmaid dress and hijacked the wedding by sending her up with a gift immediacy after the vows. Wedding video also hijacked to be all about child. MIL has also just turned up when we've been on a foreign holiday which is absolutely unacceptable. We no longer talk about holidays until after the fact.

My mother also has form for wedding shenanigans. I didn't want a cake. Wedding was a blend of UK/destination traditions. My mum had a friend bake a fruit cake (which I dislike), transported it on the flight and subsequent train journey to whip it out and force a cake cutting scene. Thing looked awful after it's adventure and I was so embarrassed. Then banged on for weeks about how great it was and how much effort it took. sigh

I'm determined to be the very opposite if my kids ever marry 😂

My fiance and I were planning to choose my wedding ring. At the time, I was visiting over a weekend, and I had visions of the two of us romantically browsing little jewellers shops and picking out a ring we both liked.
As we headed out of the house, future MIL grabs her coat, runs out and plops herself in the passenger seat. Not wanting to upset her, I just went along with it, as she ordered us into her choice of shops, and attempted to steer me towards cheap and nasty rings. I eventually found the courage to put my foot down and fiance and I found a lovely ring - this time it was just the two of us!