WWYD with the soon to be future MIL issue

[Mrstobe83]

Hi all,

Just a bit of background info. I’m (f) 41 and my DP (51), We have been together just over 8 years and been engaged just over a year.

We are getting married this Sept and as we both have been married before, we were just planning to have a very small intimate wedding. Just a ceremony at the registry office then a sit down meal .We picked the restaurant near to DP’s Mum house as we take into consideration that she’s getting old (83) and doesn’t fancy travel far.

We went to visit her after the restaurant to confirm date & time with them. My DP told her the plan for the day, and the first thing she said was She won’t go the Ceremony. She couldn’t be bother as it only 10 mins long anyway. However she is happy to go down the restaurant for food and drink ( and she loves her sparkling). She then turned to me and she said she hope that I m not going to be silly spending money on a wedding dress that I m only going to wear one as We both have been married before, she said buy a pair of jeans or something ( who in the world would buy a pair of jeans to wear at their wedding)

She then go on and said Marriage is only a piece of paper anyway. At this point, I was nearly in tears and tried to hold myself back. I politely told her, that marriage means something else to me. Just because we both have been married before. It doesn’t mean we don’t take it serious second time.

I told my DP that his Mum has really upset me and our relationship/marriage. He agreed that she has crossed the line and he backed me all the way. He has then decided to uninvited his whole family ( 10 of them) as he no longer wants them there for our big day.

While I am upset and hurt by what his Mum said, and I felt bless that he backed me and care about my feeling.However, I don’t want to be the reason he has fallen out with his family. I told him, I will be ok in a few days and I can be a bigger person and pretend she never said such thing but my DP still having none of it and is adamant that he doesn’t want his family there. His reason was, if they couldn’t be bothered going to the ceremony then why should he pays for their food and drink.

What would you do if you were me? Did I over react or did she cross the line?

Nothing wrong with getting married wearing jeans- I wore a dress that cost me £30 from H&M and we only had my kids there and a couple of witnesses from the registry office. But that’s not the point. The MIL said what she said about jeans and not bothering to attend the ceremony to be an arsehole and ruin her son and DIL happy mood about getting married. I’d have uninvited her too. But I’m an antisocial wanker who didn’t want my own family apart from my children at my own wedding.

I agree with soon to be DH; if they're not coming to the ceremony then I'm not paying for them to be fed and watered - at a place picked purely for their convenience no less! No they can shag off, you and DP have the wedding you want, where you want and wear what you want!

All very odd, not sure why MIL cares how much your wedding outfit costs. I agree with fiance that if they're not coming to the wedding then they're not coming to the meal. Just have a smaller wedding without them. Usually the reception is fairly near the wedding venue anyway and soon after although some couples spend forever posing for photos whilst everyone is hanging around getting hungry

OP, you're 41 and yet you sound like a reactive teenager. His mum's 83 and won't be around for long, why on earth do her views matter? Why does it matter whether she comes to the ceremony or not? It's not all about her. And now you've hauled your 51-year-old partner into the psycho-drama and the whole family's involved. Grow up and develop some emotional intelligence and resilience.

People say stuff. It doesn't mean you have to react. Stop reacting. When his mother told you her opinion you could just have said 'Okay' and left it there and carried on with your plans.

So you hadn’t actually sent any invites out, you have “uninvited” all his family (who haven’t been given an option to RSVP as no invites have been sent out.

You then post on here, uninterested in anyone’s opinion, as you had already managed to rebook.

Then contacted all your friends to make sure they could come.

…because you as an adult couple, cried that someone suggested that you don’t spend too much on your dress, and wouldn’t be going to the ceremony

So that’s your relationship with his family destroyed forever.

You were raised not to challenge your elders but see no problem uninviting her to your wedding? Rather than shrug your shoulders and ignore her?

So. Much. Drama.

You've been together 8 years. At this point what does the marriage have to do with you being accepted into his family??? You've been with this man almost a decade.

If this is a legit post you both need to chill out.

Why are you stressed over wedding planning? It's a registry office and meal after?

Your MIL is elderly and comes from a different generation which held different (now old fashioned) standards and she simply hasn’t kept up so much with your thinking on it. If you both really sit down and talk to her from the heart, I think she may come round and see where you are coming from in actually wanting her there.

Instead of taking offence at her not wanting to be there, try saying oh MIL I’m so sad you feel that way as I really specially wanted you there. I know it’s a second marriage for us both but we really want and need your blessing and love at the ceremony. It’s so important to us to have you by our side in support of our marriage.

As for what you wear, that’s for you to decide and you are well within your rights to smile and say you haven’t decided yet.

If the invitations haven’t gone out yet, there can be no sense from his side of being disinvited. I think they are quite ignorant to think it’s ok to go to the meal but not witness the actual ceremony that the meal is in celebration of.
If your fiancée really doesn’t mind them taking offence further down the line at not being invited, then fair enough.
But if deep down, he really does want them there, he could take time to explain the importance of them sharing and witnessing the actual ceremony and then celebrating afterwards all together.

If there is good will to want to fix these issues, I feel it could be easily smoothed over with a bit of diplomacy.

It seems like his family have an difficult dynamic. They can all say nasty things about each other, but when push comes to shove they stick together. Whether that centres on MIL or whether it's variable I don't know. In your OP you said his mother wasn't going to come, in a later post that became his mother and sisters. But it seems like your fiance believes that the rest of the family will follow her lead and maybe wants to spare himself and you going through that.

I think he's the odd one out in the family (in the nicest way) and wants to break away from that dynamic.

Leave him to his decision. He knows and understands the background to this. And there are regularly threads on MN where the man was NC with his family and the OP insisted she knew best and forced a relationship because 'family' and then it all goes tits up when their behaviour crosses a massive line. The posts all tend to say the same thing - that she should have respected his decision to be NC and not thought that she knew better. Let him respond to this as he sees fit. It wouldn't be you breaking up his family, it would be them and their behaviour that caused it.

I wore jeans for getting married. They weren’t even new. Or expensive 😁. Were my faves at the time tho! Did it as part of a family meal. The getting and being married was what mattered most to us, the romance hearts and flowers bollocks and expense really wasn’t for us. You do you and your DH to-be, OP.

Your DH to be knows his family well, knows what they are like and made the decision not to have them at his wedding. There's more to it than just the comments made to you by your MIL and I expect he's had more than enough of their negative shit. It sounds like he wants a fresh start on his big day surrounded by positive, engaged and happy people and has taken steps to ensure that's how it will be. Don't feel guilty about it; respect his decision and leave the subject of them being uninvited en masse well alone.

Op you're allowed to get upset when someone treats you badly. I hope you have a lovely wedding x

I don't think uninviting ppl who can't be bothered to come to your actual wedding but want to come for free food drink is an over reaction. Well done to the man for not being stupid for the sake of his family. Many threads on here about weak men who allow their families to be rude and hurtful and don't blame the age of this woman. My mum is in her 80s and still has awareness of basic social skills.

If people want to wear jeans to their wedding they can. Wear what you want, it's your day. However, it's completely normal to want to wear something nice to a special occasion, whether that's a dress (of any colour, style etc) or a glam trouser suit or separates. Lordy, you might even get your hair done and apply some make up!
I think your future MIL was being an arse and I wonder if there's some racism but after several years with your DP you should know what she and his other family are like. I think some people are less interested in second weddings but you're not asking that much of them to attend a brief meaningful ceremony and then go to a reception after. Good for you for changing plans to suit you better and those who really care about you will celebrate with you. It's up to your DP to deal with his family.

Being the bigger person often means taking sh*t you don’t and shouldn’t have to, from people who don’t care about your feelings.

Continue to leave it up to your fiancé to decide what he wants to do about his side and concentrate on yours.

Your fiancé is right in not inviting them and see it as a positive that you can have everything locally to you and have people who want to be there for both.

What a dramatic response.
I'm guessing you were feeling somewhat vulnerable? Your MIL sounds a miserable and opinionated old bat, but crying?
And your partner has rescinded the invitation to the entire family based on what his mom (alone) said?
You all seem rather highly charged.

I can think of several reasons why an 83 year-old woman might reasonably not want to attend a 10 minute register office wedding ceremony, but might want to join the celebratory meal afterwards.

She may not physically feel fit enough or think it worth the effort to attend a 10 minute ceremony that will go ahead with or without her presence, but might want to participate in the celebrations of her son's wedding afterwards.

Or - given her age - she might not think a register office wedding is a "proper" wedding, or she might sincerely believe marriage is "just a bit of paper" and doesn't think the register office ceremony is significant in itself. But she might still want to join in the celebrations.

I think the comment is called for.

An 83 year-old woman says something that could, at worst, be said to be tactless and/or thoughtless, you become unreasonably upset, and your 51 year old-partner (who really is old enough to know better!) decides to dramatically go off the deep-end and dis-invite all his family.

Unless there's more behind the scenes to explain this volatile relationship with his family this is all bonkers and massive nose-cutting-off-to-spite-face behaviour.

I swear some people just enjoy being contrary on these threads.

Of course you're going to be upset when future MIL says she isn't going to your wedding ceremony, but happy to partake of a free meal afterwards.

Most people don't wear jeans to their own wedding- despite the few outliers here - and of course it's hurtful that your own MIL to be thinks your wedding is so unimportant you shouldn't waste money on a new outfit.

Going forward leave her to your DP. She has either lost her social filter through age, or she is plain nasty. Either way not worth your time.

And the Groom and Bride here are also allowed to have several reasons why they would expect family to attend a 10 minute registry office wedding ceremony in order to join the celebratory meal afterwards.

It smacks of "I'm here for the free food and drink" if you can't make the effort to go to the registry office to celebrate with your relatives getting married before going for the reception.

Registry office weddings were a thing even back when the Great Depression was happening as they were cheaper and quicker than a church wedding for the couple to get married. It was used when men were going off to war and she would probably remember that too, what with her being 83 and all.

It really doesn't matter what we're guessing at here - it's down to the Groom whether he wants his family and relations at his wedding and he doesn't so that's all there is to say about it.

You are NOT the reason DH has fallen out with his family. SHE is the reason.

Please don't take this the wrong way but I assume you've lived in the UK long enough to realise that many aspects of British culture will be different from the one that you've grown up in .

In particular some British people are not at all "family oriented" (I'm not for instance) and many British people also sincerely believe that marriage is "just a bit of paper".

I presume you've voluntarily chosen to live in the UK and if so then you bear some responsibilty to adapt how you view and react to things. Just because some people (including members of your husband to be's family) express views at odds with your culture and/or values doesn't mean they are wrong or are bad people.

Of course that doesn't excuse them from acting in ways deliberately to hurt your feelings or to upset you because they need to adapt to you equally as well, but I wouldn't take serioously anything said by an 83 year-old woman. I doubt it was said with the deliberate intention of upsetting you.

(For context - my wife and I got married for purely legal and financial reasons after 30 years of living together. We got married in a register office, two witnesses were the only people present apart from the registrar, the four of us had a meal together afterwards, and our families didn't know we were getting married)

I too would have been very upset by what she said.

Not sure why there is so much sympathy for her tbh.

She doesn't think that marriage is important, doesn't want to go to the ceremony, so why would she want to attend a meal to celebrate?

Just out of curiosity, how do you uninvite a whole family to a wedding that they’ve already been invited to?

Nah - you and your soon to be husband have massively overreacted, and now, he has uninvited his whole family?! His family that he has been so close to his whole life?! I also wouldn't expect an 83 year old to travel to attend a 10 min ceremony!!!!!

Those who are suggesting that they wouldn't travel for a 10 minute wedding ceremony - you are aware that the actual wedding ceremony bit (if someone was to get married in a church) takes about 10 minutes too? The rest of that is just the wedding mass. If weddings in churches took the same length of time as registry office weddings, would you still put the same effort into going to them?