MIL wedding trouble

[Daniellem1983]

Hi this is my first time on mumsnet so excuse the lack of abbreviation knowledge. Basically my fiancé and and I have booked a wedding in a country hotel next year but the costs are really mounting up and my parents and myself are footing most of the bill and it just doesn't seem justifiable spending all of this money with 3 kids between us. Last weekend we decided that the best option will be to just cancel everything and go to vegas instead saving myself and my mum £6000 and we've decided to go alone and have a reception when we get back. My friends and family think its a great idea but when my fiancé told his mother she flipped out and said she wants no part of it. She has all of these grand ideas of how our wedding should be but she has is only paying £500 towards it. How should I deal with this situation without causing a massive wedge between us?

Do what you want. Do not let her bully you. I didn't want a big wedding and wanted just a few friends but my mother guilted me into having a much bigger one with all my horrible relatives. There were tears and what a terrible daughter I was and all sorts of emotional blackmail. I should've stood my ground - she would've got over it especially as my sister was having a mahoosive wedding the same year. I enjoyed it ok because it was smallish but I always wish we'd just done what we wanted.
MY DS can do what he wants when he gets married. It won't be my wedding.

It sounds like there are a lot of things mixed up together.

You are anxious about having a big wedding where you are the centre of attention.

Wedding is turning out more expensive than you thought, and you want a cheaper option.

Vegas is very different to a country house hotel, and is tacky in a lot of people's eyes.

While this is a cheaper option for you and your mum, it's more expensive for everybody else if they want to be a part of the day.

You're also still planning to have a reception in this country separately, which I can't see will be any cheaper or any less centre-of-attentiony for you.

Unless there's some other reason for wanting to have the wedding abroad, I would have thought - and suspect MIL thinks - that there is a better way to accommodate your anxiety and cost concerns with a wedding in your home country.

I would stop all wedding plans and thoughts for a month and then rethink on what it is you want and what options there are. It seems a little reactive at the moment

sooper I agree she has every right to get married wherever she wants at whatever cost etc. etc.
I'm just saying that its hardly surprising that MiL isn't thrilled And that that doesn't mean MiL's a problem, rather that she's reacting in an entirely understandable way.

The trouble is you had already booked a big country wedding so presumably she had the date in her diary and was no doubt really looking forward to it.

Now it has just been cancelled. She has to delete the day from her diary and stop planning and being excited about it.

She's bound to be very very disappointed at not seeing her son married, when she thought it was all arranged. If she hadn't known about the plans it probably wouldn't be such a problem for her.

I think you should cut her a bit of slack, allow her to be a bit gloomy about it. Although ultimately you need to make the decision that is best for you and your DP.

Bowler explains it well.
Cut her some slack.

Thanks again for all of your valid points. I intended on having a small wedding in this country as the only family I have are my parents and my sister but MIL has decided that she has to have eighty of her own family to the day alone which as you can imagine is astronomical in price and my parents are getting annoyed by this because they are paying for most of it. It just seems to be snowballing by the day. My parents are happy to let us go to vegas if it's what we want to do then celebrate when we get back after all it will only be the exchanging of the vows that they are missing out on right?

But your mil will still want her ridiculous guest list for the uk party, no? So you are not going to solve that issue with your plan. Just have a smaller uk wedding with strictly very close family and friends of your choice.

If you want a small uk wedding, then have a small uk wedding.

Mil can't invite 80 people if you don't let her. Tell her how many places she has to allocate and that's it.

I think by the sounds of it, even if money were no option, you'd STILL not want 100+ people there, so stand up for yourselves and insist on full management of the guest list.

If you want a small wedding in the UK, then now would be a good time to 'compromise' and get that.

I'd go for a small weekend away somewhere (Cornwall? Lake District? Somewhere picturesque, I'm sure some other MNers could find you somewhere suitable) and say that you're still doing the eloping idea, but will take both sets of parents, your DCs and siblings from both sides (assuming your DP has siblings). No other guests, no other family. You will have to keep it to that, because once you start asking other people, your MIL will start with her list of 80 again. IME it tends to be all or nothing with weddings, it's often very hard to do a wedding for 40-50 unless you both have very small families.

You could go for a very nice, posh hotel for a fraction of the budget of Vegas, and still be able to afford an expensive honeymoon.

however, if your heart is set on Vegas (rather than just running away to Vegas because you were about to spend a fortune on a day you didn't want), then go.

One other thing though, you say you are paying because your DP has been made redundant, you are marrying the man, you have DCs together, perhaps start having joint savings rather than yours and his? It's all going to be "assets of the family" once you're married, I'd hate if DH was the only one who got to make the decisions about big financial outlays just because he's the one who earns the bulk of the money.

Don'tmind makes an excellent point - if dh has just been made redundant can you justify the cost of a Vegas wedding? It'd only be cheap if you were already there and turning up to a chapel in your jeans. Yours sounds expensive but thousands of miles away . Might be easier just to say no to Mil and have a quiet wedding- and save some money.

If mil wants to -show off include loads of her own guests, why not let her throw a party in your honour with her own guests after you have married? We had about 80 people to our wedding which did include mil's closest family and friends but she also threw a small party at her house in the morning of our wedding for extended friends. I was a bit mmmm about it at the time (I found out after) but looking back they knew a lot of people in their local town and she was just being sociable/including people showing off--. So that was fine! Twenty years ago now and like most things, with hindsight, who gives a flying one!! Hope you get it resolved.