I just had to get this out, and if any other brides have any FMIL/MIL/Mother wedding woes, I'd love to hear it!
So, my FI has not had the best relationship with his mom growing up. Father had custody, and mom would guilt my FI about not spending enough time with her, making him spend the night during the week, etc etc. She's also very cheap and makes promises that she knows she cannot keep (example; when we graduated high school, she told him and his father that she would continue giving them money to help with college expenses. Guess who hasn't seen a dime since graduation day?)
Now, his mother can be a fairly nice woman... when it benefits her. We've gone over and spent the night when we started dating, and she would take us to dinner/lunch and make small talk now and then, after she called him and spent 20 minutes asking why he loved his dad more than her and why we never went to visit her.
Fast forward to the engagement and she is raving happy, and promises to help us with expenses. Four months before the wedding and she tells me "I'll give you a check for the DJ ($500) next Wednesday". Next Wednesday rolls around, we get a text from her; "I don't have the money right now, but I'll give you $50 a paycheck" (which would make $400 by the time the wedding rolls around... that was a month ago).
Not only has she promised to help with expenses and pulled out, she thinks she's "helping" by pinning stuff on Pinterest. She pins a bunch of stuff and tells me that she's so happy to be helping me with the wedding planning (I'm not even using Pinterest for my planning. I've found one or two ideas but other than that, I just go on to look at pretty stuff and get exercising ideas). 98% of what she has pinned, I'm not even interested in. Like, burlap table covers. I love burlap and think it would look cool, but with the theme and feel we're going for, I think another material would suit better. I told her this and she wasn't too happy that I wasn't going with her idea. She pinned a bunch of guest book/sign/items and expects me to pick one. I'm not, because we already have a guest book, and told her so. She expects me to wear heels with a heel-sleeve (it's a Steampunk wedding) and not only am I not good at wearing heels higher than 1.5 inches (most Steampunk heels we find are 3" or over), I want to wear my shoes all evening, so I'm going with decorated sneakers.
She was demanding when she viewed the venue with me and my grandmother, telling us which wine we should go with because she liked it (neither me or my grandmother liked the wines she picked), questioning why the venue didn't provide this or let us do that, and just generally trying to control a wedding that she has no control over or, quite frankly, a part in.
When it comes to the money, I wouldn't be snarky about it if she didn't promise it to my face and then backed out acting as if it was no big deal. As to her butting in and acting as if she's being a huge help, I'll just be happy when the wedding day comes because she will have nothing to do and no one to boss around!