I don't care about my guests....

hlvonb

So this is the 1st really annoying thing my FMIL has done since the unwanted opinions (which was short lived).

She went to a wedding for her best friend's daughter. The bride made their own wedding invitations which looked pretty cool. I have nothing against making your own invitations. I personally wouldn't do it because we have a lot of invites and I am not really all that crafty. I also am doing other DIY so I decided to just order them. I found some I love.

Well FMIL kept talking about making them and said she would help so I told her that as much as I appreciate her offer, FI and I decided to order some invitations that we absolutely love.

She responded with that was the worst thing and we should return them because if we don't take the time to make the invitations, it means we don't care about our guests. After all, they are taking time out of their schedules to come and spending money on gifts and gas.

I just looked at her like really?? Are you serious? UGH

zizibet

Uh, No. Not caring about your guests is cash bar,no/not enough food, and/or lack of seating. Your FMIL is cray cray.

HisGirlFriday13

Oh, that sucks. I have no useful advice, but feel free to vent away -- DH's grandmother was the same way during planning until I stopped talking to her about the wedding. When she asked DH about it, he was like "Well, you kept being a total witch to HisGirl about the wedding, so I understand why she doesn't want to talk to you about it, and I won't, either." 

She didn't get better, but we did stop talking to her, and that helped.

hlvonb

@zizibet - That's what I thought. There will be plenty of yummy yummy food and they don't have to worry about cash bars since we're having open bar. There also will be plenty of seating because the venue is setting 12 extra places. So if we say 150 they will set 162.

hlvonb

@HisGirlFriday13 - Thanks! I don't even really talk about the wedding to her. She brought up the conversation lol.

HisGirlFriday13

Yeah, DH's grandmother used to do that, too, until we got to the point that she would say, "How is the wedding planning going?" and I would say, "So, I read this really interesting book on the immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks last week."

I mean, I just wouldn't even engage. It was beyond bean-dipping.

zizibet

Good for you, HisGirl.
@hlvonb I'm sorry she's being this way. Ugh.

misssunshine17

My VP invites (with a groupon, omg...) were wayyyy nicer than anything I could have made. Your FMILs logic sucks.

Chipmunk415

The only way I could agree with your FMIL's logic about "not caring about your guests" is if a) you sent VIPs actual invites and Xeroxed a bunch of copies to send to everyone else, b) sent email invites/group Facebook message, or c) included a line about "presents being required."

For the record, I had my invites done via VistaPrint. In terms of "DIY," I picked the color and size, adjusted the hosting information from the standard style, and added our website at the bottom. I'm using a custom stamp for our return address (to save my hand), and studied a calligraphy book so I could do "pretty" handwriting. OP, you're fine. :-)

climbingsingle

She is cah-razy. There's no way in a million years I'd ever make my own invitations. Trust me, they'd come out horrible and my guest would be like, "Why does ClimbingBride hate me? She sent me such an ugly invitation." 

Emmy1493

If she wants them handmade, she can do them all by her lonesome. Ain't nobody got time for that! Your planning a wedding, not running an arts and crafts shop from home.Some things are best done by the Pro's. I would never be able to DIY even though one on my BM's was all pushy about it. There's just no way. All that aside, I am sorry OP. Your FMIL is nutzo. Like seriously, who says crap like that.

CLI242009

prettybirdy27 said:

When I saw the title of this thread, I immediately thought it was going to be a rant from some newbie that got butthurt that someone said they weren't properly hosting their guests by having a cash bar/potluck wedding/other offense and then made a thread to berate us and tell us we're all horrible old married hags that made it seem like she doesn't care about her guests. 

Oh man I did too. I saw that and I'm like uh oh....Kind of happy it was just a crazy FMIL haha

To OP - Sorry you have to deal with this. Although this is something that could easily be ignored. Show her the invitations you picked out, maybe that will put her at ease?

hlvonb

zizibet said:

Good for you, HisGirl.
@hlvonb I'm sorry she's being this way. Ugh.

@zizibet Thanks!

hlvonb

misssunshine17 said:

My VP invites (with a groupon, omg...) were wayyyy nicer than anything I could have made. Your FMILs logic sucks.

@misssunshine17 - I am sure the ones we ordered would be a thousand times better than anything I could make. Lol. I agree her logic does.

hlvonb

Chipmunk415 said:

The only way I could agree with your FMIL's logic about "not caring about your guests" is if a) you sent VIPs actual invites and Xeroxed a bunch of copies to send to everyone else, b) sent email invites/group Facebook message, or c) included a line about "presents being required."

For the record, I had my invites done via VistaPrint. In terms of "DIY," I picked the color and size, adjusted the hosting information from the standard style, and added our website at the bottom. I'm using a custom stamp for our return address (to save my hand), and studied a calligraphy book so I could do "pretty" handwriting. OP, you're fine. :-)

@Chipmunk415 - We're not doing A, B, or C. Lol.

hlvonb

ClimbingBrideNY said:

She is cah-razy. There's no way in a million years I'd ever make my own invitations. Trust me, they'd come out horrible and my guest would be like, "Why does ClimbingBride hate me? She sent me such an ugly invitation." 

@ClimbingBrideNY - Lol. Our guests would say the same about any that I made

hlvonb

alisonmarie658 said:

WTF.

@alisonmarie658 - Yeah.....

hlvonb

emmaxbean93 said:

If she wants them handmade, she can do them all by her lonesome. Ain't nobody got time for that! Your planning a wedding, not running an arts and crafts shop from home.Some things are best done by the Pro's. I would never be able to DIY even though one on my BM's was all pushy about it. There's just no way. All that aside, I am sorry OP. Your FMIL is nutzo. Like seriously, who says crap like that.

@emmaxbean93 - Lol. I agree with the bolded. Lol

hlvonb

prettybirdy27 said:

When I saw the title of this thread, I immediately thought it was going to be a rant from some newbie that got butthurt that someone said they weren't properly hosting their guests by having a cash bar/potluck wedding/other offense and then made a thread to berate us and tell us we're all horrible old married hags that made it seem like she doesn't care about her guests.  I'm glad to see it's not.

You could always make a sample invite to show her, but make it really crappy and half-assed so it looks terrible.  Then once she sees your handiwork she may back down.  But she also may say "oh dear, let me help you with those!" and sink you even futher.

@prettybirdy27 - I am glad that my thread was not what you were thinking it was going to be. Trust me I am not doing a cash bar or potluck wedding, etc. Lol. We are having an open bar and our reception food is a 4 course dinner (appetizer / salad & bread / 3rd course / 4th course). I was worried about people getting too full but we can move the appetizer (pizza or something like that) to a later time in the evening say like at 11 pm when people might want a snack or something.

I thought about doing what you suggested but then I decided against it because she might make them and I would be screwed lol

hlvonb

CLI242009 said:

prettybirdy27 said:

When I saw the title of this thread, I immediately thought it was going to be a rant from some newbie that got butthurt that someone said they weren't properly hosting their guests by having a cash bar/potluck wedding/other offense and then made a thread to berate us and tell us we're all horrible old married hags that made it seem like she doesn't care about her guests. 

Oh man I did too. I saw that and I'm like uh oh....Kind of happy it was just a crazy FMIL haha

To OP - Sorry you have to deal with this. Although this is something that could easily be ignored. Show her the invitations you picked out, maybe that will put her at ease?

@CLI242009 - She doesn't like them. I tried that. I sent her a link to them and showed one in person and all she said was hm.

CLI242009

hlvonb said:

CLI242009 said:

prettybirdy27 said:

When I saw the title of this thread, I immediately thought it was going to be a rant from some newbie that got butthurt that someone said they weren't properly hosting their guests by having a cash bar/potluck wedding/other offense and then made a thread to berate us and tell us we're all horrible old married hags that made it seem like she doesn't care about her guests. 

Oh man I did too. I saw that and I'm like uh oh....Kind of happy it was just a crazy FMIL haha

To OP - Sorry you have to deal with this. Although this is something that could easily be ignored. Show her the invitations you picked out, maybe that will put her at ease?

@CLI242009 - She doesn't like them. I tried that. I sent her a link to them and showed one in person and all she said was hm.

Well it's not up to her. I'm sorry she's not on board with the invites but if you and FI do not want to make your own she needs to respect that. I would try to ignore her and just let her embarrass herself if she keeps bringing it up.

HaileyDancingbear

That's ridiculous of her.  To me "caring about the guests" as far as little details like invites go would mean putting in the effort to make sure all those little details are as polished and well thought-out as possible.  If that means having a pro do your invitations, then by all means have a pro do it.  Not that either situation would really bother me too bad or make me not want to go to the wedding, but I'd rather receive a beautiful, professionally done invite than a homemade one that isn't well done at all.  

I think that only people who are really crafty and have a REALLY keen eye for detail should make their own invites.  It may seem easy to your FMIL to just plop your text into microsoft word and have your invite all ready to go, but really, the font, the sizing, the placement of every word, the spacing between words/lines, all that has to be perfect otherwise your invites just look jacked up.  I once saw a DIY invite that would have been lovely, if it weren't for the odd spacing in between lines and a few typos/phrasing errors.  They were little details, and I don't think whoever made it was really lazy, they just didn't happen to notice, but it really did mess up the whole look of the invites.  If you feel you aren't crafty enough and feel you don't have the keen eye for detail that a professional would have, there's nothing wrong with ordering your invites.  Your FMIL is ridiculous.

megan8305

I think there are a ton of ways you could show you don't care about your guest and that by far isn't one of them.  Most people hardly look at invites anymore  just to get the info and they go in the trash.  Why waste time that you could spend on doing other things like DYI favors ect that people might acutally save and care about