Okay, I'm not sure whether I've mentioned this before or not, but FMIL is American, FI is American-South African (dual citizenship) but born here, I am full South African.
When FI and I got engaged, we decided that even though we're not inviting most of the local family, we would invite the American family (that is FMIL's mom, sis, BIL, nephew, bro, and SIL) as a courtesy. We know FMIL's mom won't come, because she's 91 and not up to traveling. We honestly don't think the rest of the family will come because travel sucks etc, but we would love it if they could. For me, this is about them not feeling excluded from our lives. For FMIL, this seems to be about money. As in she has told me more than once "If you send them an invite, they'll give you money!" Now, I'm sure that she means it in the nicest possible way, but really I don't see my wedding as a money-making opportunity.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon she came in from her office and told me that FI's cousin (on his dad's side) who is also getting married this year had called to ask for an address so he can send an invite. From what she relayed of the conversation, it sounds like the invitation will be for the FILs only, which is cool. I think it's really nice that cousin is inviting extended family. So I told her I thought it was very sweet of him to invite them, but that FI and I still aren't inviting extended family because 1) we can't afford a larger guest list and 2) our venue is small and we like it that way, but we will send very tactful announcements to the rest of the family - as is the norm in my family.
Then she says "Oh! You should have sent an engagement announcement to my mom!"
We didn't do engagement announcements. I called my family, FI called his, and then we updated our FB status - that's the extent of the announcements we did. So I said that we would have if we'd known she wanted one, but it's a bit late now seeing as we've been engaged since September, and FMIL has already told her that we're engaged.
She says "Just because I've told her doesn't mean she'll remember!"
Fair enough. So I say okay, I'll whip something up later today, we can print it and post it over the weekend, and I'll just have to find a picture of the two of us together to send with it.
Then she goes "Yes, do that! She'll definitely send you money!"