Dear Prudence,
My partner and I waited eight years to get married because we wanted to have the money and time to have the wedding we wanted, knowing it would be on us to pay for it. We got almost all the way to the finish line and booked the big, early non-refundable things like venues… just in time for personal disaster to strike our small family. Unexpected medical expenses wiped out half our budget. We planned to cancel, but my mother-in-law stepped in and offered to cover the rest. We had to scale down the guest list and change a lot of plans to fit her budget, but the show, as they say, did go on.
My mother-in-law was the hero of the hour, coming through for us in a way we neither expected nor asked for, until the last minute. To make a long story short, she made the two weeks before the wedding hell. Lies, alternating screaming and silent treatments, temper tantrums over tables and cloth colors picked weeks before, snubbing my entire family at all of the wedding events. The issue seemed to be that we were “causing her to go over budget,” despite all the things we’d already paid for (about half the total cost all told) and the hours we’d spent talking her down from the extra people and extravagances she wanted to add, to save her wallet. We had guests already on planes, and I was afraid she was going to pull the plug on the caterer.
My partner was ready to hit the elope button days before the wedding, but my final straw was when we were getting abusive texts from my mother-in-law’s extended family on our (staycation) honeymoon about how we’re ungrateful and disrespectful children, for reasons not specified. That was last week. My partner wants to cut her off, temporarily if not permanently. I’m tempted but concerned about the morality of letting her pay for our wedding and then not speaking to her. At the very least, it will look bad. Do we take the high road, or do we walk away now that the event is over?