My fiance and I are getting married in about two weeks after being engaged for two years. We're in our late 20s and are in grad school, a year away from our PhDs. Because we're grad students, we have no money, but my parents had told me since childhood that they would pay for my wedding by giving us a budget to do with as we saw fit. So we accepted their offer of wedding money knowing that we otherwise could not have any sort of ceremony, and expecting that there would still be strings attached. In retrospect, I wish we hadn't taken the money, but for a long list of reasons, including the fact that my fiance is from a country that very highly values wedding ceremonies, I still don't know that the alternative (courthouse wedding) would have made my mother any less miserable.
Since the beginning of our engagement, my mother has swung between extremes, saying sometimes that she's thrilled we're having a "unique" ceremony and that our wedding will be like no other (we're incorporating traditions from the US and his home country, having a friend do the ceremony, having women on the groom's side and vice versa) and at other times getting very angry that we're not doing things according to "etiquette." She cites etiquette only when it suits her preferences. She cried and told me I was purposefully spiting her, for example, when I told her I didn't want to waste the paper for inner envelopes for our wedding invitations. She complains constantly about the stress the wedding is causing her and tells me I am incredibly selfish when it comes to the wedding, but when I do things to try to lessen her stress, like handle hotel reservations for out-of-town guests, and have RSVPs sent to my house so I can manage the guest list, she becomes furious and accuses me of trying to deny her any of the pleasures of the wedding.
She seems happy with some decisions I've made--our tastes are very similar--and I try to get her input on pretty much everything in the wedding. About 50 percent of the guest list is made up of my parents' friends. I just asked, because it is a wedding of less than 100 people, that they invite friends that I at least know. I don't want to have an intimate celebration with lots of strangers. She obliged this request but brings it up constantly. The most recent thing my mother has flipped out about is the fact that I've asked the ushers, in what I thought would be an acceptable compromise, to walk people to their seats but not guide female guests by the arm. She was mortified by this and is not currently talking to me. All of this is putting a lot of strain on my fiance and I, as I've asked him not to intervene because I know it will only make him and my mother angrier, and he feels powerless and frustrated by the whole thing (his parents, meanwhile, have been a dream about everything wedding-related).
The heartbreaking thing is that my mother and I had a fantastic relationship. I talked to her several times a week, really enjoyed spending time with her, and generally considered my relationship with her to be one of the most important and stable in my life. Moreover, I've never seen her behave so irrationally before. Even when I give in totally to a particular demand of hers, she continue to yell at me as if I've refused to even consider her request. When we're not talking about the wedding, things are ok. When I try to mention, when I'm with her in calm circumstances, that I'm very confused and upset by how she has behaved, she acts shocked and tells me I'm the only one that's been emotional about the wedding and that she thinks it's been a great experience (except, of course, when I'm undermining her and denying her the pleasures of wedding planning).
What do I do? How do I handle her? I am heartbroken by this whole thing--I feel like I've lost my mother in some ways--my relationship with her will never be the same--and I am so scared of what new drama she's going to find that I can't wait for my wedding to be over so I can stop walking on eggshells. Any advice is greatly appreciated.