Hopefully I posted this in the right spot...this is a tad long so I apologise. Just wanted to give some back story ^_^;
I'm getting married in April and ever since my fiance and I started planning the wedding, his mother has been a bit...hard to deal with...and that's putting it a bit lightly.
The first problem we had with her was the food tasting at the place we are holding the reception. I had gone to talk to her and my mother privately about the wedding and his mother responded to me with "It's your and Justin's wedding; it's whatever you both want." The second she was home she blasted my fiance about how we shouldn't have picked the reception, we should've looked longer; we shouldn't have paid for the deposit ourselves, etc. Since then she has been nice to me when I am around but talk about me behind my back to my fiance. I am nothing but nice and polite to her, so I don't understand why she acts this way when I am not around. The amount of people in the wedding party was too big to her so she was telling us my fiance's older sister didn't want to be in the wedding anymore (which turned out to not be true), my fiance's youngest cousin MUST come to the wedding, even though we told both sets of parents we prefer an adults only wedding and she will be the only child there; she's extremely unhappy with us renting an apartment instead of buying a house (we felt we just can't afford a home right now and would like to rent for a year or so), she told my fiance she won't visit us because we live closer to my house (where my fiance asked to look) and it's too far for her to drive..she's 20 minutes away. She also isn't happy that I'm not having a traditional shower for myself. It seems that anything we do that is not what SHE wants, she does not like and tries her absolute hardest to change our minds, or at least try to manipulate her son ito agreeing with her. We've already had many fights over things that were okay between us then not okay the next day after he had talked to his mother.
Our recent issue is the guest list. I would like it to be around at the most 100 people. I wanted a smallish wedding with very close friends and family. I emailed my mother-in-law a list of family on their side that I did not have addresses her, asking for them so I can start addressing the envelopes to my invitiation. She proceeded to freak out on both of us, saying she needs to see the entire guest list to make sure she added everyone. Now, we had already at this point asked her for a list of people to invite, and she gave me one. The email I got back was all their addresses....along with extra people I never even heard of who AREN'T on the list. When we confronted her once on the matter, her response was "It's protocal and we have been to their kids' weddings, so we are obligated."
All of us (myself, my fiance, his parents and my parents) are paying for the wedding, so they don't get the entire final say. But I feel that, just because THEY feel obligated, does not mean that WE need to feel that as well. I understand some friends and family I don't know I need to invite, but everyone??
I know I need to put my foot down somewhere but my fiance doesn't always back me up when we have to confront his parents. Do I narrow down the guest list myself and let them find out when they're sent out? Do I confront them with or without my fiance and look like a b**** to them? (because I'm sure I will) His mother is very hard to talk to because she can be two-faced. It's mean to say, but my fiance has said the same thing about her too.
Has anyone else had similar problems with their in-laws or know how to deal with the situation without looking like the bad guy?