My FMIL recently moved to Louisiana with her husband for his job. My FI and I live in Ohio so it does not make it easy to see them because of needing plane tickets, a long weekend, etc.
From the beginning of the planning process my FI has expressed that his mom would love to be involved in the planning process in as many ways as possible. It should be noted that she has never expressed this to me herself. I think I have done a fair job of keeping her informed of when I chose a florist, a location and other big decisions by either calling or emailing her. A couple of weeks ago I traveled up to my parents' house in Michigan to find my wedding dress. I was and still am very strongly set on the idea that no one except my mom and I will know what the dress looks like until the day of the wedding. Upon my return to Ohio my FI told me that his mom was disappointed that she was not invited to go dress shopping with me, even though she was in Brazil the only week I had available to go dress shopping.
Instead of starting a battle about scheduling and my ideas about keeping the dress an ultimate secret, I decided to invite her to come up to search for her dress for the wedding with me before I have to go back to school. The FI agreed that this was a very nice offer and thought his mom would love it. Wrong! When I called she said that she would rather go with her friend to look for a dress to wear and send me the pictures later on. While somewhat shocked at her response I thought it would be okay and that I had done my part.
Less than a half hour later she calls me back and asked if I would like to go down to Louisiana by myself to look for a dress with her. However, the date she wanted me to come down I have to go into work for some meetings. When I told her this she told me to ask my principal if I could skip the meetings because I was going to be out of town. I was shocked! How can she expect me to drop everything, including my job, for her when she doesn't have any plans and refused to come up to see me and her son?!
Her whole idea about "helping" with the wedding seems backwards. Any suggestions?