I'm sure something like this has happened to several people... advice or similar stories (for therapy, lol) would be fine.
We're a month out for the wedding, and MIL said that one of her friends "was in tears" wondering where her wedding invitation was. Neither my Fi or I know this woman - Fi met her once years ago when he was in high school briefly, but she doesn't keep contact and doesn't really know us. We explained to MIL that we would try and make space for this one person, but she had to understand it could be only one as we were already overbooked on our venue and were already getting quite close to the wedding. (and not to mention none of this was brought up months ago when we composed the guest list). "OK," she says...
A few days later I get a voicemail that it's actually 3 ladies, and here's their address. Fi calls her back and let's her know we don't have space, as we previously discussed. She ignores his call... until Thanksgiving... where she decides to (in the middle of dinner, no less) yell at us for how rude we are and we cannot uninvite someone. When we remind her that we didn't invite them, and that we told her we had no space, she proceeds to tell us that doesn't matter, and if we don't want them there then we have to call them and uninvite them. Oh, and did I mention she isn't paying for anything? Fi and I are paying for it all...
We let the issue sit for a while, hoping she'll smooth it out. I just received the RSVP back for this one person. We had carefully put "we have reserved
one seat in your honor", then included her name and a "can come/can't come" box. She CROSSED OUT one seat and put two and then wrote in a guest. I don't know this person, but I suspect she didn't come up with the idea of doing that on her own, and that MIL said something to encourage. She's not too old that she needs an escort (or we would figure something out). I'm totally apalled that someone could be so rude as to do that. When I first heard the story about how sad this woman was I briefly considered that maybe she really did just want to share in our day... but to me this incident just screams she wants free food. I'm especially angry that MIL went behind our backs. Now we have to call MIL and argue with her and call this guest and tell her no as well.
Friend of mine suggested we offer to have a private celebration with his MIL and her friend (and her guest) at a later date if they'd like since we can't accomodate at the wedding. I like the solution of taking my MIL far out into the desert and leaving her there....