Let me preface this post by saying that my FI and I are paying for our wedding ourselves. We both come from blue collar working class families and never expected that either of our families would be able to help out. About a month ago we received an offer from FI's mom and stepdad to pay for something small and ended up settling on having them pay for the rehearsal dinner.
Given that, FI and I sat down and wrote our guest list long ago (we've been planning for a year) and sent out invitations a few weeks ago. Right before we sent out invitations, my FI's mom sent my FI's sister over to my house with a list of about 15 people that NEEDED to be invited to the wedding that we may have forgotten about (I emphasize "needed" because she also included a short list of "optional" people). These were all friends/family of FI's mom. None of these people were on my FI's original list. Granted, a few people were just oversights that we had made so we were glad that she had provided those names but for the others, well... we just never had any intention of inviting them. And that's for one of several reasons 1) they are somewhat distants relatives and my FI does not interact/see them on a regular basis 2) they are old, old friends of the family that my FI can't even recall because he hasn't seen them since childhood 3) I've never met or even had a conversation with them before or 4) they are just casual acquaintances.
For example, on that last point, she included my FI's aunt's (by marriage) parents! These are people that we have interacted with and socialized with in situations where, say, his cousin is having a birthday party but they are NO relation to my FI. They are forced acquaintances just because their daughter married my FI's uncle. They are very nice people and I can say that they are good acquaintances but it would never occur to me to invite them to my wedding. If I was inviting everyone I knew then, yes, I would but we are trying to keep our guest list under 150 because of costs.
So after much discussion with my FI I ended up communicating to his mom that we were trying to keep the wedding intimate and because of our budget we were only trying to invite very close relatives and friends of the family. So I thought that battle was over. I would like to say that my FMIL is great and we've always gotten along well. She is throwing me a bridal shower next weekend and I've countlessly thanked her for hosting it and putting it together. Well, fast forward to this past weekend when we're at a family get together. I walked in on a conversation between my FMIL and my FI's aunt in question and I heard the aunt say, "Did you send my mom a bridal shower invite? I remember you had asked for her address for the party but she told me she didn't get one. My parents didn't get a wedding invite either." So then I hear my FMIL whisper (because she sees me in sight) "Well, she had given me a list of people I was SUPPOSED to invite..." and then I didn't hear the rest of it because it trailed off. I did provide her a list of people with addresses for the bridal shower but that was because I was trying to be helpful. I already had them on a spreadsheet with their addresses so I just copied it over for her. I wasn't trying to say that those were the ONLY people that could be invited but I also don't want people at my bridal shower that aren't invited to the wedding because it's tacky to do that.
Am I wrong to be upset? I can't believe that my FMIL went ahead and basically informally invited people to our wedding without clearing it with us first. I don't know why she assumed that we would invite her SIL's parents when they are no relation to FI and are really not that close to us. I'm just worried now that there are other people she also invited to the wedding that we didn't send an invitation to and I don't want them to think that my FI and I are rude. I never meant to disclude anyone that is close to my FI's family but my FI helped write up the list and those weren't people he included.