I apologize for this vent/rant, but if I don't get this out of my system my head might explode, and FI is trying to stay as much out of it as possible.
When we put together our guest list, we did the normal thing of "ask your parents who they would ideally like to invite". My parents mandated that everything had to be equal in our family, so if I wanted to invite my one Great Uncle on one side that I have an actual relationship with, I had to invite all the other great uncles and aunts on both sides. They're not paying for anything, but they made me feel so guilty about it I caved, and cut some of my friends to make room for these extra people. They also guilted me about not wanting to invite my cousins (16 of them, all under 12 years old...) until I caved on that too. So, more cuts to the friends list...whatever, I'm over it.
My mom then asked if she could ask her mom (so my grandma) if there was anyone she wanted to invite. I put my foot down and said no, because if the rest of the list had to be done in fairness, that meant we'd have to extend that invitation to my other grandparents as well, and they have a TON of friends. I wasn't willing to cut more friends so that my grandparents could have people I didn't even know existed come hang out. She said that was fair and she understood...except she turned around and asked her anyway. Grandma came back with names that were already forced onto the list, but had one extra one. A woman I had never heard of and that my mom barely knows anything about. I said she'd go on the list temporarily, but if we had to make more cuts she would be the first one to go. She said okay. We had more cuts, extra lady (I'll start calling her Jill) was taken off, mom said okay. I thought it was done.
Until this weekend. Grandma calls mom and asks if Jill can bring a guest. Ignoring the fact for a moment that Jill is not invited, it's not that she is married or seeing anyone. She just "doesn't like to go to weddings alone". So, for that I am irritated at my grandma. When I point out to my mom that she okayed dropping Jill, she gets upset with me that now "I've put her in the tough spot of having to explain it to grandma that Jill can't come". Somehow this is my fault, even though she wasn't suppose to ask grandma for guests anyway.
Mom calls grandma yesterday about it, and grandma is insisting that the only reason this came up is because Jill got a save the date from us. My mom is convinced we "accidentally" sent her one, and that we should honor it. Problem: we don't have an address for this lady. We don't even have a first name for her, just a last name. There's no way we even accidentally sent her something. So this means either mom is lying to get out of the situation and trying to put it back on me, mom sent her a save the date behind my back, grandma is lying, or grandma gave her her copy of the save the date. None of these 4 options make me very happy.
This afternoon I'll be on the phone with both of them to get this sorted out once and for all, but the whole principle of it frustrates me to no end.
And now I'm done. I feel better now.