I need a little reassurance that this happens to other people when they are planning their wedding, or maybe to be informed that this is not normal and I should run for the hills to get away from my FML.
My fiancé and I are planning our wedding for this coming summer and we decided together that we would foot the bill for the wedding and not ask our parents for help. His parents kindly offered to pick up the cost for the photographer, which I completely appreciate and am thankful for.
The issues all started with my dress. My mom and I went dress shopping together and picked out the one. It was a great time for the both of us and a really bonding moment because my father just passed away 6 months ago so this whole wedding thing is kind of hard knowing he won't be here. But shopping for the dress really just brought us together and made it special that even though my dad couldn't join in the fun we did it together and made a fun day of it. Once FML heard I picked the dress she was really mad and upset. She said I was leaving her out of the wedding planning and she couldn't believe she wasn't invited to go dress shopping with me. FML and I are not close. There are many people I would put ahead of her if I was choosing people to go dress shopping with. My fiancé tried to explain to his mom that I didn't want other people to go it was just a me and mom thing, but no she is upset and claiming I'm leaving her out.
Then the bridesmaid dress got picked without FML being invited. Once again, bridesmaid dress shopping was a special moment for my MOH and I. We made a day out of it and I made the day all about my MOH and encouraged her to pick whatever dress she loved most and made her feel most beautiful and we had a blast with it! I wanted it to be just MOH and I because once again when my dad died this girl was by my side through it all I wouldn't have made it without her. So this was such a nice thing to do together and it was so fun and happy and such a change from the past few months that she has helped me through. FML is mad I didn't invite her. FML asks me what color are the bridesmaid dresses and I gave her my honest answer, I don't know right now. We are still deciding between a few colors for the wedding, so we picked the style of the bridesmaid dress just not the color. FML didn't believe me and DROVE TO THE BRIDAL SHOP ON HER OWN and asked them to pull out the bridesmaid dress for her and give her a color swatch of it. Who does that?!
To try and make FML happy we asked her if she would like to be involved in the making of the centerpieces. She says yes so we purchased the supplies and explained what we wanted and gave her everything she needed. We truly are trying to let her be involved we just don't have that much to be involved with.
FML offered to purchase stamps for us now because the cost of stamps is going up in 2014 apparently by 3 cents. I said that would be great thank you for thinking ahead. But then she wants to know how many do I need? How many will each invite take? How many invites are being sent? This conversation occurred about 2 months ago so that would make it 11 months before the wedding. I have a rough guest list but it is by no means complete enough for me to know how many households would be getting invites and I haven't even considered what style of invites yet to know if they are going to require extra postage. I explain all of this to her and say since we have some time until the stamp prices rises could I let you know in a few months before the first of the year? She then proceeds to text me every single week asking if I know the number yet. I was getting more stressed over how many stamps to purchase than any other part of this wedding.
Finally the guest list. FML wants to invite 10 guests of her own, which she has offered to pay for. She wants to do this because she is feuding with her family and she doesn't want to have to sit with them so she figures if she invites 10 of her friends she can sit with them instead. I would be fine and dandy with her inviting them since she offered to pay, but our venue only holds a certain amount and we are nearing that amount. I'm already trying to cut the guest list of my close friends just to make the cut let alone adding 10 of hers. Which, my fiancé doesn't even know the majority of these 10 people. We tried explaining this to FML and once again it's another tantrum about how we aren't including her and it's her big day too her son is getting married why can't she brag and bring her own friends? and blah blah blah.
I know what you're going to say. You're an adult stand up to her, don't let her walk all over you, this is OUR wedding. The problem is when we do stand up to her it's constant text messages saying my fiancé is a terrible son and is breaking her heart. That she can't believe she raised such a coldhearted young man and all these terrible things. We end up getting more stressed and upset when we stand up to her than anything else.