Practical advice needed, our wedding is in 2 weeks. My future in-laws at the beginning of wedding planning gave us a small amount of money towards our wedding. They do not have a lot and the gesture was beyond nice of them to do. We asked them multiple time instead of just giving us a check would they like to specifically pay for something (ie photographer, DJ, Flowers, Rehearsal Dinner) they said no just put it towards the wedding. So we did- we put it towards our DJ & Photographer.
Now with that said, my fiance and I are covering the cost of the rehearsal dinner. We have a larger wedding party (6 on each side) and decided to keep our rehearsal dinner to just our wedding party, immediate family and their significant others. My future mother in law wants us to invite her sister and niece from out of town & her sister that lives in town. While we would love to see them we feel it is completely unfair to then NOT be inviting my future father in laws family from out of town as well as my family from out of town. My mother in law does not feel we need to be fair here and we should just invite her family members she would like. I do not feel right doing this. We also have a budget for this dinner and cannot afford to accommodate extra people, I feel we have to invite all out of town guests or none.
We suggested a cocktail reception at the hotel afterwards; which we cannot afford to pay for but said to my in laws if they would like to cover the cost of something small for that we would be happy to mingle with the out of town guests. My FMIL doesn't feel that she should pay for that seeing as they already gave us money.
I'm having a really hard time here since we allocated the money they gifted us to our photographer & DJ and we were very clear about wanting them to put their name on something. They never mentioned that this money was to be used for a rehearsal dinner or anything in particular. This is all coming up with our wedding literally in 15 days. There have been months for her to communicate her wishes for the rehearsal and never once did she. She has also never once called to ask if she could help with anything or even just to see how planning is going.
She now feels we are being ungrateful to her family. I expected wedding stress but not from her. It's hurtful she feels this way because our actions towards other would never show we are ungrateful people. That is not who we are.
My mother in law is now not speaking to my fiance or myself. How do we try to make a mends with her before our wedding?