Our close family friends all have daughters that have gotten married already and had children, which means that I have happily attended and paid for all bridal showers, wedding gifts, baby showers, etc. I was raised by a single mom so some of these friends are her close friends and others are people that have known me since I was a child.
I'm excited to invite all of them to the wedding because I know how important they are to my mom and have always been supportive of both of us. My mom is contributing financially so I want her to invite whoever she wants as well. My wedding however will be almost two hours away from where most of these family friends live and because the Fall is busy season all hotels require a two night min stay for the weekend. The cheapest hotels I could find are at least $200 a night and I know many of them don't have the means to cover both nights plus I know they will want to give me a cash gift. I have enough funds to cover one night of the "two night minimum" so that those guests end up only paying $200 as opposed to the $400+ the hotel requires. When I told my mom this, her response was "ok we'll see, $200 is still a lot of money." I reminded her that I wasn't having a bridal shower and when you add up the cost of what we had collectively spent on their kid's wedding (bridal shower, staying overnight in $100 a night hotel plus generous cash gifts) my wedding ends up being cheaper for them. She responded by saying "people aren't going to think of it that way". She is being super passive aggressive and I don't know how else to deal with this or approach the subject so I'm looking for advice.