Moms and Maids

FMIL in charge of bachelorette party invites?? Since when? Help me...I'm being bulldozed.

I need some advice on my bachelorette party invites because my FMIL is driving me nuts...after all I thought this was kinda my party for the people that are closest to me.


Anyways, I have chosen to do a more relaxed party (wine tasting and a cabin rental on the lakeshore of Michigan)--nothing over the top and I have begged my bridal party (my two sisters) to spare me of the penis decor and overload.

Having established this laid back weekend I have chosen to also invite a few of my close friends, one of my cousins, one of my aunts, my mother, my future mother in law, a few of my finances cousins who I am close with as well as one of my fiancés aunts--but not all of his aunts. NOTE: I did not invite all of MY aunts here!


We are two weeks away from the RSVP for the party and my FMIL called me to say "don't mean to be a pain but I didn't know who you invited to this...and you should really invite fiancés aunt number 2, and fiancés cousin number 2---but not fiancés aunt number 3....."You are going to hurt peoples feelings."

I explained to her that I am not as close to them as I am the aunt and cousins that are invited. All of these relatives live out of state and the relatives on his side of the family I have invited always make time for us when we go down to visit. The uninvited aunts and etc. they do not make time to join us when we visit. She wants me to invite the additional aunt and niece of hers but exclude the third because they do not get along. If we are talking about principle here then I should invite all of my aunts and all of his aunts...but I do not want to do that because I am not close to them.

I am stuck feeling manipulated by what she wants me to do. After all, isn't this about who I want to be there and am I asking too much for these ladies to put their big girl panties on and deal with the fact that NOT everyone is invited because they aren't close to me so to speak?

Please some advice! Help a girl out before another bottle of wine is gone from this earth...lol

Re: FMIL in charge of bachelorette party invites?? Since when? Help me...I'm being bulldozed.

  • You are right that not everyone is invited to everything and your FMIL is being dramatic about "hurt feelings". This isn't a 10 year old's birthday sleepover. 

    "Sorry I'm uncomfortable inviting some but not all of these people and we can't accommodate additional people at this point anyway. Let's organize going out for drinks with aunt2 and cousin3 another time. By the way, can you believe this weather? They say fall is going to be early this year...."
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  • Thank you Charlotte and Southernbelle--My sister is hosting with one of my friends and there is room for maybe one more person. They (my sisters) did ask me for a list of people that I definitely wanted there and that's who they sent invites to.

    It's the FMIL that has a problem with "the" list not having more of her family on it and she called to complain about it to me and told me that I needed to include more of her family. She wanted me to tell my sisters to make more invitations.

    After I slept on it--I then told her that after much thought I wasn't going to make my sisters scramble to get new invitations out with less than 10 days to RSVP. FMIL then still proceeded to say "sorry you feel that way but you should've told me who you were inviting."

    I did still apologize that it wasn't what she wanted and I took your advice and said "maybe we can get together with them another time," "just the handful of us."

    This has been one rollercoaster ride with her and I have three more months to go...




  • You're setting the ground rules and boundaries now for how FMIL approaches you, the guest list is not hers to decide, if she wants to do so, then she should host a luncheon.  Know this is how she does/doesn't want to be communicated with.  When it comes to future events know this is the case (such as if you choose to have children, when it comes to birthday parties... or if you have people over to celebrate a new home, milestone, etc.etc.)
  • Yikes! You're doing good setting boundaries now, it sounds like this is going to be an ongoing struggle. I like PPs advice to tell her you're not in charge of the guest list (and neither is she). If she wants to control an event, she can host it!
  • Thank you all for the good advice! I will keep things on a "need to know" basis and hopefully it will all work out fine!
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