Wedding Etiquette Forum

FMIL signing FI name to Christmas cards

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Re: FMIL signing FI name to Christmas cards

  • My daughter's MIL is a very nice woman, family picture business aside. Her whole family is like that. Like MobKaz, I can't fathom why they asked spouses to step aside for the family pics. 
                       
  • edited November 2017
    If it's not logistically feasible to get a picture of our family, my parents will ask us to send them a pic for them to include in a collage.  I *think* FIs were included  (it's been a few years).  But,  the spouses of the "kids" are absolutely included. (We are all in our 30s)   Heck, the DOGS are included.  And there's a listing of all of us at the bottom.  

    DH's parents send Christmas cards just signed by the 2 of them.   Our families are very different.  

    Then again, my family has ALWAYS been big about taking pictures.  It's a running joke, actually.  It's just how we are. 
  • I'm late to the party but wanted to chime in anyways because your FMIL sounds like mine. We got married last December; the December before she asked now H if they could take a picture of just the two of them she could send out with the cards as their last card together. He said absolutely not for many of the reasons you've listed. He's always felt like she treated him as her obligatory plus one and as such she had a hard time adapting when he had his own plus one, so to speak. 

    Let your FI communicate his wishes, but be prepared for many more of these territorial  moments.  My MIL even wanted a hand-off at the end of the aisle similar to the father of the bride tradition to signal the ending of their relationship as it was. H has worked hard over the last 5 years setting firm boundaries and enforcing consequences when she violates those boundaries. 
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  • @holyguacamole79 your family sounds like ours. We always have "silly" pictures. Recently at DS1's wedding my three adult children did their silly sibling poses for pictures. I love it! I hope they never grow out of that. Dogs and small children are the hardest to get in pictures. When we had three dogs (and three kids) I was always happy if 4/6 looked decent!
  • edited November 2017
    I thought of this thread today ...... 

    I was talking to my mom about Christmas card pictures, and she told me that they're hiring a professional photographer to take family pictures this Thanksgiving (this was news to me).  Family pictures (as I noted before) have been a long-standing tradition and source of laughs.  

    My dad used to (okay, still does) put his camera in an awkward spot and set the timer (even though mom has bought him at least a dozen tripods and remotes).  He always gets us lined up, says "go", hits the timer, and runs to the front and squats down.  Several years ago, the rest of us started a tradition of everyone turning their back to the camera as soon as my dad got back to the front.  He couldn't see us, so one of the family pictures would come out as all of us (uncles, aunts, etc) standing with our backs to the camera, with my dad squatting down in the front smiling like a fool.

    It has become such a running gag that, at my sister's wedding, my brother, sister & I got the photographer to get a picture of the 3 siblings with our backs to the camera.  To this day, it's one of my favorite pictures of us.

    There will be at least one picture with the professional photographer where we all have our backs to the camera (except for my dad).  And there will be an attempt at a picture with all 8 of our family dogs.g
    That's how crazy my family is........
    At my daughter's wedding, my cousin organized a photograph of the bride's side of the family. There are 24 of us, so we all fit in one picture. My daughter and SIL had gathered family wedding photos and they were looping on a monitor in the background. When photo came back, there was a slide of my BIL, who is deceased,  slipping my garter on my cousin's leg at my wedding on the monitor, right behind us. He was my husband's brother and best friend and also the life of every party. I was speechless when I saw that pic. That is my favorite  picture and is the last photo in my album of my daughter's wedding. This was not intentional. I think the photog had forgotten about the slide show.


                       
  • @holyguacamole79 If you're being forced into a family photo, might as well make it fun :)

    My husband's side typically tries to do a family photo {grandkids, plus spouses and the matriarch grandmother} and one year BIL was behind the grandmother, so he put her in a loose headlock and pretended to be roughing up her hair.

    It ended up being funny, despite how odd it sounds lol. She laughed for the record
  • Once again thought about this thread as we were taking pictures during the Thanksgiving holiday. I made sure to include DS2's GF - not that I would intentionally exclude her. I was just more aware of including her!
  • Congrats, @MobKaz!
                       
  • yayyyyyy, @MobKaz !

    Our family pictures went a bit awry.  Mom asked that we wear black & white so we're not in crazy clashing colors.  And black & white is pretty simple.  My 2 year old nephew (not surprisingly) refused to wear his white shirt and black pants.  He actually didn't want to wear clothes at all.  He was all,


    My sister finally convinced him to put on one of his purple t-shirts and shorts.  Meh, whatever.  It's a good thing he's cute.  
  • @holyguacamole79 she probably figured it's easier than naked baby in photo lol ;)
  • yayyyyyy, @MobKaz !

    Our family pictures went a bit awry.  Mom asked that we wear black & white so we're not in crazy clashing colors.  And black & white is pretty simple.  My 2 year old nephew (not surprisingly) refused to wear his white shirt and black pants.  He actually didn't want to wear clothes at all.  He was all,


    My sister finally convinced him to put on one of his purple t-shirts and shorts.  Meh, whatever.  It's a good thing he's cute.  
    I'm lucky to get everyone in a picture, let alone make fashion requests!  My 3 1/2 year old granddaughter will typically wear what is requested, but invariably then insists on putting one of her dress up costumes over said outfit.  She's often the best (over) dressed kid in the grocery store!  The only downside is that some of these costumes are quite "worn", and not really fit for "public consumption".  It's certainly not a battle worth dying over!
  • @MobKaz - Oh it's definitely not worth dying over.  We all thought it was kind of funny, actually.  It was actually a TCU shirt (my sister's alma mater), so she was actually a bit smug that her son wanted to wear that. 

    The kid just doesn't like clothes.  He was begging for a bath, so I gave him one (and used a lot of bubble bath, as a good aunt should).  When I dressed him afterwards, you'd think I was kicking a puppy!!
  • @holyguacamole7, I meant it wasn't a battle for DD to fight with her LO (just in case there was any confusion).  The grandkids love running around after baths yelling, "naked babies" as they "drip dry" running around. 

    A lot of kids have tactile issues with their clothes, too.  My son always insisted on wearing his socks inside out because he could not tolerate the seam that was placed directly under his toes.
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