Ok Cazzle, start telling the truth!

The BBQ Pit
1

Ok, self, there is a time and a place for everything. There is a time to be polite, and a time to be honest, and now is the time for honesty.

So the next time your future mother in law says “I know you’re not inviting aunts and uncles to your wedding, but how about inviting my sisters and brother and making them pay their own way”, you don’t answer “Oh, the venue is kind of small” or “But my aunts and uncles might get offended”, you answer “Because I don’t want them there. Nothing against them, I just want a small wedding”. The other answers may be sort of true, but the last one is the whole truth. You don’t need to get into how tacky it is to ask wedding guests to pay for their own meal - that honesty is probably best supressed.

And when she starts again on “Why don’t you and the bridesmaids carry plastic flowers?”, you don’t say “Oh, I’ll think about that”. You can answer “No, I want fresh flowers.” You can even add “I like them better”. You don’t have to pretend to listen to her idea just because it will save money. She’s not paying, you are, and you want real flowers.

If you’re feeling daring, and she’s still nagging that her sister wants to see you get married, you can say “I’ve told you she’s welcome to attend the ceremony, just not the reception. Does she want to see me get married, or does she want a free feed?”

Other than your revolting habit of hiding the truth behind a veil of politeness, you’re doing well Cazzle. This has been an incredibly stress-free experience since you decided to cut out the bulk of your relatives and have the small intimate wedding you’ve dreamed of. Don’t let anyone try to bully you into doing something you don’t want to!

One lie leads to another as you found during the whole “Invite my siblings” “Ummm… venue is too small” “Hire this venue instead” “Ahhh… your son doesn’t want to because he says it’s a dive” conversation. Tell her “Dear Mother-In-Law-To-Be, we are having these guests on this date at this location because that’s what we want. We’re wearing these clothes, carrying these flowers and hiring these people to cater because it’s up to us. Please, be there and have a good time, but don’t think you can tell us what to do. This is our day”.

Most especially, don’t feel bad for rejecting her idea to hold the reception in the middle of the bush, 40 minutes drive from where you’re to be married, three hours before the wedding is due to start, as many people would find the idea of having the reception first laughable, not just you. And I don’t think you’re wrong to be offended because her idea didn’t include inviting your family, just hers.

2

Oh dear, so it’s gone this far has it? Marriage and respectability? Have we met him? Who are his people?

God, it sounds like you’ve been patient on a saintly scale!

I think resisting having your wedding hi-jacked is one of the most difficult social mine-fields there is. I mean, all you have on your side is taste, good judgement and a lack of pretension. What match are they for “But this is meant to be the happiest day of your life!!”

All strength to you my dear.

In passing, my invitation hasn’t arrived yet. It’s okay though, I am available. As you’re so far from Melbourne I thought you wouldn’t mind if I stayed the night with you - I’ll be no trouble at all - just a stretch of floor will do.
Redboss

3

no, weddings and wedding planning are all about diplomacy. Or lying, if you prefer to call it that.

You save all that honesty for behind closed doors. Then you strangle all those “helpful” relatives and co-planners in effigy.

Or you can do what I did: hear one last “helpful” comment the day after the wedding, let it be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and completely freak out your brand new spouse by crying hysterically for 45 minutes.

4

Oh my dear, after the trauma associated with the average wedding, marriage itself is a cakewalk. For some reason weddings reduce even normally sane relatives to roughly the emotional stage of a cranky 2 year old.

Unfortunately you gotta treat 'em about the same way. Explain once, calmly and kindly, then just keep repeating your decision in simple, declarative sentences. Over and over and over again. Don’t attempt to justify, reason or defend with your future MIL. She understands your decision but doesn’t agree with it. In your case you might try:

“We’ve dreamed of a small, intimate wedding with only our nearest and dearest in attendance.”

Repeat endlessly or as needed. Pasting a fond smile on your face during the “nearest and dearest” part could possibly help but probably won’t.

If pushed to the absolute outer limits of gibbering fury you could resort to the nuclear fallback. Try for a look of startled distaste and say something like, “But those elaborate productions are so impersonal and tacky.” She might stroke out but hey, no gain without risk.

Good luck!

Veb

5

You should have seen the shitstorm when my husband and I refused to disclose the location of our actual ceremony, even to parents. We wanted US and our WITNESSES, and absolutely no one else. It was fantastic, and we had a small (40 people?) party after the wedding. It was not easy resisting the reletives, but it was well worth it.

Zette

6

Zette, you’re my hero. Way to go!!

Redboss, your invite isn’t there yet? Strange… Australia Post is usually so reliable. Give it a few more days, mate. :smiley:

As to “Who is he?”, he’s the lovely Mr Cazzle I always talk about. He has a page about him on his website, which you can check out at http://www.unnamedpcmuseum.com. We’ve been together three years and engaged two. After putting off organising the wedding for one reason or another over the last couple of years, last Wednesday I finally decided it was time for action, and set everything for 6 weeks time. Combining our wedding with Christmas celebrations means that we still get to spend time with everyone in the family even if we can’t invite them to the wedding - Mr Cazzle’s family Christmas event will be held the day after our wedding. We’ll honeymoon later in the year, possibly in March. Sounds excellent to me. Can’t wait to share the photos :wink:

TVeblen and CrankyAsAnOldMan, appreciate the advice. I figure by telling fibs, I’m making it worse. I’m just going to tell her “Nope. Not doing it that way. Don’t wanna”. She’ll get the hint with any luck.

I guess I’m annoyed. At her insistance I made her daughters bridesmaids (they’re 12 and 14), and un-asked my best friend from school days (actually, when she heard that MIL was insisting on the girls being bridesmaids, she offered to give them her place, which was fantastic of her). However, knowing my MIL the way I do, I offered to pay for the girl’s dresses, because if I asked her to pay she’d insist we check out flea markets and we’d end up going with something crappy because it was cheap and none of us would be happy. She didn’t object. Now I have to find her daughters some shoes to wear, and she’s not offering to pay for those either. She has more money than my entire family combined and she’s put in zilch for the wedding, I don’t think it’s unreasonable of me to think that perhaps she could have said “Don’t worry, I’ll get the girls a new pair of shoes”. I wouldn’t feel this way if I hadn’t gone through all the other crap with her, I’m just left feeling that she expects things to be done her way, but isn’t willing to put in anything to help out.

She did offer the use of her yard for the reception, which was good of her (although it was tied to the condition of inviting her rellies), but other than that all she’s done is sit around and try to make me feel guilty about how much my dress is going to cost. She originally suggested going to a second hand clothing store* that she knows of, which stocks more formal clothes.

She’ll probably die from our sheer extravagence on the day, but we’re doing well. They say the average Australian wedding costs $20,000 these days. Well you could hold mine 4 times for that. My dress is beautiful, brand new, never before worn but cost less than $1,000 (I think that’s great for a wedding dress). The catering is going to cost $450 for three courses served and cleaned up by the staff, who also supply plates and cutlery. The major expense is the photography, but by pricing around and negotiating with the photographer, I’ve saved us about $600 on that. This is going to be a great wedding because it’s so small and informal that I’m not going to be tearing my hair out over the little details.

*That’s second hand clothing as in “donated to charity”, not “worn once and sold to recover costs”. MIL is a huge fan of garage sales, flea markets and charity stores that sell donated clothes.

7

hehehe…

Methinks you are my long lost sister, Cazzle !

I was married in April, and boy…

Suffice it to say that if we invited the family that both my mother and mother-in-law wanted, there would’ve been over 120 people, before we even looked at any of our friends! My MIL actually gave me a list of the people to be invited! This is the woman who has failed to offer any help whatsoever, beyond mentioning that the relatives from their side of the family (only) could come back to MIL’s house for a party after the ceremony, with me and Mr. Goo-to-be !!! WTF !!!

We had been engaged for over four years, and pretty much decided to get it all over and done with, with approx. 3 months notice. There were lots of compromises between me and Mr. Goo (that’s how our relationship works) and when I told him the crap I was getting from both of our mothers, he suggested eloping… I was so tempted. But, I am a stubborn one, and I wanted to get married in a certain way, and that’s what was going to happen. I made a promise to myself that I was going to be married exactly how we wanted, not how the mother’s wanted. Mr. Goo asked only to get a blow-by-blow account of the action. Next time each mother made another suggestion (which were normally derogatory comments about my plans) I calmly informed them that as both Mr. Goo and myself were the sole financiers of our wedding, and as it was our day, we had made arrangements solely based on our wishes and our income. If any of our guests felt that we should be doing it another way, they were kindly asked to keep their opinions to themselves until we were off on our (fantastic) honeymoon, when they could feel free to point out to all and sundry exactly how badly we had organised everything, how it wasn’t a real wedding, and of course how even though there is nothing wrong with me at all… I’m still not the girl you would have chosen for your darling first born son.

Phew… I didn’t realised I had that much bile… maybe I should start my own Pit thread !

Anyway, we had a beautiful ceremony (we wrote it together) that relatives are still talking about, exchanged vows on a gorgeous rocky cliff top, all went to a nice beachfront restaurant and did the whole thing for a lot less than the $5000 we had allocated. (we had 15 guests only) We then went on to have a brilliant honeymoon, spending all the excess money we saved on the wedding on diving our brains out in the Maldives !!!

Anyway, at the end of the day, you have to stay civil, I mean she is the mother of your favourite person in the entire world, but you also have to stay true to yourself. I did so much bending over backwards to make my MIL like me, until I realised that I would never be good enough in her eyes. Once I realised this, I started just being myself and not caring, and things are better… a little bit! :stuck_out_tongue:

Best of luck, this planning part sucks, but you’ll have the nicest day if it’s how you want it, and once all is said and done, the most important bit is between you and Mr. Cazzle and the look in each others eyes as you say the words… :smiley: Enjoy